ABSTRACT
National Security agencies and departments are perceived by academics as being over-secretive and impenetrable: it is difficult to reach relevant decision makers, and there is more ‘take’ than ‘give’. This chapter presents the insights from that year-long research, where a key input was over seventy-five interviews conducted with academics, Government officials and private sector representatives. It focuses on the experience of putting those insights into practice, as Champion of the UK Research Councils’ Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (PaCCS) – formerly known as the Global Uncertainties Programme. PaCCS has been instigated by the UK’s Research Councils to improve understanding of current and future security challenges. The US had its own champion of scholarship in the head of the Office of Strategic Services: William J. Donovan had a high regard for the professors in his Research & Analysis Branch, ‘placing them above diplomats, scientists, and “even lawyers and bankers”’.
