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Hazards with escalation potential - governing the drivers of global and existential catastrophes  featured image

Hazards with escalation potential - governing the drivers of global and existential catastrophes

September 01, 2023
In 2021, UN-Secretary General António Guterres issued ‘Our Common Agenda’, a report outlining a vision for the future of global cooperation…
Safe and beneficial artificial intelligence for Small-Island Developing States featured image

Safe and beneficial artificial intelligence for Small-Island Developing States

July 25, 2023
— Read the full brief here — Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to revolutionize our world. As noted by the UN Secretary-General Antonio…
Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 5: A Global Digital Compact — an Open, Free and Secure Digital Future for All featured image

Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 5: A Global Digital Compact — an Open, Free and Secure Digital Future for All

July 24, 2023
The Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) of the United Nations is publishing a series of policy briefs to inform the Our Common…
How to reduce AI harms and future risks at once featured image

How to reduce AI harms and future risks at once

July 06, 2023
Concerns about AI ethics — the harms AI causes due to imperfect development and training — are sometimes pegged against concerns about AI…
Agile multilateral AI governance starts with foundation models featured image

Agile multilateral AI governance starts with foundation models

July 05, 2023
The need to act yet remain agile  Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everyone’s mind – most sectors will be transformed and policymakers…
2-year review: concluding SI's inception featured image

2-year review: concluding SI's inception

July 01, 2023
Overview In April 2021, we launched the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance (SI). In this post, we provide a review of SI’s work since…
Advancing Sendai: bringing risks from rapid technological change into disaster risk reduction featured image

Advancing Sendai: bringing risks from rapid technological change into disaster risk reduction

June 30, 2023
Throughout 2022 and early 2023, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction underwent a period of review. During this time…
Biotechnology: a brief on risks and opportunities featured image

Biotechnology: a brief on risks and opportunities

May 30, 2023
The last few years have witnessed exciting developments in the field of biotechnology, driven in part by the machine learning revolution…
Artificial intelligence: a brief on risks and opportunities featured image

Artificial intelligence: a brief on risks and opportunities

May 30, 2023
The last few years have witnessed striking progress in artificial intelligence, driven by the machine learning revolution. However, as…
Submission to the Global Digital Compact on the interpretability of AI foundation models featured image

Submission to the Global Digital Compact on the interpretability of AI foundation models

April 26, 2023
As part of the UN’s Our Common Agenda, an intergovernmental process on digital governance has been put in place to produce the ‘Global…
The FAIR Framework - A future-proofing methodology featured image

The FAIR Framework - A future-proofing methodology

April 26, 2023
Why future proofing? In the words of António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, “many of today’s multilateral frameworks are…
How computers will continue to shape the world - Herbert A. Simon (video & transcript) featured image

How computers will continue to shape the world - Herbert A. Simon (video & transcript)

March 30, 2023
> “…I don’t believe that predicting the future is really what we’re about. After all, we ourselves, or at least the younger ones among us…
Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 1: “To Think and Act for Future Generations” featured image

Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 1: “To Think and Act for Future Generations”

March 21, 2023
The Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) of the United Nations is publishing a series of policy briefs to inform the Our Common…
Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 2: “Strengthening the International Response to Complex Global Shocks – An Emergency Platform” featured image

Response to Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 2: “Strengthening the International Response to Complex Global Shocks – An Emergency Platform”

March 21, 2023
The Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) of the United Nations is publishing a series of policy briefs to inform the Our Common…
Existential risk and rapid technological change - a thematic study for UNDRR featured image

Existential risk and rapid technological change - a thematic study for UNDRR

March 13, 2023
On 10th March 2022, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated that: “(…) there is renewed pressure to consider whether global…
Workshop proceedings: future-proofing the multilateral system featured image

Workshop proceedings: future-proofing the multilateral system

March 06, 2023
Summary: From the 13th-16th January, the Simon Institute hosted 30 actors from across the multilateral system and academia to discuss risks…
Elements Paper for the Declaration on Future Generations featured image

Elements Paper for the Declaration on Future Generations

September 13, 2022
Future generations are fundamentally disempowered: they will inherit the planet and society we leave for them, yet they have no say in how…
Input for High-Level Advisory Board Member Poonam Ghimire and the UN Foundation featured image

Input for High-Level Advisory Board Member Poonam Ghimire and the UN Foundation

August 26, 2022
In August 2022, SI was invited to contribute to two consultations held by the United Nations Foundation and High-Level Advisory Board member…
SI's plans to support 'Our Common Agenda' featured image

SI's plans to support 'Our Common Agenda'

