Dear friends,

One year ago, GCRI announced a new direction focused on research to develop the best ways to confront humanity’s gravest threats. Over the past year, we’ve delivered:

* An edited collection, Confronting Future Catastrophic Threats to Humanity, containing ten original research papers including five by GCRI affiliates
* Six additional research papers, making for a total of nine peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters
* 19 popular articles in publications such as the Guardian and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
* Two symposia at the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, featuring ten talks from leading scholars including three by GCRI affiliates
* Eight additional speaking engagements at the United Nations, the World Technology Summit, and other venues

We did this all on a shoestring budget—a budget too small to sustain such productivity. We’ve also gotten some new funded projects via the Global Challenges Foundation and the Future of Life Institute. However, these projects are small relative to what we are capable of accomplishing. Our ability to help prevent global catastrophe is limited mainly by funding. Most of our talent remains untapped.

In the year ahead, we will continue to publish more research. However, we will also take some time to build up a larger funding base suitable for our capabilities. To that effect, we would gratefully welcome any donations or leads on funding opportunities. Please be in touch with me for that.

As always, thank you for your interest in our work. We welcome any comments, questions, and criticisms you may have.

Sincerely,
Seth Baum, Executive Director

GCR News Summaries

Here are Robert de Neufville’s monthly news summaries for December and January. As always, this summarizes recent events across the breadth of GCR topics.