What is the role of state and non-state actors in internet security decision-making and governance?

Internet security's increasing importance in state conflict, state antagonism and war activities, has easily catapulted cybercrime and cyberespionage at the forefront of the security dilemma. The security dilemma, i.e. the necessity of the states to increase their security, leading them to take actions that inevitably decrease the security of other states has manifested tenfold in the cyberspace arena. The significance of cyberspace is approached with equal amounts of trepidation and reverence for the opportunities and threats it presents to the domain of state security.
As in traditional international relations theory, the creation of cyber security dilemmas does not lead to more security, but to less security, as state antagonism increases. This increased antagonism is compounded by the novelty cyber security dilemmas introduce in the form of cyberspace's de facto multi-stakeholder governance model system. In contrast to most other fields that pertain to state security dilemmas', the involvement and the cruciality of non-state actors for the conceptualization, development, running and regulation of cyberspace and internet security is the norm rather than the exception.
My doctoral research will ultimately argue navigate the tersely complex internet security landscape ultimately arguing that the de-facto involvement of non-state actors brings us to a monumental precipice in the present historical moment in regards to the regulation of internet security governance.
To this end, the doctoral project will focus on the following areas of research: a) the role of non-state actors on internet security governance, b) the politicization of decision-making fora, c) the role of the individual as a standard-bearer for his organizations positions, when participating in decision-making fora, d) the role of ideology in internet security governance, and e) state's inability to reach a consensus, when their interests are involved.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity will train over 55 experts in multi-disciplinary aspects of cybersecurity, from engineering to crime science and public policy.

Short term impacts are associated with the research outputs of the 55+ research projects that will be undertaken as part of the doctoral studies of CDT students. Each project will tackle an important cybersecurity problem, propose and evaluate solutions, interventions and policy options. Students will publish those in international peer-reviewed journals, but also disseminate those through blog posts and material geared towards decision makers and experts in adjacent fields. Through industry placements relating to their projects, all students will have the opportunity to implement and evaluate their ideas within real-world organizations, to achieve short term impact in solving cybersecurity problems.

In the longer term graduates of the CDT will assume leading positions within industry, goverment, law enforcement, the third sector and academia to increase the capacity of the UK in being a leader in cybersecurity. From those leadership positions they will assess options and formulate effective interventions to tackle cybercrime, secure the UK's infrastructure, establish norms of cooperation between industries and government to secure IT systems, and become leading researcher and scholars further increasing the UK's capacity in cybersecurity in the years to come. The last impact is likely to be significant give that currently many higher education training programs do not have capacity to provide cybersecurity training at undergraduate or graduate levels, particularly in non-technical fields.

The full details of our plan to achieve impact can be found in the "Pathways to Impact" document.