This grant supports activities in support of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' (AAAS) Global Nuclear Future Initiative, an international effort that focuses on increasing the security of nuclear materials, strengthening the global nuclear regime, and solving the unresolved problem of what to do with spent nuclear reactor fuel. Led by Stephen Miller, Director of Harvard University's International Security Program, the project aims to build international consensus around a series of prescriptions for strengthening nuclear security, including principles governing the development of regional nuclear storage facilities; best practices governing contracts between suppliers, customers, and government entities; and the proper arrangements connecting nuclear fuel storage and disposal. Supported activities under this grant include the convening of regional meetings of key stakeholders in government, industry, and non-governmental organizations and the commissioning of conference presentations and publishable research papers by respected experts, academics, and practitioners in the field.

The foundational treaty of the global nuclear order, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), does not define what constitutes a nuclear weapon and therefore what activities, technologies, and materials should be regarded as evidence that a state is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. This lack of definition exacerbates the nonproliferation challenge of distinguishing between legitimate nuclear activities (be they peaceful or military applications such as naval propulsion) and illegitimate ones (namely, those oriented toward nuclear weapons). This challenge, in turn, exacerbates the difficulty of promoting the peaceful spread of nuclear energy while, at the same time, preventing weapons proliferation. This grant supports an initiative by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to build an international consensus around how to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate nuclear activity. The Carnegie team will convene policymakers, regulators, and technical personnel from the five permanent member countries of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States - for a series of non-political meetings to discuss national perspectives on what constitutes illegitimate nuclear activity, weigh the costs and benefits of potential frameworks, and identify areas for further technical analysis.

This grant to the University of Colorado at Denver supports efforts by Tanya Heikkila and Christopher Weible to study the politics of shale gas development in the United States. Using a wide-ranging series of interviews, Heikkila, Wieble and their team will construct a map of the political actors and influencers active in the recent development of the Marcellus, Barnett, and Mancos shale formations with the aim of understanding the politics of shale gas development. Issues to be addressed include how different interest groups frame the issue of shale gas development, how they use and deploy scientific information, what media and engagement strategies they use, and how they interact with other interest groups and with policymakers and to what effect. If successful, Hikkila and Weible's work could potentially lead to a deeper understanding of how the politics of shale gas development is evolving both nationally and regionally, an understanding that will be of value to all parties involved in shale gas development: industry, advocacy groups, regulators, policymakers, and the public.

With Sloan Foundation support, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has brokered the development of a voluntary agreement among nuclear reactor vendors to abide by an industry-wide set of principles meant to increase the safety and security of nuclear facilities. This grant funds a year of follow-up activities subsequent to the formal adoption of the principles on September 15, 2011. Funded activities include briefing governments on the final text of the Principles of Conduct; conducting outreach to reactor operators, the World Association of Nuclear Operators, and other stakeholders encouraging them to adopt and abide by the principles; convening a meeting a review meeting to monitor implementation of the procedures set out in the Principles; developing processes to enable sharing of best practices across the industry; and working with nuclear reactor vendors to create an independent secretariat.

Funds from this grant provide partial support to INTERPOL to develop a Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Program (RNTPP). Building on the success of their Biological Terrorism Prevention Program, INTERPOL 's work plan for developing the RNTPP will include organizing three terrorism prevention courses and one tabletop terrorism prevention exercise per year for three years, holding a international working group meeting to produce a report targeting the needs of police services in preventing nuclear and radiological terrorism, developing an investigative handbook, and designing and deploying five e-learning modules. Partnering with the International Atomic Energy Agency, INTERPOL will also develop a joint course aimed specifically at educating and training emergency personnel and other likely first responders to potential nuclear or radiological attacks.

This grant funds an initiative at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at Middlebury College's Monterey Institute of International Studies to expand course offerings at CNS's unique master's program in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, broadening and strengthening the scientific aspects of the curriculum. Using Sloan Foundation funding, CNS will add five additional science- and technology-based courses with at least 15 students each; offer two new weekend workshops annually on science- and technology-based themes with at least 25 students each; and continue its pre-enrollment, two-week, non-credit course in basic science and mathematics for new M.A. students.

In fall 2010, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) of Middlebury College's Monterey Institute of International Studies was selected by the Austrian Foreign Ministry to manage a new Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Vienna, home-city of the International Atomic Energy Agency and, therefore, the global center for nuclear diplomacy. In September 2011, CNS ran a pilot one-week intensive course on nonproliferation at the new Center, aimed at providing nonproliferation education and training for diplomats, government officials, and mid-career professionals at international organizations. Funds from this grant will allow CNS to expand its offerings in Vienna either to one two-week course annually or, if diplomats cannot spare that much time for training, to two one-week courses. Each course would have at least 20 participants, at least 70% of whom would be from Non-Aligned countries. The rest would be diplomats from other countries or employees of international organizations, most of whom have excellent technical backgrounds but limited knowledge of the politics, institutions, and agreements that govern the international nuclear regime.

Funds from this grant support a project by Resources for the Future (RFF) to assess the risks associated with increased shale gas development in the United States as viewed by both experts and the public. Primary focus will be on water scarcity and water, air, and soil quality issues associated with surface operations at well sites, vertical well drilling, horizontal drilling, deep hydraulic fracturing, and wastewater disposal. Expert views will be assembled from existing literature, recent government analyses, and interviews with selected experts. Public views will be determined by means of interviews with up to 100 people, four focus groups, and a survey of 1,500 randomly selected adults that will focus on public willingness to pay to reduce risks from shale gas development. Participants in the interviews, focus groups, and surveys will be drawn from residents in the western region of the United States, including Texas, where oil and gas production has a long history, and from the six-state eastern region of the Marcellus shale formation, where oil and gas production had not occurred for many years until recently and where shale gas production could be extensive in the near future. Subsequent to this research, RFF will identify, describe, and analyze the drivers of environmental risks associated with shale gas production and the policy levers potentially available to reduce these risks. RFF will describe and analyze current and prospective regulation and legislation at the national, river basin commission, and state levels, with some attention to the local level. Finally, RFF will put all of this together to develop recommendations for improvements in regulation and legislation.