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Update from our External Champion
The last two months have been a period of consolidation as we have been laying foundations for our third year as Champion to the Partnership.
Two new funding calls have been announced under the Partnership's Conflict Theme, offering Interdisciplinary Innovation Awards and Interdisciplinary Research Grants for research spanning the remits of AHRC and ESRC. I attended a dynamic Town Hall meeting in Birmingham in July linked to these calls, and ran a number of mini-surgeries to explore ways in which I could help researchers connect with policy-makers and non-government organisations. Proposals are due to be submitted in October and a database has been established
to help facilitate networking opportunities between researchers and practitioners, with the hope this will lead to the creation of collaborative research groups.
We continue to support knowledge exchange between academia and the wider community. While our engagement with Government was constrained – for several months – by Election 'purdah', we are now up and running again, working actively to expand and deepen connections in this sector. This has included supporting the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism with their upcoming SBRI call on Digital Forensics, for which a briefing day
will be held on 14 September. I have also met with the Financial Conduct Authority, to explore ways in which the academic community can support their work, for instance, throwing insights from research into market abuse. We expect some exciting opportunities to emerge from this, later in the year.
We are busy organising two Policy Workshops which will take place in the Autumn. The first - led by four of our Leadership Fellows - will explore the role of religion in contemporary security challenges, drawing upon evidence from the Fellows research that can inform our understanding of how religion can both threaten and promote security. The second is co-hosted by the Knowledge Transfer Network and will bring together a small group of experts from the United Kingdom and overseas to discuss innovation challenges in cybersecurity.
We are also working closely with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) to support their Resilience Essay Prize, which is inviting entries on the topic ‘Resilience 2050: A Blueprint for the Future’. As External Champion, I am forming a small panel to judge entries in the Partnership's sub-category, which asks individuals and organisations to explore issues affecting a resilient critical national infrastructure in the age of the ‘Internet of Things’. I look forward to announcing our winner at the RUSI Resilience Conference
in October.
Finally, by the time our next newsletter is released, we will also have appointed a Research Assistant to undertake a three-month placement with BBC Media Action in London. While there, they will undertake essential work to help us improve our understanding of the effectiveness of strategic communication, independent media and media development in countering violent extremism and information warfare. At the conclusion of the placement, the Research Assistant will produce a report which will be used to inform policy thinking and, if appropriate, future research in this area.
Dr Tristram Riley-Smith
External Champion
 @PaCCSResearch
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Upcoming Events
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Digital Forensics Home Office – SBRI Call Briefing Event
Mon 14, Sep 2015
The Home Office is planning an SBRI call on the subject of digital forensics and how it is used to support serious crime and counter terrorism investigations. The call will seek innovative proposals to speed up the recovery and analysis of the high volumes of digital devices and data seized by law enforcement to identify material of interest to investigations. To support the call, the Knowledge Transfer Network will be hosting a briefing event to draw together a community of interested people to hear about the call scope, application process and requirements from users.
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Sustaining Resilience – The Need for a Long Term Vision
Mon 26 - Tue 27, Oct 2015
The Royal United Services Institute is hosting their 2015 Resilience Conference to discuss and debate approaches to resilience on both the national and international level. This includes exploring where the governance of resilience best resides, how can long-term resilience be financed, how ownership of risk should be distributed and the role academia can best play in researching the issues that will enable resilience to be best understood.
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ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime First General Conference
Fri 11, Dec 2015
The ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime are hosting their first general conference to explore the characteristics, resources, strategies and modus operandi adopted by traditional and emerging criminal organisations operating both at local and global levels, with a view to presenting both theoretical and empirical studies as well as making contributions to policy developments. Researchers, civil servants and practitioners are encouraged to submit relevant papers to forge a three-way discussion that moves beyond traditional academic debates.
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Partnership Researcher Dr Matthew Francis
Dr Matthew Francis is a Senior Research Associate at Lancaster University and the founder of Radicalisation Research. Radicalisation plays a key role in understanding and preventing terrorism, and Matthew's website gathers high-quality academic research on radicalisation and makes it easily accessible for policymakers, journalists and anyone else whose work deals with issues in this area. He also regularly writes for The Conversation and has recently published a
guide for schools dealing with radicalisation. He is also working on the Partnership-funded Leadership Fellow project that explores ideology, decision making and uncertainty.
Find out more about Radicalisation Research
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Latest Blogs
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A Lesson from History: The Dangerous Power of Idealism
By Professor Kate Cooper of the University of Manchester
When young people fall prey to adult handlers, or turn away from parents and teachers who ‘just don’t understand’, it is not always because they do not have strong relationships at home. A consensus is emerging among researchers that while young people’s receptiveness is sometimes rooted in a sense of alienation, a misguided sense of idealism often plays a surprisingly important part.
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How to embrace technology without dooming humanity to destruction
By Professor David Galbreath of the University of Bath
The world today is facing some serious global challenges: creating sustainable development in the face of climate change, safeguarding rights and justice, and growing ethical markets, for a start. All of these challenges share some connection with science and technology – some more explicitly than others.
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Cyber security innovation in the United Kingdom
By Dr Siraj Ahmed Shaikh of the Knowledge Transfer Network
Innovation is key if the digital economy is to thrive. Technology-driven and value-driven propositions make a compelling case for it. Innovation in the cyber security sector plays an important role to enable trust in our systems, secure our cyberspace, and enforce privacy. Ultimately, if we are to build a secure Britain we need to ensure a healthy ecosystem underpinning research, development and commercialisation for cyber security.
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Latest News
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Two new funding calls under Conflict Theme
The Partnership is now inviting proposals for two calls to support interdisciplinary and innovative research under its Conflict Theme. Interdisciplinary Innovation Awards and Research Grants will be offered, and the calls are intended to support research which crosses the remits of the AHRC and ESRC. There is a common allocation of £4 million for the two calls. The closing date for the submission of proposals is 22 October 2015.
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Conflict Theme Funding Call Network
To support academic researchers to explore possible collaborations for the Partnership's two funding calls under its Conflict Theme, a database has been established to facilitate networking opportunities between researchers across disciplines, and between researchers and practitioners. It is hoped it will serve as a platform for the creation of research groups leading to applications under each call. Offers for collaboration are now available to view in the database.
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Call for Papers for Resilience Essay Prize
The Partnership is supporting the Royal United Services Institute’s Resilience Essay Prize, which is inviting individuals and organisations to submit entries on the topic ‘Resilience 2050: A Blueprint for the Future’. As part of the prize, the Partnership is judging a category entitled 'A Resilient Critical National Infrastructure in the Age of the Iinternet of Things. Abstracts are due by 28 August 2015 and the winning entry invited to present the upcoming Sustaining Resilience Conference.
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Academic Advisory Group for Cooperation Ireland
The Partnership, together with Cooperation Ireland, is inviting expressions of interest from academic researchers to take part in a volunteer advisory group to support the work of Cooperation Ireland in reducing marginalisation and strengthening local communities. As a member of the Advisory Group, researchers will be consulted by Cooperation Ireland in an informal manner with the opportunity to to collaborate with other researchers across disciplines to achieve significant impact.
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