Applications are open for the latest Emerging Voices Network (EVN) policy cycle. This will be the fourth consecutive EVN policy cycle supported by Ploughshares. In this policy cycle, Members of the EVN will be tasked with imagining multiple outcomes of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) ahead of the 2026 Review Conference (or RevCon) of parties to the NPT — scheduled to take place from 27 April to 22 May in New York.
The terms of the NPT stipulate that parties to it meet every five years at the RevCon to assess the progress of its implementation. After failing to reach a consensus at the 2005 RevCon, a 64-point action plan was adopted in 2010, designed to help the disarmament process move forward. Yet, the 2015 and the postponed 2020 RevCons both ended with no outcome agreed, placing even more pressure on the 2026 RevCon to reach agreement for the first time in 16 years.
Frustration with the NPT and the lack of progress made towards disarmament was a major driving force leading to the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).This pressure to prevent nuclear proliferation is exacerbated by the current geopolitical environment. Tensions are rising between adversaries. Nearly all nuclear states are modernising and/or expanding their nuclear arsenals.
Both Israel and the US earlier in 2025 attacked NPT member Iran, citing fears that it was developing a nuclear weapon. Yet they failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme, and there are fears that this has pushed it closer to developing a bomb. In 2022, Russia, a nuclear state, invaded Ukraine, a non-nuclear state, and has since made repeated nuclear threats to dissuade others from providing military assistance to Kiev. The second Trump Administration has so far been even more unpredictable than the first, with its allies less confident they can rely on the US nuclear umbrella.
The world is a more volatile place with the START Treaty between the US and Russia due to expire in February 2026. With all of this in mind, what possibilities are there for the future of the NPT? What can be done to best utilise the treaty to address the issues of today and tomorrow? What would be an undesirable future for the NPT? These questions are what we will be exploring in our latest EVN policy cycle.
Kicking off in October, 28 EVN members in four working groups will be selected to utilise foresight methodologies to envisage multiple potential desirable and undesirable futures of the NPT. The launch event will take place on Wednesday, 22 October. Between October and January, policy cycle participants will take part in five workshops where they will collaboratively develop visions of the future of the NPT. Participants to these workshops will spend January writing up favourable and unfavourable scenarios in relation to the future of the NPT. Their policy recommendations will be included in the final report, with group members listed as authors. The BASIC team will complete and publish the report in addition to hosting an online launch event and at a side-event at the 2026 NPT RevCon.
The publication will also be distributed to delegates and experts at this important conference to provide key stakeholders with visions of the future of the NPT from emerging experts in the field.
You must be an EVN member to apply. Apply to join the EVN using this form: https://lnkd.in/e7GgaX5W.
Apply to the policy cycle using this form: https://lnkd.in/e7GgaX5W.
More about the EVN: https://lnkd.in/e94qNVPU