On 13 September 2023 the Alternative Security Review project team had the opportunity to share their aims, methodology and findings with a global audience of scholars and practitioners at the annual Conflict Research Society (CRS) conference at King’s College London. The conference brought over 200 academic conflict researchers together with practitioners from government, military and civil society.
RS Coordinator Richard Reeve presented on the objectives of the project and its mixed methods research plan as well as how RS connected the academic research to the policy community and its need for narratives of security.
Dr David Curran, the project’s Principal Investigator at Coventry University Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), presented some of the findings of research on how people across the UK understand and define security, including from representative public opinion surveys, a public call for evidence, and interviews with security policy-makers.
Zsófia Hacsek of CTPSR also discussed the Citizen’s Engagement dimensions of the project, including use of the Photo Visualisation participatory research methodology and plans for Citizen Social Scientist training.
A separate workshop on the first day of the conference, also organised by CTPSR, discussed the use surveying as a research tool in conflict and security research, drawing on the RS report by Lillah Fearnley, Thinking Inside the Box: How opinion polls shape security debates and policy in the UK.
Full findings from the project will be shared and published by Rethinking Security over the final quarter of 2023.