This year has been a successful and impactful year for Impacted Communities – those harmed by the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons.

From the Marshall Islands to Hanford, Washington; from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan and everywhere in between, Ploughshares Fund and its partners have been proud to support the efforts of impacted community members and advocates as they call for better protection and recognition.

The greatest policy win for impacted American citizens came this summer in the midst of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film, Oppenheimer: the US Senate voted to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), providing extensions to the healthcare provided to those impacted by nuclear weapons production and testing.

The British American Security Information Council (BASIC) houses the Emerging Voices Network (EVN), a digital, global network of high-potential, early career researchers on nuclear policy issues.

Composed of over 160 members from across forty countries, the EVN aims to support the development of a new generation of nuclear experts while producing innovative ideas and fresh perspectives on today’s nuclear challenges.

This summer, Ploughshares Fund awarded a grant to the EVN in support of its policy cycle on De-siloing Existential Threats.

This exercise, which explored the connection of nuclear weapons with other issues – climate change, social justice, racism and white supremacy, the military-industrial complex, as well as DEIA – took part in an even deeper exploration on the interconnections of these issues. This effort allowed for better understanding of the linkages they share with each other beyond their connection to nuclear weapons.

The findings of this work are included in the report: De-siloing Existential Threats: Challenging Identity, Powem and Inclusivity in the Nuclear Policy Field.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a think tank based in Washington, DC that helps countries address the most difficult global problems and safeguard peace and security.

In summer 2022, we awarded a grant to Carnegie in support of its Fellow, Dr. Jamie Kwong, as part of our Equity Rises initiative.

Kwong’s work focuses on the impact that climate change has on the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

In this report and YouTube video, Kwong demonstrates the intersection of climate change and nuclear weapons through three case studies: The US Naval Submarine Base located in King’s Bay; the alert status of US ICBMs; and US efforts to monitor adversarial military activities in the Arctic.

To learn more, explore the resources shared here and on Carnegie’s website.

This year, Dr. Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his team created a large cache of free-to-use video and meme content for the nuclear policy community, providing its practitioners with accessible content to reach wider audiences not yet engaged with the nuclear policy field and its work.

By producing accessible and succinct video content for the field to use at no cost, the MIT team places the community in a favorable position and allows it to successfully take advantage of major media moments when attention to nuclear weapons is high.

At a time when more people are receiving news updates from social media, this content is especially useful. And because nonprofits are often unable to access engaging or unique media due to expensive licensing fees, providing media for free is a boost to the project’s impact.

Please review the selected videos and images for a peek at the project’s work.

A new website is soon coming from the Union of Concerned Scientists which demonstrates the enormity of the US nuclear weapons system.

The site will provide users with resources on nuclear bases, production sites, data on nuclear fallout, and more. Users can also input a location and see its closest nuclear production site and related information.

Project leads Yasmeen Silva and Lilly Adams have pulled data from multiple reliable resources as well as information from impacted communities to map nuclear weapons sites across the country.

One of the main goals of this project is to provide impacted communities a tool to connect and collaborate.

This project is not only aimed at mapping the sites of nuclear weapons production in the United States, but in showing the harm that weapons cause even without use – as well as highlighting the intersections of social justice issues and the harm that is disproportionately placed on already marginalized communities.

The site will go live in 2024.

The Nuclear Truth Project (NTP), located in Oklahoma, is an Indigenous-led international initiative connecting Indigenous Peoples, affected communities, international organizations, civil society organizations, experts and governments working for nuclear abolition.

The Initiative seeks to center the voices of Indigenous Peoples, survivors, and affected communities to change the power dynamic in nuclear disarmament activities. It is led by longtime Cherokee activist and Hanford downwinder, Pamela Kingfisher, and ICAN cofounder, Dimity Hawkins.

With the support of our Equity Rises Initiative, Kingfisher and Hawkins led two projects: the Talking Protocols report and the Challenging Nuclear Secrecy Report.

Through its Talking Protocols report, the group produced a best practice document for engaging nuclear impacted communities in a meaningful, respectful and just way that centers lived experiences and dignity. With its recent grant, awarded this fall, the project will pivot toward sharing this document and its findings with civil society and governments as well as building new partnerships with civil society organizations.

The 2023 Paul Olum grant, which is jointly funded by Ploughshares Fund and the Olum family, supports technical and academic experts advancing the cause of nuclear arms control and disarmament. This year’s Olum Grantee is Dr. Fiona Cunningham of the University of Pennsylvania.

With this grant, Dr. Cunningham is embarking on a year-long project to determine the reasons for China’s nuclear arsenal expansion. Experts have put forth several hypotheses for the shift, but there’s been little hard research into which of these claims, if any, are accurate. Dr. Cunningham’s research seeks to change that.

Dr. Cunningham engages in three main activities under this grant: processing original Chinese language sources; traveling to East Asia to conduct interviews and gain context not provided in written sources; and compiling her research into a peer-reviewed article for a leading political science journal. She will also work with journalists to share her findings through accessible media.

The attached images were taken by Dr. Cunningham during her trip to China in October of this year. Her next trip is scheduled for January 2024.

In the pursuit of removing barriers to equal education, Professors Dr. Shampa Biswas and Dr. Anne Harrington have collaborated with a distinguished group of nuclear studies scholars to develop three teaching modules that draw connections between nuclear weapons and colonialism and racism; feminism; and environmentalism.

This project was awarded funding as part of Ploughshares’ Equity Rises initiative.

In addition to making these resources accessible, Biswas and Harrington also worked to make the resources engaging. To do this, they collaborated with artists at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and project lead, Rives Matson, who began working on this project as a student at RISD and continued collaboration on this project after graduation.

The included visuals, which come from the Feminism module, are from this work. Each module contains unique imagery and color branding, demonstrating the intentionality in customizing these resources for learners.

Decolonizing nuclear studies, the core of this project, includes removing the barriers to education that currently exclude certain demographics from accessing an item or piece of knowledge. By sharing these resources freely, anyone anywhere can learn.

Ploughshares Fund’s grant is supporting the dissemination of these free educational resources to increase impact.

These educational resources will be available for free to everyone at the Highly Nriched website in early 2024.