Opinion: Governments should turn to academics for advice on radicalisation, religion and security

Tristram Riley-Smith (Department of Politics and International Studies) discusses how universities and academics can add insight and depth to national security decisions. In August 1939, the operational head of Britain's Government Communication and Cypher School, Alistair Denniston, wrote to the Foreign Office about the need to recruit "men of the professor type" into the wartime code-breaking hub at Bletchley Park in order to help combat the Nazi threat. Following the horror of marauding attacks in Paris , the British prime minister has announced he will be recruiting a further 1,900 personnel to the Security and Intelligence Agencies. "Professors" may also be able to add value to these organisations and wider society. The government should not forget the wealth of talent available within our universities to offer insight and depth to the judgments of decision-makers. In my capacity as champion to the Partnership for Conflict, Crime & Security Research, I organised a workshop recently where four leading academics discussed how best to get research on religion and contemporary security challenges in front of politicians, policymakers and the press, to help them deliver better service to the public. The academics were historian of Muslim thought Robert Gleave; Kim Knott who researches ideologies, beliefs and decision-making; Peter Morey who explores trust between Muslims and non-Muslims, and John Wolffe who works on the interface between religion and security.