Harvard-Sussex Program

The Harvard-Sussex Program is an inter-university collaboration for research, communication and training in support of informed public policy towards chemical and biological weapons. The Program links research groups at Harvard University in the United States and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. It began formally in 1990, building on two decades of earlier collaboration between its co-directors, Matthew Meselson and Julian Robinson.

In 1988,Matthew Meselson and Julian Robinson initiated the quarterly publication, The Chemical Weapons Convention Bulletin, later renamed the CBW Conventions Bulletin, eventually comprising 87 issues, each running to some 50 pages.  Initially, the Bulletin was published by the Federation of American Scientists Fund in Washington. Then, in 1990, we created HSP, the Harvard Sussex Program on CBW Arms and Arms Limitation. 

 Among its regular features, the Bulletin included an editorial by a guest or by ourselves, a 20-25 page “News Summary” of recent events relevant to CBW weapons and CBW arms control written by Julian; “Report From Geneva” a detailed report from the negotiation in Geneva or, beginning in 1993, “Progress in The Hague” usually written by an HSP researcher selected and supported by HSP but seconded to the OPCW for a period of a year or more. Our idea was to provide readers of the Bulletin with reliable, timely information about the implementation of the CWC, while at the same time providing the OPCW with an additional staff position supported by HSP.