IWP 716
4 credits
Qualifying students have the opportunity to participate in an intensive, four-week program of lectures and seminars on intelligence and security issues at the University of Cambridge in England. The Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi) launched the International Security and Intelligence (ISI) Programme in 2016, which is run in partnership with the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
This unique opportunity provides an unparalleled opportunity to work with leading academics and practitioners from western intelligence and security communities in the historic setting of one of the world’s foremost universities. Western Democracies face diverse and complex challenges which preoccupy the highest levels of government, industry and civil society. Themes to be explored will include:
- threats posed by nuclear proliferation, radicalisation, acts of terrorism, and regional insecurity;
- the claims of state secrecy, the role of intelligence and security agencies in a democratic society, and the intelligence-policy interface;
- the challenges posed by cyber operations and malign influence operations;
- various mechanisms of intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination, liaison relationships, counter-intelligence, and covert action.
Teaching is modelled on interactive and participatory learning – as offered by the University of Cambridge – and the pace is set by lectures and seminars designed specifically for this programme. The academic highlight is small-group supervision of individual research projects by experts in the relevant fields. The cultural and social highlight is the experience of life in one of the University’s older colleges.
All participants will attend the annual ISI conference, Intelligence and National Security in a Changing World. The Conference brings together speakers and delegates from governments, security agencies, academia and business to explore a wide range of contemporary security-related issues. ISI also offers a busy and varied social and cultural programme which takes advantage of all that Cambridge has to offer.