Policy Impact
The Belfer Center's research and policy recommendations play a vital role in national and international policy. Recent examples include:
Action Agenda to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism
AP Photo
- Senators Nunn and Lugar credit the Belfer Center as the incubator of Nunn-Lugar legislation — one of the most significant Congressional initiatives in national security since World War II. The Center continues to play a leading role in identifying the threat of unsecured nuclear materials and how to deal with it.
- Managing the Atom produces the annual report Securing the Bomb, a heavily-used, comprehensive yardstick of global progress toward locking down nuclear material. Its recommendations have helped shape the $1 billion a year the US has been investing in protecting nuclear security worldwide, including the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, launched in 2004 by President Bush to speed removal of nuclear weapons material from vulnerable sites.
- The Preventive Defense Project's "Day After" exercise stirred imagination at the highest levels in government and spurred the United States to undertake detailed planning measures in the event of a nuclear attack.
Mitigating the Threat of Severe Climate Disruption
- Faculty from the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program are among the nation's foremost leaders on the subject of climate change policy. Their analysis and presentations are helping develop a consensus and a new agenda among the United Nations, the Clinton Global Initiative, Fortune 500 leaders, and key Congress members.
- The Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group is deeply involved in shaping energy policy in China, India and the United States. Its pioneering work on auto policy in China helped persuade China to set stricter auto emissions standards than in the United States.
- The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is highly influential in negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol's successor. A global team of researchers from China, India, Europe, Japan, Australia, and the U.S. are tackling some of key questions policymakers want answered, including how to engage developing countries in a post-Kyoto bargain. Project leaders regularly brief senior government officials around the world.
