Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs on local water resources and biology. Pugwash does not have formal membership. All participants take part in their individual capacities and not as representatives of any organization, institution or government. Anyone who has attended a meeting is considered a "Pugwashite". There are more than 3,500 "Pugwashites" worldwide. As the birthplace of the Pugwash movement, the Thinkers' Lodge was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2008. The Jubilee 62nd Pugwash Conference devoted to nuclear disarmament will be held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in 2017. The conference will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Pugwash Conference, held
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs president. Paolo Cotta-Ramusino is the current Secretary General. The four Pugwash offices, in Rome (international secretariat), London, Geneva, and Washington D.C., provide support for Pugwash activities and serve as liaisons to the United Nations and other international organizations. There are approximately fifty national Pugwash groups, organized as independent entities and often supported or administered by national academies of science. The International Student/Young Pugwash groups works with, but are independent from, the international Pugwash group. Pugwash's first fifteen years coincided with the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Vietnam War. Pugwash played a