Centre for Security Research

CeSeR

CeSeR is an interdisciplinary centre that aims to promote and link diverse forms of security research across disciplines

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About

Security was once a matter of war and international relations alone, but has become a pressing issue for potentially any area of research or policy. CeSeR connects the increasing number of University of Edinburgh researchers who work on security, from Social and Political Science, Law, Business, Psychology, Informatics, Divinity, History, Geoscience, Engineering, and elsewhere. CeSeR is based in Politics and International Relations in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh and was established in 2015.

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Research and knowledge exchange

Find out more about our research community, expertise and research projects.
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FPA Research Network

The group's aim is to provide peer support to staff and PhD students working on foreign policy research, from foreign policy analysis to political psychology and role research.

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People

Our Co-Directors, steering group and members.

Our news

News content

04/05/2022

CeSeR annual conference

We invite contributions to our annual conference on the theme of 'The Documents of Security'.
15/09/2021

9/11: Reflections on security 20 years on

A series of videos personal and professional reflections from CeSeR members on 9/11
31/08/2021

Parliaments and security conference 23-24 June 2021

CeSeR’s 2021 annual conference was on ‘Parliaments and Security’. While parliaments’ roles in security have often been neglected in practice and in scholarship, the importance of parliaments in security has received significant attention in recent years.
13/03/2021

Book launch - Security as Politics: Beyond the State of Exception

Andrew W. Neal argues that while ‘security’ was once an anti-political ‘exception’ in liberal democracies – a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state – it has now become normalised in professional political life.

Our events

Events content

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22 November 2022
17:00 - 19:00

Guantanamo's Legacy: From a Legal Black Hole to a Battleground in the Fight

Lisa Hajjar will discuss her new book, "The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture", with a particular focus on the legal battles over the treatment of people detained at Guantanamo. Hajjar will explain why hundreds of legal professionals were galvanised to defend the rule of law that was upended by the torture policy and enlisted in what turned into a war in court.
11 April 2022
15:00 - 16:00

How ISIS Fights: Nonstate Combat Effectiveness and its Future Implications

21 October 2021
15:00 - 16:30

PIR Book Launch: Arbitary States by Rebecca Tapscott

Launch of new book Arbitrary States, which draws on the Museveni regime’s governance in Uganda to understand contemporary authoritarianism
06 October 2021
15:00 - 16:30

Book launch: IR in a Post-Truth World