Governance

The 2016-2017 issue of the Middle East Initiative Mosaic newsletter highlights MEI programs and activities during the academic year. This year's issue features the diverse and exciting work of students, fellows, faculty, and staff on public policy issues in the Middle East, including a focus on the growing scholarly community at MEI and in-depth stories on our faculty research program, alumni connections, students' experiences from Cambridge to the Middle East, and much more!

During the Future of Diplomacy Project's 2017 'Europe Week' series, diplomats, scholars, and policymakers visited the Kennedy School to examine Europe's greatest challenges. 

The Summer 2016 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming Center activities, along with research and analysis of critical global issues by members of the Center community. This issue features Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s address at Harvard Kennedy School on the significance of merging science and international affairs. Secretary Moniz used as an example the recent Iran nuclear agreement, in which he played a central role.

On March 21, The Future of Diplomacy Project jointly hosted a public seminar with the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project titled "A 21st Century State: Anything is Possible." As the speaker for the public event, Prime Minister of Estonia, TaaviRõivas, spoke at length on the role that digital technology has played in the global competitiveness of Estonia's economy and the robustness of his country's governance and public sector services. The Prime Minister spoke to a large audience comprising of Harvard Kennedy School students, national security fellows, and local Estonian start-up entrepreneurs.

We kicked off April with a series of phenomenal events led by world-class speakers and practitioners of negotiation and diplomacy in the 21st century. In the space of one week, we hosted the former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright; President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer; Robert Bosch senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Constanze Stelzenmueller; we also began a series of study groups with our spring Fisher Family Fellows: former EU Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht; and former Indian National Security Adviser, Shivshankar Menon.

During a candid conversation at the Harvard Kennedy School, prominent women leaders in the science and media industries recently talked about their efforts to remedy this. They ignited a fervent discussion and identified achievable goals that both professional women and their male and female bosses can work toward. The event, “Sexism, Science, and Science Writing: Promoting Women Leaders in the Lab and the Newsroom,” drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 women and men of all ages—from a female high school student to senior astrophysicists and science writers.

The Future of Diplomacy Project kickstarted 2015 with an array of impressive world-class speakers for its annual Europe Week, featuring former President of Finland, Tarja Halonen; former Secretary-General of NATO and Prime Minister of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen; and former Trade Commissioner of the European Union, Karel de Gucht. Their public seminars offered Harvard Kennedy School students and faculty an opportunity to grapple with the geopolitical issues at play in Europe concerning NATO, the EU, trade, and the "Nordic way."

Hosting speakers such as US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, President of Turkey Dr. Abdullah Gül, and China's Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai, the Future of Diplomacy Project has had an amazing year in 2014, pursuing its mission to promote public understanding of modern diplomatic practice in response to complex international issues.