The study will aim to identify the current state of knowledge related to each sub-theme, identifying existing research strengths and knowledge gaps. Given that UKRI seeks to take a systems view of its proposed research themes, the study will also explore the interdependencies between sub-themes. Note: AHRC has agreed to pay 100% of project costs of GBP 48900 (see resources summary)

In December 2014, RUSI launched a Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research to develop a world class research agenda that meets the needs of policymakers. With the support of government agencies and Research Councils UK, RUSI is eager to build the momentum behind the Strategic Hub to overcome the fragmented knowledge base on organised crime and contribute to policy solutions. The increased visibility of organised crime and the recognition of the cost to the UK has resulted in new strategies to respond to criminal activity. The Home Office has developed the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy and established the National Crime Agency. The new strategy takes a holistic approach to organised crime, seeking to Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare. Despite renewed energy to combat organised crime, significant knowledge gaps remain. The 2011 Home Office report, 'Future Directions in Organised Crime Research' recognised that the understanding of the scale, impacts, costs and victims of organised crime was inadequate, and an understanding of the individuals engaged in organised crime, including their relationships and the markets they operate within, was lacking. The report pointed to the need to evaluate existing interventions to address organised crime, to develop a better evidence base around drivers, and understand the changing nature of organised crime and future areas of concern. Academic research on organised crime has been expanding, which provides an avenue to fill some of these knowledge gaps. Without being driven by a particular policy agenda, academic researchers have the freedom and flexibility to engage with a wide variety of areas, determining which areas are important and warrant further investigation. The emphasis on empirical data provides rich and detailed analysis of how organised crime manifests in different environments, who is involved, and the tensions that arise within organised criminal activity. While organised crime is a growing area of research for academics, much of the research that has emerged is disconnected from the needs of policymakers. Policy development and scholarly analysis proceed on different tracks. The freedom that underpins academic research can mean that it is disconnected from the needs of policymakers. Instead research may advance theoretical debates which do not enhance responses to organised crime. As a result, there is much to be gained from a dialogue between the two. Academic analysis can improve approaches to organised crime, and provide a deeper understanding of the phenomena, while policymakers and practitioners elucidate problem areas and where further analysis is required, ensuring that academic investigation has a significant impact. RUSI is well positioned to bridge this gap. With a strong research background and an extensive network of academics working on organised crime, RUSI is engaged in and connected to the growing body of academic research in this area. RUSI also works closely with government agencies addressing organised crime, ensuring a detailed understanding of policy needs. The Strategic Hub was launched at a conference on 8 December 2014, bringing together policymakers, practitioners and academics to discuss the challenges they face and where further research and analysis is needed. The conference generated an enthusiastic response, and RUSI has created a database of over 200 academics, 65 policymakers and 25 practitioners working on organised crime. This proposal is seeking support to maintain the momentum of the Hub and continue to build the network. With support from the ESRC, RUSI will build the network and through a series of workshops and other events, transform existing academic research into useful products for policymakers. The Hub also seeks to influence further academic research to ensure it meets policy needs. Additional funding will be sourced from other funders to pursue specific research projects that emerge from the Hub.

What is meant by 'international intervention'? What are we trying to achieve, and who is the 'we' in this context? Are we guilty of assuming that everyone who talks about intervention is using the same language? Do we understand sufficiently well the full range of ways in which outside actors, usually powerful countries in the North, intervene in response to situations of crisis and conflict, usually in the poorer countries of the South? Are there unexpected consequences of intervention, should they be unexpected, and are interveners' expectations realistic in the first place? Do we appreciate the perspectives of those 'on the receiving end' of international intervention compared to those of the outsiders who intervene? These and other questions will be addressed by a three year series of multidisciplinary seminars that will bring together a wide range of practitioners, policy-makers, and private sector organisations with an interest in international development and peace support interventions. The seminars will draw on the perspectives on intervention of different groups of people: academics for whom it is a subject for scholarly research, government officials who have to determine how to intervene to deliver specific policy objectives, and practitioners who are themselves interveners but who may have a different perspective on whether intervention is a good thing or not and whether it is carried out well. Understanding the position of government officials, NGOs, the UN, the military, and other government agencies must be the starting point for any exploration of this topic. By bringing together representatives of these different stakeholders the seminar series will provide a unique platform for the development of a holistic approach to studying international intervention. Each seminar will focus on a distinct dimension of this topic and consider it from two separate but related angles: - How do the various theories of intervention in International Relations and other disciplines compare with the practice? - How do perceptions of intervention differ depending on whether one is an intervener or a target for intervention - and on where one sits in the sub-groups belonging to both categories? Areas to be covered include: - Frames of reference that can be used to develop a more comprehensive understanding of intervention; - How Northern governments decide to intervene; - How new technologies influence these decisions; - What can be learnt from the stories about intervention that are told in art and literature 'on the receiving end'; - Whether policy and practice regarding intervention are sufficiently sensitive to issues of gender, given the weight currently attached to 'women, peace, and security' as a guiding principle for intervention; - How stability and resilience can be built in societies affected by crisis. The series will conclude with a results and findings conference bringing together the conclusions from the series as a whole. In order to understand the view from 'the receiving end' the individual seminars will include invited speakers from different countries affected by intervention. Their participation seeks to establish a dialogue between interveners and intervened upon. It will also help to shape a new research agenda that is sensitive to competing interests and policy agendas on the ground. The main aim of the project is to provide an evidence based framework for decision-making about when and how to intervene based on a more mature appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, including the likely consequences of intervening or not intervening. The project will generate new topics for academic research, which in turn will play a key part in delivering this policy outcome. The series as a whole aims also to establish a collaborative network of academics, practitioners, and policy-makers who can continue to work on these issues once the series has concluded.

