The New Security Challenges Programme is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and will support 40 research projects over a five year period, beginning in 2003.

The impetus for NSC predated the impact of the attacks of September 11th 2001 on the United States. Many researchers argued that the period since the end of the Cold War had been a fruitful one for thinking about a broader agenda in security issues, both conceptually and in policy terms. In some ways that agenda might be seen to have narrowed since 9/11, but this Programme has been open to a wide range of thinking about the nature of security, insecurity, who is secure, from whom or what, when, where, and how.

The research projects have been commissioned over three phases. The first phase were those commissioned under the ESRC's initiative on the Domestic Responses to Terrorism. The next phase of commissioning took place over the course of 2003. Ten large projects and eleven smaller ones were selected from a huge range of submissions. The detail concerning those commissioned projects can be found on the Research Projects page.

The final round of commissioning began with submissions in July 2004. Eight smaller projects were commissioned in October; another eight larger projects in early summer 2005. For more information see here.

Under the auspices of the Programme, a number of researchers collected key media reports of the move to war in Iraq in 2003, and these have been archived for the general use of researchers: http://www.iraqwararchive.org/

We welcome feedback on this site and on the Programme, please see our Contact Us page or contact the Programme Director, Professor Stuart Croft.

The Economic and Social Research Council is the premier funder of social science research in the United Kingdom. If you would like to find out more, please see the ESRC website.