Masters in Contemporary Security and Defence

ongoing

This design measure grant application aims to facilitate the preparation of an Erasmus Mundus application to create a new European Master Degree in Contemporary European Security and Defence (CESD). CESD will be the first Master programme that is tailor-made—from its administrative structuration to its pedagogical vision to the student’s final thesis—for a focused depth of understanding on pressing contemporary European defence and security issues. We are at a crucial point in the history of European security and building defence capabilities. CESD aims to train first-rate scholar-practitioners ready for careers in the private, public, and academic sectors. With insecurity surrounding the continent and Europe’s traditional security guarantor pivoting its attention towards Asia at best, and disengaging from Europe altogether at worst, European countries are being forced to rethink their defence in the broadest sense. From shifting strategic cultures to investment in the arms industry, from cross-border logistics and thinking about (reinstating) the draft, European countries are rethinking their defence and security from the foundations up. But while European defence spending is on the rise and will have to rise further to address the challenges ahead that can be identified and those that cannot be identified yet, it is dealing with an ageing working population, a tight labour market and few professionals trained to deal with complicated security and defence issues. CESD will train future professionals and enhance the knowledge of mid-career practitioners in both the public and private sectors and educate future academicians in highly relevant contemporary European security and defence issues. The entire focus—from the first conversations among consortium members to the vision of the Master programme to the final focus on graduating students at the forefront of the field—is to prepare students for a lifelong engagement with contemporary security and defence issues.