Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security

Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security

Paul Cornish is Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Exeter and Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security. He studied at the University of St Andrews (MA History) and the London School of Economics (MSc International Relations) before serving in the British Army (Royal Tank Regiment) and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit). He taught international relations at several universities (Cambridge, King’s London, Bath, Exeter and the Australian National University) and held senior research positions at think tanks including Chatham House, the Centre for Defence Studies and the RAND Corporation (Europe). His main areas of research interest are international security, UK defence policy, the ethics of armed conflict and cyber security. He returned to Exeter in 2023 to develop a think-tank style approach to defence and security analysis, resulting in the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence & Security (CPUDS).

Deputy Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security

Professor Harry Pitts is Deputy Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence & Security. He is an Associate Professor in Political Economy and the Future of Work, and Head of Department for Humanities & Social Sciences on the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus in his hometown of Penryn. Previously, he worked at University of Bristol Business School and the University of Bath. He is a Co-Investigator of the UKRI Critical Minerals Challenge Centre and the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures, and currently leads a collaboration with defence prime Babcock on the project: The Next Line of Defence: Unlocking SME Potential in UK Defence from Policy to Practice.