As we approach the end of the year, it’s a perfect time to reflect on what we’ve achieved in the past 12 months at the King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence (KCSI), in what was also the Centre’s first year. From many exciting events and important publications to engaging with the wider community through social media and our newsletters, 2024 has been a brilliant year of growth and connection. In this short post, we’ll look at some of the key highlights and accomplishments for KCSI this year.
What's new?
2024 saw the introduction KCSI Insights, our Centre’s new blog for intelligence and international security, designed to showcase insightful contributions from KCSI academics, doctoral students, and associated practitioners. Although our members have already been contributing to the study of intelligence through external publishing platforms, KCSI Insights allowed us to publicise our own contribution more clearly. The journey of KCSI Insights began just three months ago, but we’ve already published the sixth post with many more fascinating Insights on the way in 2025.
We have also recently launched the KCSI Newsletter to share updates on upcoming events, recent publications, media appearances, Insights posts, announcements and more. The Newsletter reaches over 1,000 people, and that number is growing. If you are not a subscriber of the KCSI mailing list yet, you can subscribe by contacting us.
KCSI’s social media presence expanded in 2024 by joining Bluesky in August. We’re proud to be among the pioneering institutions specialising in intelligence studies to join Bluesky. We had only a few followers back in November, but now more than 2,300 people follow us. We will continue to share the latest updates through LinkedIn and X(Twitter) in addition to Bluesky. Please follow us on social media to stay in the know.
KCSI in numbers
Our members have contributed to the study of intelligence with 35 academic publications in 2024 (such as journal articles, books, chapters, etc.), 29 media items, 6 blog posts (since September 2024) and 23 events. The themes of publications - as demonstrated through the word cloud below - and events demonstrates the diversity of interests held by KCSI members, covering topics from intelligence history and covert action to the emerging trend of artificial intelligence.
Word cloud of publications by KCSI members
Beyond academic discussions, our members actively connected with the wider community through diverse forms of non-academic publications, including blog posts, media outlets, and podcasts. These outputs play an important role in moving intelligence-related discussions out of the academic environment, making them accessible to a broader public audience.
Over the course of 2024, KCSI organised 23 internal and external events attended by hundreds of academics, students, public audiences, and practitioners. These events provided excellent opportunities for building social networks, fostering fruitful discussions, and bridging the missing dimension in different fields and practice. Our aim with these, as stated in our mission statement, is to make the ‘secret’ world of intelligence more ‘open’ and accessible for everyone.
We are reaching as many people as possible through different communications channels. Nearly 20,000 people follow the recent news from the KCSI through our social media accounts. The traffic from all over the world to the KCSI website - as shown in the map below - highlights our growing global reach. We’re very pleased to see that our events and publications are not only followed within the UK or Global North. This motivates us to build new networks interested in the future of global intelligence studies.
Active users by country
What's next?
As Sir David Omand highlighted in his KCSI Insight post, 2024 proved that the King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence is providing instrumental contributions to the field and reframing debates. We’ll strive to continue to do this with more publications and events in 2025.
Follow our social media channels (Bluesky | LinkedIn | X/Twitter) and sign up for our mailing list to keep up-to-date with the latest news from us.
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