Course description
Course Summary
Taught by the internationally respected scholars of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, backed up where required by practitioner expertise, this MA offers a unique opportunity for practical, policy-oriented graduate study of intelligence issues. It will be of value to individuals seeking to go into security-oriented careers in both the private sectors, as well as to individuals engaged in the security professions who seek further qualifications and professional enhancement.
Course Details
The course is offered on either a full-time basis, taught over two terms and a dissertation during the summer, or part-time basis taught over four terms with the dissertation completed during the summer of the second academic year. Four out of six course modules are taught on the basis of lectures, seminars and directed reading, The second term Case Studies course is a student-led seminar programme in which participants present detailed case study reports on major intelligence successes and failures.
The second term Analytical Simulation Exercise will involve students in a simulated joint, all-source intelligence assessment modelled on the actual joint assessment processes in the US and UK governments.
The dissertation will consist of a directed research project supervised by a member of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies.
Course Modules
Intelligence Concepts: Theory and Policy
Deals with the essential concepts and issues of what intelligence is and its role in government and decision-making. It introduces the basic concepts of intelligence studies, the various sources of intelligenceintelligence available to national governments, and examines the analysis of those sources, sources of success and failure and intelligence needs in the contemporary environment.
Intelligence and International Security since 1939
Provides students with a historical overview of the role of intelligence in the international arena since the Second World War. The development of contemporary methods and institutions is traced from formative events during the Second World War, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War security environment.
Rise of the National Security State
Invites students to make a critical analysis of the power politics behind national security agencies and the intelligence community. Particular attention is paid to how the present system arose out of the security concerns at the very beginning of the Cold War.
Intelligence Agency and Community Management
Introduces students to the application of issues and concepts from management and public administration to intelligence and security agencies. The course commences with management issues in individual agencies, then looks at the control of national intelligence communities, and then finishes with an examination of political control and accountability issues.
Intelligence Failure and Success Case Studies
This course is intended to introduce students to case study methods, and take them through a series of case studies of key intelligence successes and failures. Students undertake their own intensive case studies, and also learn to perform 'devil's advocate' or 'red team' assessments of those case studies.
Analytical Simulation Exercise
ASE is the jewel in the MA/ISS crown. It provides students with an opportunity to undertake a simulated intelligenceIntelligence analysis on a real-world subject. ASE is designed to emulate the interdepartmental assessment methods of the British Cabinet Office Joint Committee, and gives students a chance to apply hands-on analytical principles and methods they have learned abstractly in the MA/ISS taught courses.
Dissertation
The final leg of the programme will be a supervised research dissertation of 15,000 - 20,000 words.
Special Features
Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies
Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies is Britain's first academic centre dedicated to Intelligence scholarship and policy-analysis. It includes one of Britain's most innovative scholars in the field, Dr Philip H J Davies, Senior Fellow John N L Morrison, formerly of the Defence Staff and Investigator for the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. MA/ISS, therefore, benefits from practitioner input and insight as well as instruction by leading international academics.
Assessment
All modules are assessed on the basis of coursework including individual essays, case studies and written and oral presentations.
Awards
A master's degree is awarded if you reach the necessary standard on the taught part of the course and submit a dissertation of the required standard. The pass grade for all modules and the dissertation is 50%. Students are normally required to pass all the required taught modules before being permitted to proceed to the dissertation. If you do not achieve the standard required, you may be awarded a Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate if eligible.