August 17, 2022
This post outlines SI’s strategic thinking around and current plan to engage with Our Common Agenda (OCA). The plan was developed in July…
How policymakers approach information overload and deep uncertainty - an interview analysis featured image

How policymakers approach information overload and deep uncertainty - an interview analysis

August 15, 2022
What is it like to be a policymaker during the COVID-19 pandemic?  What might it be like during the next pandemic or another global crisis…
SI at the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction featured image

SI at the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction

June 14, 2022
From May 23-28, SI’s CEO Maxime Stauffer attended the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) to speak on how the disaster risk…
Year one - review, plans & funding featured image

Year one - review, plans & funding

April 07, 2022
SI has proven its value through knowledge synthesis, workshop facilitation and high-level events. This combination of activities has granted SI mandates to directly work on key policy processes relevant to global catastrophic risk reduction for the coming years.
Facilitation handbook - a tabletop exercise on resilience to global catastrophic risks featured image

Facilitation handbook - a tabletop exercise on resilience to global catastrophic risks

March 28, 2022
Strengthening science-policy capacity to mitigate Global Catastrophic Risks (GCRs) is difficult. As GCRs have not happened in the recent…
Our plans for 2022 featured image

Our plans for 2022

January 28, 2022
After demonstrating the potential for substantial impact in its first nine months of existence, SI enters the final stage of its startup…
Preparedness Exercises @ BWC Meeting of States Parties featured image

Preparedness Exercises @ BWC Meeting of States Parties

November 25, 2021
The Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) and the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance (SI) are pleased to invite you to explore the in-person table-top exercise Preparedness. Sessions will be held at the UN Library between November 25 and November 30, 2021.
Side event - BWC Meeting of Experts featured image

Side event - BWC Meeting of Experts

September 06, 2021
This event already took place. You can read a recap of it on the blog of the Geneva Science-Policy Interface. Complementing the BWC Meeting…
SI Update - September 2021 featured image

SI Update - September 2021

September 02, 2021
As summer is coming to an end, we wanted to share an update with you. Recent highlights from our blog: Building the field of long-term…
2021 UN High-Level Political Forum featured image

2021 UN High-Level Political Forum

July 07, 2021
Together with the Geneva Science-Policy Interface, SI contributes “Behavioral Solutions for Evidence-based Decision-making” to the UN High…
United Nations for the future - a collection of key texts for long-term governance featured image

United Nations for the future - a collection of key texts for long-term governance

July 01, 2021
With this collection, we highlight fertile ground for the refinement of a shared understanding of the long term, building on decades of diplomacy that have successfully made long-term flourishing a key motivation for international cooperation. It reminds us of the recency of international institutions, their hopeful vision and the work that remains to be done to secure long-term survival and flourishing.
Setting expectations for global catastrophic risk mitigation through policy change featured image

Setting expectations for global catastrophic risk mitigation through policy change

June 21, 2021
Our motivation for writing this post comes from observing an increasing number of calls for preparedness which require institutional paradigm shifts of the kind that is observed mostly on centennial scales. Many of the risks that humanity is currently facing seem more urgent. We hope to contribute to accelerating the adoption of a new preparedness paradigm by reviewing what we know about policy change.
Building the field of long-term governance - SI’s approach featured image

Building the field of long-term governance - SI’s approach

June 21, 2021
In conducting our work, we make choices about the questions we ask, modelling assumptions we make, which literature to rely on, etc. In this short piece, we make explicit the underlying beliefs that inform these decisions. By doing so, we hope to explain our approach, invite constructive criticism and live up to our standard of reasoning transparency.
An overview of fields to improve decision-making in policy systems featured image

An overview of fields to improve decision-making in policy systems

June 21, 2021
At SI, we support international policy actors in dealing with uncertainty, complexity, time-pressure and global catastrophic risks. Below is a compilation of fields and resources we draw from and that might be valuable for others.
Our theory of change featured image

Our theory of change

April 23, 2021
If humanity survives the next few centuries, there is a fair chance that the vast majority of human life, culture, science, technology, and happiness lies ahead, rather than behind us.
Navigating complexity and information overload in decision-making featured image

Navigating complexity and information overload in decision-making

March 31, 2021
On April 1st at 2 pm CET, we co-hosted the event “Towards 2030: Navigating complexity and information overload in decision-making” as part…
SI’s strategy for the first two years featured image

SI’s strategy for the first two years

March 13, 2021
Summary The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance (SI) aims to increase the long-term impact of policymaking processes. In its first 2…
How we will evaluate our impact featured image

How we will evaluate our impact

March 12, 2021
Context Given the difficulty of measuring effects on policy networks, we anchor our strategy in a detailed theory of change. While…
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