Security in Scotland, with or without constitutional change
ESRC
The ESRC is offering funding for three UK postgraduate students to attend all six security seminars, which run from September 2013 to September 2015.
This seminar series will explore the implications of Scottish independence and constitutional change for security governance in Scotland and the UK. The seminars will span the referendum date, producing independent research evidence to inform policymaking and public debate in advance of the vote and in response to the outcome.
The seminars will bring together speakers for research and knowledge exchange from the intelligence and security community, UK Government departments with security competences, parliamentary committees providing security oversight, EU institutions, Scottish Civil and Parliamentary Services, Scottish Government, political parties, local government and the Police Service of Scotland. A team of academic security and constitutional experts will facilitate the seminars and provide independent intellectual input and synthesis, supplemented by invited speakers from the UK and comparative European countries. For more information visit: http://wp.me/p2nD2X-1N
Seminar titles:
1) October 2013: Assessing security governance in the UK and Scotland under current arrangements.
2) January 2014: The threat environment of the UK and Scotland in the context of the UK National Security Strategy.
3) May 2014: The foreign policy and comparative aspects of security governance for the UK, Scotland and its neighbours.
4) September 2014: Current and prospective accountability and oversight arrangements in the UK and Scotland.
5) January 2015: The security governance implications of the referendum outcome: independence or interdependence?
6) May 2015: Lessons from the series for understanding security governance. Future research programmes, maintenance of links and dialogue, and project outputs.
Postgraduate funding:
– Three postgraduate researchers will be selected to participate in the series on the basis of the quality of their research and its relevance to the seminar themes.
– Candidates should currently be undertaking a PhD or postdoctoral research in the UK.
– We will offer the selected candidates travel and accommodation costs (as appropriate) to the six seminars in Edinburgh from anywhere in the UK.
– We will ask the three selected candidates to make presentations on a relevant topic in the final seminar. We may also ask for some basic help with research assistance and organisation for the seminars.
– Our intention is that the postgraduate presentations will form the basis of journal articles, which we will offer to supervise, edit, and include in any collective outputs of the series if appropriate.
Interested candidates should send a one-page summary of their research and a CV to andrew.neal@ed.ac.uk by Friday 6th September. Selected candidates will be informed by Monday 16th September.
Other postgraduates and academic researchers may be able to attend the seminars as appropriate, unfunded and space permitting.
