About
The Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), chaired by Sir Richard Dearlove, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, provides a unique link between the worlds of business, government and academia. With unrivalled expertise in security and intelligence issues, the organisation integrates long-term historical trends with the experience of security professionals to deliver prescient analysis of current and future threats to a range of clients and to its signature ‘International Security and Intelligence’ programme.
Commissioned analysis has typically been sought by clients requiring professional, up-to-the minute briefings focussed on specific regions or business sectors on which to base key assessments of future risks, options and opportunities. To achieve this, CSi has brought together bespoke teams of experts who, while varying in age, nationality and profession, share the ability to contribute significant, contemporary and often unique insights to written reports overseen, edited and signed off by the Directors. Recent clients have included UK and US government agencies, management consultants, international accountancy and finance firms. Looking forward, the work of the CSi is attracting strong interest from organisations with international interests in banking, law, infrastructure, energy and utilities. Subjects likely to be high on the agenda include the fast-changing situations in the Middle East, Russia and China and their neighbours, cyber security and the rise of extremism in Europe and security threats to the UK, Europe and the US.
On 17th October 2017 CSi was granted charitable status. The objects of the Charity are to advance education in relation to international security and intelligence issues by supporting graduate students studying Security and Intelligence related subjects in the Universities of Cambridge and London.
International Security and Intelligence Programme
The International Security and Intelligence Programme (ISI) has been organized and taught in recent years by many of the leading lights of CSi and underscores the organisation’s strong links with and commitment to academia. In 2017, CSi formed a partnership with the Department of War Studies at King’s College in the University of London, which sets the intellectual framework and provides academic validation for the programme allowing most ISI students to transfer credit back to their home universities.
ISI is a four-week university-level programme aimed at those with an academic or professional interest in intelligence and contemporary security threats. It offers a unique opportunity to work with leading practitioners and academics from the security and intelligence worlds. Chaired by Sir Richard Dearlove and convened by Professor Michael Goodman of King’s London and Dr David Gioe of Westpoint, the programme considers the claims of state secrecy; the threats of nuclear proliferation, cyber attack and terrorism; and the problems generated by the demand for regional security, of governing diversity and the impact of revolutions. Understanding intelligence collection and how it is used, counter-intelligence and covert action, what intelligence can achieve and its limitations are all major themes in this highly sought-after programme.
CSi Partners
Sir Richard Dearlove (Chair)
Richard Dearlove is the former Master of Pembroke College Cambridge. He served as Chief (known as ‘C’) of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from August 1999 until his retirement in July 2004. For the preceding five years he was Director of Operations and, from 1998, Assistant Chief. As Director of Finance, Administration and Personnel he also oversaw the move of SIS into its Headquarter Building at Vauxhall Cross in 1994. He is a career intelligence officer of thirty-eight years standing and has served in Nairobi, Prague, Paris, Geneva and Washington as well as in a number of key London-based posts.
Professor Stefan Halper
Stefan Halper holds doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge. He has served four American presidents in the White House and Department of State and is an expert on US foreign policy, national security policy, China and Anglo-American relations. Halper was Executive Editor and host of “Worldwise”, a national televised program on foreign and national security affairs from 1996-2000 and “This Week from Washington”, a national radio program aired from 1985-2001. He is a Life Fellow of the Centre of International Studies and a Life Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Dr Peter Martland
From a background in business history, Dr Martland specialises in intelligence and security studies. He is the author of six books and has contributed to many more, latterly in the field of intelligence and security history. He was part of Professor Andrew’s research team which produced the authorised history of MI5 Defence of the Realm (2009). He edits the Boydell and Brewer intelligence and security series. He has supervised generations of Cambridge undergraduate and graduate students and taught history, intelligence and security related courses at Pembroke College, International Programmes Department. He is a co-sponsor of the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.
