The conference provides a unique opportunity to engage with a lot of high-quality academic research in behavioural science related to national security and law enforcement challenges, both from within the CREST network and from other domestic and international researchers. Outside of presentations there are great opportunities to engage with academics and other government employees about specific behavioural and social research projects and wider activities.

The Conference will focus on topics related to the broad themes of Geopolitical Insecurities & Instabilities; Identify, Investigate, & Intervene, and Community Resilience. An additional Science that Shapes Security non-theme option is available for papers that consider areas of importance to national security, but which fall outside of our broad themes. 

Key themes include:

• Geopolitical Insecurities and Instabilities: This theme considers the geopolitical dimensions of security threats. This includes how a changing geopolitical picture can shape state and non-state actors’ beliefs and behaviours and the processes that generate and inform responses to security threats. It also considers how these dynamics are informed by socio-cultural, historical, and geographical factors. 

• Identify, Investigate and Intervene: This theme considers how we can effectively detect, understand and respond to security risks at an individual level. This includes the examination of actors’ beliefs, motivations, and behaviours, and how practitioners can better assess these to prevent, counter or deter ongoing activity.  

• Community Resilience: This theme considers the role of key actors, such as service providers, community leaders and the public, in protecting against online and offline harms, and how this can be achieved effectively and in collaboration. It considers the mechanisms through which these effects occur, such as social cohesion, trust and interoperability, and whether the absence or break-down of these mechanisms can have the counter-effect of amplifying threat. 

• Science that Shapes Security: CREST welcomes papers that inform security thinking and responses, but which do not sit neatly within the other themes. Papers may highlight methodological innovation, theoretical development, and interdisciplinary insight. Contributions may draw on new research methodologies or emerging technologies that open new directions for understanding security challenges. 

CREST encourages submissions from all disciplines, especially underrepresented but cognate fields, including computational science, data analytics, linguistics, and law. You can find out more about the conference and book tickets via the CREST website