As we look back upon last year, we take stock of our achievements and we formulate our plans for the next. Our research portfolio is in a very good state, I believe. In 2023, we once again expanded our thematic scope while at the same we deepened our focus. Our portfolio currently covers a wider spectrum of the challenges that our societies face in today’s world, from great power politics and international security at the highest level down to the micro-fabrics of individual interactions that shape our everyday world from below. Our annual report offers you a comprehensive overview of the many issues we work on everyday: geopolitics, defence policies, coercion, emerging technologies, economic statecraft, climate change, cyber governance, societal security and public order.
Our mission is to inform public discourse, public and private strategic decision making and contribute to international and national security in accordance with liberal democratic values. In carrying out this mission we aim to deliver research of the highest quality. Some would say that quality lies in the eye of the beholder.
At HCSS we have formulated a number of criteria that our research products and services should adhere to in order achieve that goal:
- Clear Focus, Clear Argument and Clear Message
- Our products & services have a clear focus, express a clear argument, and contain a distinct message.
- Well Articulated, Well Written, Well Structured
- Our arguments are well articulated and presented in an intelligent fashion. This means that the writing is flawless, the style is accessible, and the structure is coherent.
- Evidence Based, Methodologically Sound
- Our products & services are based on empirical evidence; they are data- rather than opinion driven. We rely on sound methods to ensure that our results are reliable, valid, traceable, replicable, objective, and obtained in an ethical way.
- Creative and Innovative
- Our products & services are creative and innovative. They don’t repeat but challenge and complement conventional wisdom. They are thought-provoking and always offer something different, something new.
- Policy Relevant and Actionable
- Our products & services are policy relevant and actionable, whether they are intended for public sector policy makers, NGO advocacy specialists, or private sector executives.
Achieving that quality – or should I say: these qualities – requires dedicated work and a relentless focus on continuous improvement by a diverse team of people coming from a variety of cultural, disciplinary and professional backgrounds. In our team we have, amongst others, philosophers, economists, political scientists and data scientists, mathematicians, economists, and polemologists.
But it also necessitates constant experimentation and innovation, in order to test, mature, refine, and then deploy existing or novel analytical methods and techniques. I am proud to report that this year we added a range of analytical methods and techniques to our analyst toolbox. [And for the methodologically inclined amongst our readership: these include, but are certainly not limited to, unsupervised and supervised multilingual natural language processing techniques; structural and relational causal models for geographical and temporal data; optimization models for causal policy interventions; policymaker preferences elicitation protocols, amongst others, while we also tested how large language models can be deployed to support strategic analysis through taxonomy development].
We also struck up new – and strengthened existing collaborations with top notch institutions nationally and internationally, including, to name a few, the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Sciences (LIACS); the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute for Technology and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); The International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS); the CyberPeace Institute in Switzerland; and Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Last but not least: our team had an absolutely phenomenal output publishing in-depth research reports, shorter policy briefs, academic articles, book chapters, and books, as this annual report will attest to.
As we look forward, we expect another challenging year given the enormous geopolitical turbulence we do not expect to calm down anytime soon. We will be ready to offer more insight in the year to come.
Experts
Related Content
