National Security Through Partnership: Building Bridges between Research, Policy & Practice

The key question underpinning the "National Security through Partnership" Fellowship is: how can we promote better engagement between National Security stakeholders - policy-makers and practitioners - and academia?

The project divides into two phases, with the possibility of overlap to allow early gains to be made:

Exploration (months 1-4):

- Through series of interviews and workshops with stakeholders in Government, Academia and (if appropriate) Industry, we will establish an understanding and a critique of the existing arrangements for National Security engagement; relevant HMG CSAs and Global Uncertainties Fellows & Principal Investigators will represent an important source of insight here, as well as such centres as Imperial's Institute for Security Science & Technology, KCL's War Studies Department, St Andrew's Centre for the Study of Terrorism & Political Violence, Durham University's Global Security Institute, UCL's Jill Dando Institute of Crime & Security Science, and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies at Queen's University Belfast.

- We will gather ideas and proposals for new and better mechanisms for engagement: seeking insight from social science knowledge being developed in, for instance, Cambridge University's Centre for Science & Policy and Centre for Business Research; looking at alternative models practiced by National Security allies overseas - eg American, Dutch and German; and learning from approaches taken by researchers working other public service sectors (such as DEFRA, BIS, DECC and the Department of Health); we hope to commission a literature review conducted by an MSc student at the Aberdeen Business School, supervised by Professor Adam Ogilvie-Smith;

- An interim report will be produced as the first output, at the end of this phase, for a cross-section of opinion-formers in Government and Academia (including key players in the Global Uncertainties Programme), and this audience will be represented at a Workshop that considers the findings and discusses next steps; this workshop itself will represent an early pathway to impact, building networks and establishing a community with shared interests.


Piloting (months 5-12); informed by lessons & insights from Phase 1, our Placement Fellow will:

- Trial at least two pilots, which seek to deliver one or more of the following benefits:
o ensuring that research & training is problem-based
o linking research expertise to end-users through co-design, co-production and co-delivery of research
o enabling end-users to support the transformation of early-stage research into products and services
o more strategic co-operation between end-users and scholars leading to aligned activities with shared goals
o shared horizon-scanning activities that identify and help end users to respond to emerging challenges.


- Evaluate pilots and share lessons with wider National Security networks; one option is to discuss these at a William Pitt Security Seminar at Pembroke College, Cambridge;

- In a final output, review and evaluate the project and produce recommendations for "Next Steps" in a final report, to include an application - if appropriate - for follow-up funds for CSaP to support future implementation.

Who? Beneficiaries can be categorised under three broad headings (recognising that some of these will derive direct and early benefit from our project, eg through participating in workshops and extracting value from new communities of interest):

- National Security stakeholders, including:
o Security and Intelligence practitioners (inc police & armed services)
o Home Office and MOD policy-makers
o Department for Transport policy-makers and advisers
o Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure
o Office of Cyber-Security and Information Assurance
o Private sector operators of the Critical National Infrastructure.

- The whole range of researchers supported through the Research Councils, whose research contributes to National Security, as well as those - such as Cambridge's Centre for Business Research - involved in exploring ways of extracting benefit from research and innovation.

- Industry and Financial Sector
o Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (eg those spun out of universities)
o Seedcorn, Venture Capital and Private Equity funds supporting National Security sector.

Citizens of the UK, and the world beyond, will benefit indirectly from any improvement in the contribution that research makes to people's security. The British economy could benefit from growth and exports deriving from a flourishing SME sector serving National Security customers; and British companies benefit from enhanced security measures - such as cyber-security - protecting their staff and assets (including, notably, Intellectual Property).

How will they benefit from this research?

- National Security stakeholders will benefit through gaining access to the tools, techniques, knowledge and understanding that derive from enhanced engagement with researchers in the UK

- Academics benefit from seeing enhanced impact deriving from their research; with the chance, in some cases, for wealth to be generated through the commercialisation of their intellectual property

- Industry and the Financial sector benefit with new markets being developed and with innovation being de-risked through improved communication between entrepreneurs and National Security stakeholders.