New European Voices on Existential Risk
The New European Voices on Existential Risk (NEVER) project aims to attract, nurture and sustain new talent and ideas from wider Europe on nuclear issues, climate change, biosecurity and malign AI, and to connect this talent pipeline with wider debates on existential risks facing humanity.
What will the project do?
Attract new talent to work on nuclear issues as part of a broader approach to existential risk, i.e. threats that could lead to human or planetary extinction.
Nurture this talent by convening a network dedicated to existential risk, integrating it with other ELN networks and providing connections to policymakers, developing skills through seminars and mentoring.
Sustain interest and ideas on nuclear topics, by building lasting links with expert and policy ecosystems, drawing on mid-career and late-career role-models and mentors to help identify career paths, and integrating nuclear work with other relevant fields
Why is this important?
Nuclear war has the potential to end human life as we know it – through mass casualties and through cascading effects on the world’s economies and societies. Yet the nuclear policy field has been shrinking in recent years and much of the thinking is stuck in 20th century paradigms.
We believe that more talent and fresh thinking from the field of existential risk needs to be applied to the problems of nuclear policy to prevent possible catastrophe.
Nuclear policy could benefit from new and more diverse talent, and from linkages with thinkers, doers, scholars, activists and entrepreneurs who are seeking to address other existential risks to humanity, such as those from climate change, biological threats, or AI.
It is not only about developing the nuclear field specifically, but developing expertise on nuclear issues among a wider set of people working for a safer future – so that this expertise is not siloed and is integrated with wider thinking about protecting our shared future.
How will we carry out the project?
- Recruit a network of 30 diverse new European voices on existential risk – with outreach to existing diversity networks and through university platforms.
- Convene roundtables and seminars with a broader ecosystem of partners
- Co-create recommendations for decision makers to translate long term risk into steps that can be taken now
- Publish commentaries from new and emerging voices
- Share resources with accessible language and creative multimedia formats.
How are we measuring progress?
- Feedback from participants and other stakeholders.
- Measuring the reach of the project to university students.
- Number of recommendations produced and feedback from decision makers.
Who's involved?
Funders
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Macarthur Foundation
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Commentaries
Commentary
How can we help science to save the world?
To launch the ELN’s new project “NEVER”, which seeks to unite young people working on global catastrophic risk from across Europe, Lord Martin Rees writes on the need for an alliance between science and the public sphere and the role young individuals and activists can play in this.
Commentary
Network reflections: What one thing could the world do to turn back the Doomsday Clock?
Today the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have announced the Doomsday Clock 2023 and how close we are to midnight. We asked some of our network members what can be done to turn back the clock and avert a man-made global catastrophe.
Commentary
Pillar III: the quiet success story of the NPT RevCon
In contrast to the disappointing outcomes of the non-proliferation and disarmament pillars of the 2022 Review Conference, a significant reinvigoration took place in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy pillar. Olamide Samuel writes that Pillar III offered progressive solutions by identifying how the treaty plays a role in mitigating some of the most pressing human and environmental security issues of our time and could help inform mechanisms for cooperation and success in future RevCons.
Commentary
Leadership for a more resilient future: In conversation with Steve Killelea and Lord Des Browne
In September, between International Peace Day, UN General Assembly Week and the COP climate summit, the ELN and the Institute for Economics and Peace convened an intergenerational group of leaders to identify the kinds of leadership that are needed to confront the global challenges facing humanity.
Commentary
From the climate crisis to nuclear war and technological disruption: The future of security reassessed
On the eve of the COP26 summit, Irina Ghaplanyan writes that we need to rethink our models of leadership and re-examine our understanding of human security to deal with the existential threats we face.
Commentary
Nuclear weapons and climate change: The two great challenges
Lord Hannay, who co-chaired ELN’s Go Big Action Group on New START extension in 2020-21, lays out priorities for the international community in dealing with these twin threats to humanity.