The Carnegie Corporation of New York and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Thursday that they would provide potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars for development of strategies for securing nuclear materials that could be used in acts of terrorism.
In a statement on the request for proposals, the organizations said they are seeking “projects that will generate fresh thinking and new approaches that can be taken up by government and industry.”
“As the Corporation and MacArthur indicated in their Civil Society Gift Basket, there are many impediments to progress and no simple solutions,” the release states. “How can secrecy and national security be balanced with transparency and accountability? How might access to the benefits of civilian nuclear technology be balanced with corresponding security considerations? How can we ensure that solutions take into account the constraints and incentives of existing stakeholders?”
While the four Nuclear Security Summits made progress in lowering this threat, sufficient fissile material remains to poewr tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, the groups said.
According to the release, proposals should: show novel strategies for addressing challenges in nuclear material minimization and elimination, security, control, governance, and culture; include a research plan, “a plan for multi-stakeholder convening,” or a separate cooperative initiative that directly addreses the issue at hand; feature ideas that governments, international organizations, or the private sector can take up; and provide “a strong dissemination plan to increase the salience and viability of the ideas.”
Requests should be for a maximum of $500,000 for two years of work.
Letters of inquiry are due by Oct. 24. Those preliminary applicants who make the cut will be required to submit full proposals by the middle of January 2016. Final decisions are expected by June.
More information on the program and application process can be found here.
