2026 Defence, Security and Resilience
Challenge Overview
The contemporary strategy and security landscape is as challenging as ever: war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, a systemic climate crisis, technology, such as AI/machine learning offering hope but also significant concerns, and how all such security issues are represented accurately, or not, in the media environment - how do you know what to believe?
This interdisciplinary challenge takes a broad definition of security in a global context to assess a range of threats, challenges and, possibly, opportunities around the themes of defence, security and resilience. You do not need any prior subject matter knowledge for this challenge. Using the University of Exeter's own world leading academics, plus a special guest keynote speaker, you will explore security through the lenses of: contemporary war and conflict, technology including AI / Cyber, Climate Change and the Media, truth and security.
You will be taught critical employability skills including: team working, systems / design thinking, how to frame your solutions for policy makers, how to present, verbally and written, to policy makers including composing your own Ministerial Submission on a subject of your choice.
The world is full of wicked problems, come and join the Strategy and Security Institute's Grand Challenge to help you identify some of the things we can do to start to make a difference.
This challenge will be run on Streatham Campus.
Enquiry Groups:
With the Trump administration having been in power for over a year and a National Security Strategy issued in late 2025, how has it already shaped the international environment and how might the Trump Presidency further influence it until 2028 and beyond? What can we learn from how decision-making is made in Washington and being influenced by the MAGA constituency? In particular, this enquiry group will assess what are the implications for the UK and Europe and what lessons do key adversaries, such as China, Iran and Russia take away? Significantly, how might it react to President Xi’s statement that Taiwan should be part of China by 2027?
The Ukraine conflict and the situation in Gaza continue to dominate within national state and international institutions plus the media. Not even over the horizon are a plethora of emerging and overlooked conflicts ranging from the resurgence of ISIS to the brutal civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar. Actors, such as Turkey and the UAE, are increasingly prominent. Cuts in Western international aid programmes, particularly by the US, are potentially banking up humanitarian and medical catastrophes whilst, more widely, facilitating vacuums to be filled by Russia and China and others. This enquiry group will assess the root causes for this lack of internationalism and lack of real focus on more than a few main issues and, critically, what mechanisms could be put in place to rectify this?
Debates over the utility and dangers of enhanced development of AI, continue to dominate defence and security, from what may now seem traditional challenges, such as cyber-attacks, to human/AI interfaces and concepts of 'Super Soldiers', killer AI controlled drones, and energy weapons. The fears and opportunities of science fiction are already a reality for policy makers and warfighters to deal with. Moreover, how can we trust what we are told by governments, businesses and what we read on social media platforms? Information warfare is not new but is being used more centrally by states and non-state groups of people to leverage power and influence. From the use of deepfakes to intentional generation of 'narratives' and biased presentation of 'evidence' and the paucity of 'fact-checking', to apportioning responsibility and the challenge of holding states and peoples to account for their actions, this enquiry group will assess the critical importance of establishing the 'truth' in a defence and security context. Within this mix, AI is heightening these issues.
The 2025 UK Strategic Defence Review proposed a ‘Whole-of-society approach’ to defence, security and resilience (UK MOD SDR 2025) and in her first public speech (15 December, 2025) - MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli acknowledged the dissolution of older conceptualisations of spatial boundaries between war and peace and the dissolution of battlespaces by observing that '[t]he Frontline is everywhere'. What do these concepts really entail and what steps would need to be taken by the UK to enact them? Who would need to be involved? What is the threat environment? How will engagement be achieved at all varying levels? What can we learn from best practice in other NATO countries?
Climate change affects us all, from forced migration due to desertification and food shortages, from floods in the UK to Californian wildfires, from enhanced competition over access to food, water and other resources, and to the dangers posed by rising sea levels. However, the management and commitment by nations, and especially the US, appears to be receding, so this enquiry group could seek solutions on how to raise the profile and what might mitigate against this and what are the wider issues for the defence and security domains?
