Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy
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Principal Investigator
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Director
Our Work
Science and technology have long played a role in international affairs, but today they are more central to geopolitics than ever. The Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy responds to an urgent need to advance scholarship and build a new generation of leaders fluent in both public policy and technology.
The Program conducts research, convenings, training, and public engagement. Our work includes:
- Technology and Geopolitics Fellowships for outstanding pre- and post-doctoral scholars
- Senior Fellowships to bring experienced scholars and practitioners into our scholarship, events, mentorship, and training
- Reports and articles
- Seminars, study groups, and other convenings
Faculty Research Fund: The Intersection of Technology and Geopolitics
The Belfer-SEAS Faculty Research Fund on the Intersection of Technology and Geopolitics to support innovative research led by Harvard faculty
Questions We Ask
- What new challenges and imperatives are technologies creating for policy and geopolitics?
- How can we keep our thinking about these challenges and imperatives at the frontier as science and technology progress, rather than being reactive?
- What constraints and opportunities might national and international policies create for the world in which technologists will innovate?
- What capabilities could emerging technologies add to the analytical toolbox of policy experts?
- Above all, how do we help create and inspire future generations of technology-literate policymakers and policy-literate technologists?
A Conversation with Michael McQuade
The Program Director for the new Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy explains key project objectives.
Launching The Program
At the Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and Global Policy Program Launch, Jeremy Weinstein, Dean of HKS and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, introduced the Program's key mission statement and spoke about the need to close the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington D.C.
The Dean noted this intersection of science, technology and policy is a domain which has always characterized the Belfer Center.
In a fireside chat, Director of the Belfer Center Meghan L. O'Sullivan and Program Director Michael McQuade spoke about the ambition behind the Program.
Noted were the the challenges of creating technology but also informing and governing it, amidst a rapidly advancing climate of innovation and evolving geopolitical dynamics; and the Belfer Center's unique position as an institution training the next generation of leaders in a technology and policy-literate way.
Stephanie Carter, member of the Belfer Center International Council and wife of the late Ashton B. Carter, spoke about how this Program built on Secretary Carter's work, exemplifying the nexus of technology and policy that he occupied as Belfer Center Director, HKS Faculty member, and U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Carme Artigas, Belfer Center Senior Fellow and Co-Chair of the UN AI Advisory Body, and Rochelle Walensky, Belfer Center Senior Fellow and former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke about how their backgrounds in technology and emerging science, respectively, propelled both women in their senior policy roles. Both noted the increasing value of marrying technical and policy experience and expertise, a core aspiration of the Belfer Center’s new program.
Inaugural Program Fellows and their research interests include Anka Reuel, with a focus on responsible development and use of AI systems; Ariel Ekblaw, on space architectures and U.S.-China competition in space; Nur Laiq on past and present technology policies; Chris Li on U.S.-China competition in biotechnology; Anatoly Levshin on AI-enhanced decision making; and Diana Park on civil disobedience in cyberspace.