AN INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM AND THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP

Critical to the success and scaling of the N Square network—and in building and scaling impact beyond the field—has been our ongoing investment in an expanding set of partners from other fields who have now deeply committed to working on nuclear threats, including:

• The USC Annenberg School’s Hollywood, Health & Society Program (entertainment and media)

• PopTech (technology and popular culture) The Nucleus Group (framing and messaging)

• Rhode Island School of Design (design and problem-solving)

• ART NOT WAR (mobilizing new publics)

• Games for Change (virtual reality and video games)

• The School of International Futures (futures)

• Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination (futures)

• Altimeter Design Group

N Square introduced Games for Change to nuclear innovators at Princeton, leading to the creation of the virtual reality experience On the Morning You Wake.

Each of these partner organizations began as an N Square grantee or contractor but now collaborates directly with prominent organizations in the nuclear field. Some are on retainer or under contract with nuclear organizations while others have raised funding to pursue new projects on their own. Examples of these nontraditional peer-to-peer collaborations on key nuclear challenges:

RISD professor Tom Weis has formed an external design firm, Altimeter, to handle the demand he has received since joining our community. His clientele has grown to include nuclear NGOs and think tanks, government agencies, the UN, and the US Navy Seals, among others. The methods he practices and the services he provides have impacted clients’ cultures as well as their publicfacing strategies. Of particular note is Altimeter’s collaboration with Sandia National Labs on a series of strategic foresight initiatives called Strategic

Implications of Future Trends (SIFT)

The Hollywood, Health & Society Program is working with NTI, N Square, and Ploughshares, offering storytelling workshops for nuclear professionals while educating and incentivizing screenwriters to develop more accurate and compelling stories about nuclear issues.

PopTech is collaborating with NTI and scholars at Duke and Northwestern to explore the nexus between cognitive science, behavioral economics, and risk.

The Nucleus Group is offering workshops in messaging and “polarity management,” an approach to addressing dilemmas, paradoxes, and opposing ideologies.

N Square invested in and cultivated a relationship with Games for Change, introducing them to nuclear innovators at Princeton, leading to the creation of the virtual reality experience On the Morning You Wake.

N Square has, to date, not had capacity to track secondary or tertiary benefits of our investment in these organizations. But we believe that strengthening ties between these partners and building a culture of shared learning continues to accrue to the benefit of all. N Square plays a unique role as convener and facilitator of the learning between and among these diverse contributors and their new colleagues in the nuclear arena.

Engaging N Square as a Partner

N Square is not just an orchestrator and connector but an actor within the network as well. We have acted as consultant and/or service provider to colleagues at Global Zero, the IAEA, Safecast, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Sandia National Laboratories. In these engagements the

N Square team has designed and facilitated workshops on innovation, scenario planning, and human-centered design and consulted on the development of new programming, organizational redesign, and strategic planning.

Examples of other N Square partnerships:

• As a direct result of its collaboration with N Square over the last few years, the IAEA Safeguards Division has obtained agreement from leadership and member states to engage external partners who will help to accelerate innovation in both tools and methods that advance the IAEA mission. A case in point: For the first time ever, the 2022 Safeguards Symposium centered on future scenarios, developed in partnership with N Square and, with our support, the School of International Futures (SOIF). These scenarios surfaced drivers of technological, social, and political change that will shape the strategic landscape around international nonproliferation, verification, and monitoring efforts.

• Organizations are seeking expert help from N Square and from our frequent partner, PolicySolve founder Jewlya Lynn, on matters related to organizational redesign, systems change, field building, and collective impact.

• We have partnered with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the world’s oldest independent think tank on international defense in security, to introduce strategic foresight to members of the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI).

• The IAEA, Sandia National Labs, and the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management have all commissioned N Square and our partners to develop interactive workshops on safeguards, trust building, and foresight.

• N Square, NTI, and RISD’s Center for Complexity are the core collaborators at the heart of Horizon 2045, a new initiative that uses systems thinking, strategic foresight, and deep research and experimentation to accelerate systems change and bring about a full nuclear weapons prohibition by 2045. (See page 44 for more about Horizon 2045.)

• The School of International Futures (SOIF) and N Square will soon announce a formal partnership in the international nuclear challenges arena. The combined capacity, expertise, and networks of our two groups dramatically increases our ability to provide strategic foresight services and training to the nuclear community.