Belfer Center Launches New Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy

September 17, 2024. Cambridge, MA - Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs launched a new Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy this week. The Program will tackle policy challenges that arise at the intersection of technology and geopolitics and train the next generation of leaders to be fluent in both technology and policy domains. 

“Technology has never been more central to geopolitics than it is today,” said Meghan L. O’Sullivan, Director of the Belfer Center and Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Rapid innovation is changing the way we talk about everything from warfare to clean energy. Technology sits at the heart of U.S.-China competition, the aspirations of countries in the Global South, and much more.”

The effort will be led by Michael McQuade as the new Program Director. “We welcome Michael to our community in the best tradition of the Belfer Center. Like so many of the intellectual giants of the Center, Michael brings deep expertise in science, through decades of experience in the private sector and academia, as well as senior policy roles,” said Meghan L. O’Sullivan. “Michael’s extraordinary background, and multiple perspectives, make him the perfect person to lead a program intended to bring all sectors to the table to find solutions to challenges where technology and policy overlap.”

Michael McQuade was formerly Vice President for Research and Special Advisor to the President of Carnegie Mellon University, where he provided operational leadership and strategic direction for the University’s research enterprise and advocated for the role that science, technology, and innovation play for national security and economic competitiveness. Prior to this role, he was Senior Vice President for Science & Technology at United Technologies Corporation; led the medical products division of 3M’s global healthcare portfolio; and has also served as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board and the Defense Innovation Board.

“The Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy Program’s mission is twofold,” said  Michael McQuade, Director of the Program. “We aim to offer critical contributions to policy debates over how best to harness the benefits of new tech, while at the same time managing extreme risks from these advancements – from AI, quantum computing and biotech innovation to managing governance and national security. We will also train a new generation of technologically-literate young leaders so they can, with confidence, shape the world to come.” 

The Program intends to focus on challenges including: 

• Balancing security and innovation in the technology competition between the U.S. and China;  
• Ways in which emerging technology will shape the landscape facing policymakers and the tools with which they make and evaluate policy decisions;
• The international governance of technologies such as AI and bioengineering that are evolving faster than traditional policy methods can respond; 
• The geopolitical implications of clean energy technologies; and  
• Balancing international scientific cooperation and competition in a multi-polar world. 

The Program will issue frequent reports and hold regular events, drawing on expertise from the academic, government, and private sectors in the Boston-Cambridge area and beyond.

The Program launch began with opening remarks by Jeremy Weinstein, the new dean of Harvard Kennedy School and the Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy. 

“It is of critical importance that Harvard Kennedy School becomes a place where we close the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.,” said Dean Weinstein. “We need to think about technology and government policy through a variety of angles, and create an environment in which voices from academia, government, and the private sector come together – the new Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy Program will address this need. Providing real-time policy solutions has always been something that has characterized the Belfer Center, and I am pleased this will continue with this new Program.”

Also delivering remarks at the launch was Stephanie Carter, member of the Belfer Center International Council and wife of the late Ashton B. Carter, who exemplified the nexus of technology and policy in his service as Belfer Center Director, Harvard Kennedy School Faculty member, and U.S. Secretary of Defense. 

“The Belfer Center was Ash’s intellectual home for most of his life,” said Stephanie Carter. “This new Program makes great sense to be here because the Belfer Center has always tackled hard problems with knowledge, inclusion, and with real-world solutions. This Program will pick up the thread of work which animated the last few years of Ash’s life, asking the crucial question: how do we take advantage of the opportunities afforded by technology for our citizens, while also guarding against its risks?”

New Belfer Center senior fellows Carme Artigas and Rochelle Walensky held a fireside chat with Michael McQuade to discuss how their backgrounds in technology and emerging science, respectively, propelled both women in their senior policy roles. Artigas is Co-Chair of the UN AI Advisory Body and former Spanish Secretary of State for Digitalization and AI, while Walensky served as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Both noted the increasing value of marrying technical and policy experience and expertise, a core aspiration of the Belfer Center’s new Program.

The Belfer Center and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences also announced that a new fund will be launching soon for Harvard faculty-led research on the intersection of technology and public policy.

The Program will include an annual fellowship, assembling a cohort of scholars and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to consider a full range of questions related to technological advances and national security. The inaugural cohort of pre- and post-doctoral fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year shared their areas of research at the event launch. This cohort comprises: 

• Anka Reuel, who will focus on the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI systems via technical and governance solutions; 
• Ariel Ekblaw, who will focus on space architecture and U.S.-China competition in space; 
• Nur Laiq, who will focus on historical and current policies toward technology and national competitiveness;
• Chris Li, who will focus on U.S.-China competition in biotechnologies; 
• Anatoly Levshin, who will focus on AI-enhanced decision making in international diplomacy and security; and
• Diana Park, who will focus on authoritarianism and civil disobedience in cyberspace.

In addition to an annual fellowship cohort, a key goal of the new Program will be addressing the talent gap of leaders fluent in both technology and policy. Initiatives will include opportunities for selected graduate students who are in transition to government roles, as well as a forum to bring together policymakers and with private sector technologists to build connections and develop more fluency on how technological advances are shaping and being shaped by public policies.

The Belfer Center is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School’s research and policy outreach on international affairs, science, and technology. In 2021, the Belfer Center was named a “Center of Excellence” by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, in recognition of the Center’s sixth consecutive year as the world’s #1 university-affiliated think tank. 

For media inquiries, contact Sarrah Qureshi.