On Thursday, the 21st of May 2026, at 1 pm BST, the Emerging Voices Network (EVN) is delighted to host an online launch event for our latest EVN Policy Cycle report. We will be joined by Dr Hassan Elbahtimy, who will be the keynote speaker for the event. Dr Elbahtimy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies and editor of the NPT Briefing Book. He is a Trustee and Executive Committee member of the British International Studies Association (BISA) and currently chairs BISA’s L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize. He is also an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Follow this Zoom link to register for the event: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lh2cr-ExQ1WIGsbQUaETlg.
After failing to reach a consensus at the 2005 Review Conference, a 64-point action plan was adopted in 2010 to help the disarmament process move forward. Yet, the 2015 and the postponed 2020 Review Conference both ended with no outcome agreed, placing even more pressure on the 2026 Review Conference to reach an agreement for the first time in 16 years.
In light of this, BASIC’s Emerging Voices Network (EVN), supported by Ploughshares, tasked emerging experts in the nuclear field to look ahead and imagine what potential futures could lie ahead for the NPT. The perspectives and expertise of early-career experts must be taken into account to bring fresh ideas and a longer-term approach to tackling the NPT’s greatest challenges. The EVN organised a policy cycle, utilising foresight methodologies, where 28 EVN members in four focus groups envisaged a desirable and an undesirable future pathway for the NPT over five workshops. Then, with both pathways in mind, the groups designed a set of policy recommendations designed to simultaneously push the NPT towards their desired pathways and away from the undesirable future.
These scenarios and policy recommendations have been compiled into a report. At the launch event, several participants will present their groups’ pathways and policy recommendations. Across the focus groups, the report highlights consistent themes and issues which the participants felt were essential to deciding the difference between a desirable and undesirable future for the NPT and nonproliferation. If there is one lesson to learn from this report, it is that the next generation of nuclear experts does not feel that we are at a crossroads between a desirable and undesirable future pathway for the NPT. Instead, we are already heading down an undesirable path, and immediate and significant course correction is required to achieve a positive, sustainable future for the NPT and nonproliferation.
We believe that these competing visions of the future from the emerging experts in the nuclear field are of vital importance to States parties. On the second week of the NPT Review Conference, this report was celebrated at a side event and was distributed to diplomats and experts. We would like to invite everyone with an interest in the future of non-proliferation and the role of youth in nuclear policy-making to this report launch event.