Dr Alan Dawson
Between 2004 and 2014 Alan Dawson was Director of International Programmes at Pembroke College Cambridge in which role he created many of the programmes which have secured for the College an international reputation for academic enterprise, innovation and quality. Drawing students from leading universities world-wide, these programmes include the highly sought-after International Security and Intelligence programme which is taught and organised by many of those who are now associated with the CSi.
CSi Advisory Board
Professor Michael Goodman, King’s College, London
Professor Goodman is Professor of ‘Intelligence and International Affairs’ in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He has published widely in the field of intelligence history and scientific intelligence, including Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (2008); Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (2009); and Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (2011); The Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies (2014) and Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee (2014). He has also contributed articles to many academic journals.
Professor Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, FBA
Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of Contemporary History at Queen Mary, University of London and a Fellow of the British Academy. He spent his early career as political correspondent for the Times newspaper as a leader writer and Whitehall Correspondent, the Financial Times as its Westminster correspondent and the Economist. Lord Hennessy is the pre-eminent interpreter of the British constitution, cabinet government and intelligence communities. His many previous books include Cabinet (1986), Whitehall (1989), Never Again: Britain 1945-51 (1992), The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution (1995), The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (2000), The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (2002), and Having it So Good: Britain In The Fifties (2006). His most recent book is Distilling The Frenzy: Writing The History Of One’s Own Times (2012).
Professor Sir David Omand, GCB
After a distinguished government career in defence, security and intelligence, David Omand is now one of the leading figures in shaping public debate on national security. He was the first appointee, in 2002, to the re-vamped post of UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible for the UK’s national counter-terrorism strategy and ‘homeland security’. He spent much of his earlier career in the Ministry of Defence, including as Director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Deputy Secretary for Policy, Under Secretary in charge of the defence programme, and Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State. He also served for three years in Brussels as Defence Counsellor to NATO and for seven years on the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Sir David was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and is currently Visiting Professor at the War Studies Department, King’s College, London.
Lord Wilson of Dinton, GCB
Richard Wilson entered the Civil Service as an assistant principal in the Board of Trade in 1966. He subsequently served in a number of departments including 12 years in the Department of Energy where his responsibilities included nuclear power policy, the privatisation of Britoil, personnel and finance. He headed the Economic Secretariat in the Cabinet office under Mrs Thatcher from 1987-90 and after two years in the Treasury was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department of the Environment in 1992. He became Permanent Under Secretary of the Home Office in 1994 and Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of the Home Civil Service from January 1998 until September 2002. He was Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 2002-12. He remains actively interested in the contribution of academic research to policy making.
Sir Iain Lobban
Iain was the Director of the UK’s largest intelligence and security agency, GCHQ, from mid 2008 to late 2014, having previously served as its Director General for Operations from 2004. This represented a period of over ten years’ leadership of operational delivery in contexts as varied as counter terrorism; cyber defence; support to the military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; the prevention and detection of serious crime; and the development of an integrated service of intelligence and security. Cyber Security, both nationally and internationally, has been at the heart of his role in recent years. As the GCHQ Director he attended the UK’s National Security Council on a weekly basis from its very first meeting in May 2010 and was a Principal member of the Joint Intelligence Committee for over 6 years.
Dr Paul Martin, CBE
Dr Paul Martin is an adviser and writer on security, risk and behaviour. He was the Director of Security for Parliament from 2013 to 2016, with responsibility for the physical, cyber and personnel security of both Houses. For the preceding 26 years he was a government official working in the national security arena. His roles included heading a precursor to the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) and leading national security preparations for the 2012 Olympics. Paul was educated at the University of Cambridge and did his postdoc at Stanford University. Before joining government service in the mid-1980s he was (briefly) an academic at Cambridge and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He has continued to write about behavioural science and is the author or co-author of several books, including Measuring Behaviour, Counting Sheep and Extreme. Paul is an Honorary Principal Research Fellow at Imperial College London, Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI (Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies) and a member of the Board of the Charity Commission.