This project addresses a fundamental aspect of 20th century globalisation that has been almost entirely ignored by scholars: the transmission, circulation and reception of values, cultures, and beliefs between what western contemporaries called the 'Second' and 'Third Worlds'. Following the Second World War, the countries of eastern Europe radically recast their global role by re-imagining their relationships with Africa, Latin America and south-east Asia. They developed new forms of global knowledge and new institutions to support a wide-ranging program of socialist 'export': theatre and film, economic and scientific expertise, humanitarian aid and political ideals-all were essential to eastern Europe's grand effort to translate 'socialist modernity' globally. The project also reshaped the 'socialist metropole', as post-colonial cultures were imported into eastern Europe through, for example, mass media, political solidarity movements, and the presence of 'Third World' students, workers and exiles. An international team of scholars will examine this critical Second-Third World encounter across a range of east European countries, from the Soviet Union to the GDR, providing an intricate regional mapping of the different forms and geographical foci of this transmission, and their varying impacts. How was the encounter shaped by Moscow, by Eastern bloc countries' specific national histories as colonisers or colonised, or by intra-bloc competition for influence? How did the interactions enabled by this encounter shape concepts central to 20th century history, such as development, political rights, modernity, mass culture, and race? What impact did the project of 'exporting socialist modernity' globally have on the experience of living under socialism, on transnational Cold War debates, and on the fate of socialist systems more broadly? This project has the potential to impact beyond its own temporal and geographical boundaries, not only opening out a new field, but also transforming established ones. Drawing in specialists on other world regions, this project's collaborative activities will offer new approaches to globalisation - notably around periphery-periphery interaction, and the circulation of ideas between non-western worlds. Moreover, it will transform dominant approaches to postwar socialism, the rise and fall of which has been studied largely in national or regional terms. Rather, the project examines the socialist world as a dynamic hub of global exchange. In addition, it makes a signal contribution to postwar European history, addressing the impact of decolonisation in a half of Europe previously ignored. This project will also deliver broader insights into the transfer of knowledge and practices. First, it provides a powerful lens through which to consider the relationship between 20th century political ideologies, the transfer/ circulation of ideas, and globalisation. Second, it develops approaches for, and collaborations with, other area studies: in so doing it helps to overcome the boundaries between regional specialists that inhibit understanding the history of a globalised world. Third, its concern with the relationship between authoritarian systems and the translation of values abroad, and between cultural transmission and political instability, has clear contemporary policy relevance, as 'soft power' politics (e.g. by Russia and China in the developing world) continue to play a major role. Last, through a BFI-run film festival and a proposed BBC radio series on 'red globalisation', scheduled to co-incide with the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, we will make a significant contribution to the development of a broader public understanding of how cultures reshape themselves in the process of translating values to, and from, other parts of the globe.

A spiralling crisis is unfolding in the Sahel - which extends from Senegal to Chad, and from the Sahara Desert to the northern parts of Nigeria and Cameroon. Violent extremism has been spreading through the West African region, fuelling humanitarian emergencies and political upheavals that have threatened recent democratic progress. Governance and security dynamics are closely connected, yet their mutual effects and the role of political elites in shaping these dynamics is still poorly understood. This project aims to identify ways to simultaneously promote security and democratic outcomes, through original and collaborative interdisciplinary research. This research will address how democratisation, security, and elite politics intersect in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria: three countries spanning across two conflict zones (the Central Sahel and Lake Chad Basin) and displaying distinct historical trajectories, but facing similar challenges to their security and democratic prospects. Drawing on the PI's experience of conducting comparative research in the region and the local knowledge and networks of three West African postdoctoral researchers and their home institutions (IGD in Burkina Faso, LASDEL in Niger, and the University of Ibadan's DPSHS in Nigeria), we will conduct qualitative research in these countries to investigate the mutual effects of democratisation processes and institutions, security approaches, and elites' political survival strategies, and the implications of these findings for domestic and international policymakers' engagement in the region. Based upon key informant interviews with politicians, civil society activists, military officers, diplomats, and other stakeholders, and content analysis of media reports, government communication, legislation and grey literature, the project combines in-depth case studies with a comparative approach cutting across linguistic cleavages (between Francophone and Anglophone Africa) and conflict zones (Lake Chad Basin and Central Sahel). In turn, the project's findings will contribute to the evidence base informing civil society groups' and international partners' engagement in the region. Building upon the existing connections between the PI and her institution, and highly-respected institutions including the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the UK and the Timbuktu Institute in West Africa, we will continuously engage with policymakers and practitioners - from domestic and international think-tanks to the UK's FCDO and the EU's EEAS - to maximise the impact of our research. Implementing this project will allow the PI to hone her leadership skills and consolidate her reputation as an expert in her field, with support from her mentor - Dr Ed Stoddard. In turn, she will support the career development of the researchers through mentoring and tailored training, provided in tandem with an advisor in each host institution: Dr Abdoul Karim Saidou (IGD, Burkina Faso), Dr Oumarou Hamani (LASDEL, Niger), and Dr Nathaniel Danjibo (University of Ibadan, Nigeria). The PI will produce a book manuscript, a journal article aimed at African Security, and two policy briefs in collaboration with RUSI and the Timbuktu Institute, with support from the postdoctoral researchers. The project will also lead to the production of three additional articles each written by a postdoctoral researcher, with guidance and contribution from the PI. Advisors in each institution will also have opportunities to contribute to the project's outputs. Findings will also be disseminated through workshops and webinars bringing together academics and policymakers, and major conferences in the UK and in Africa. Overall, this research will enable scholars, analysts, and policymakers to understand the mutual effect security and democratisation dynamics have on each other, ultimately contributing to addressing the challenges faced by Sahelian countries.