AI Safety
December 2024
EGTF Calls for Binding International Standards on Frontier AI Systems
Following the release of our working paper on governance gaps in dual-use AI systems, EGTF Director General addressed the United Nations Technology Committee in Geneva, calling for urgent action on binding international standards for the development and deployment of frontier AI systems. The presentation outlined EGTF's proposed framework for multilateral AI oversight, drawing on arms control treaty precedents adapted for the unique challenges of AI governance. The Director General emphasized that voluntary industry commitments, while welcome, are structurally insufficient to manage catastrophic risk from advanced AI. A full transcript of the address is available from EGTF communications. The working paper that informed the address can be found in our publications archive.
Fellowship
November 2024
New Fellowship Program Supports Eight Emerging Biosecurity Scholars
EGTF is pleased to announce the 2024–25 cohort of EGTF Fellows, comprising eight early-career researchers working on biosecurity, pandemic preparedness, and related policy questions. This year's fellows represent institutions across five countries and bring backgrounds ranging from microbiology and epidemiology to international law and governance. Fellows will be embedded in EGTF's Pandemic and Biosecurity research programs over a nine-month period, with access to EGTF's expert network, research resources, and publication support. Applications for the 2025–26 Fellowship cohort will open in March 2025. EGTF particularly encourages applications from researchers based in low- and middle-income countries and from underrepresented groups in the risk research community.
Climate Risk
October 2024
New Analysis: Climate Tipping Points Closer Than Modeled, Cascade Risk Increasing
A new EGTF analysis synthesizing recent climate science finds that several major tipping points — including the collapse of Greenland ice sheet dynamics, Amazon dieback, and West Antarctic Ice Sheet instability — may trigger at lower temperature thresholds than previously estimated by the IPCC. The analysis, authored by the EGTF Climate Risk Program, focuses particularly on the implications for our Cascade Risk framework: as tipping points occur at lower temperatures, the window between current trajectories and tipping-point thresholds narrows significantly, compressing the timeline for institutional response. The full analysis will be released as a working paper in Q1 2025. Media enquiries may be directed to <?= e(PRESS_EMAIL) ?>.
Biosecurity
September 2024
EGTF Joins International Biosecurity Coalition as Founding Research Partner
EGTF has joined the International Biosecurity Coalition as a founding research partner, alongside six other independent research institutions working on biological threat reduction. The Coalition will coordinate research on biosafety governance, share threat intelligence across member institutions, and present joint policy recommendations to international bodies including the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference. EGTF's role in the Coalition will be led by the Biosecurity Research Program, which will contribute its analytical frameworks, research outputs, and expert network to Coalition activities.
Nuclear Risk
July 2024
Publication: Nuclear Risk in a Multipolar World
EGTF has released a new policy brief examining nuclear deterrence stability in an increasingly multipolar nuclear environment. The brief, authored by Prof. Dmitri Volkov and co-author C. Huang, argues that Cold War deterrence frameworks are structurally inadequate for a world with multiple nuclear-armed states, several of which maintain ambiguous doctrines and opaque command-and-control arrangements. The brief identifies three scenarios of particular concern — indirect escalation, miscalculated first use, and accident or unauthorized launch — and outlines the institutional gaps that make each more likely than they would be under a well-functioning bipolar deterrence architecture.
Organization
April 2024
EGTF Welcomes Prof. Isabel Ferreira as Director of New Governance Failure Program
EGTF is pleased to welcome Prof. Isabel Ferreira as the founding Director of the new Governance Failure Research Program. Prof. Ferreira joins EGTF from the University of Geneva's Global Studies Institute, where she held the chair in International Governance and led the Global Governance Futures research group. Her work focuses on the structural conditions for international cooperation failure, the political economy of multilateral institution decline, and the governance implications of geopolitical fragmentation. Prof. Ferreira will be based at EGTF's Geneva headquarters and will lead the institution's work on governance collapse as both a standalone catastrophic risk and a risk amplifier across EGTF's other research domains.