Advanced Command and Staff Course - ACSC

The Joint Services Command and Staff College trains and educates UK officers from all three services and the civil service and civil and military students from 50+ other nation's armed forces around the world.  Our mission is to deliver first class education, which develops our people and our allies’ defence forces by giving them the skills they need to address future security and defence challenges at home and abroad.

The Advanced Command Staff Course (ACSC) represents a unique opportunity for both military and non military students with an interest or connection to the defence, national security or international relations fields, to study alongside military professionals in an open, enquiring and intellectually focused environment.

ACSC is a flagship course, running annually from early Sep to late July the following year (eleven months). 

The aim of the course is to cultivate officers and individuals for high grade assignments, including command by developing their effective intellect, with associated analytical decision making and communication skills, complemented by broadening of their professional knowledge and perspective through:

On completion, students should have developed a mind that is open, enquiring and confident of critically analysing information, conceptualising, effectively applying professional knowledge and offering original thinking.  This will foster an enduring capacity to make or support timely, logical and sound decisions that are cognisant of moral, ethical and legal considerations within a military context and in a demanding environment.

The Course is designed to reflect best practices in professional military and postgraduate education and provides a valuable insight for military OF4, civil servant B2/C1s and personnel at that equivalent level of management.  Centred on the military operational level of warfare, the Course provides a postgraduate academic level of study linked to King’s College London (KCL) Masters programmes.  In preparation for more senior appointments, the Course seeks to develop students’ intellectual appreciation of the major issues facing Defence in the political, international, financial and multi-domain contexts and the confidence to question and offer original thought.

Kings College London – Students have the opportunity to register for one of three masters pathways with King’s College London subject to meeting the requirements, a successful application and of course completion of the required academic submissions.  These pathways are:

• Master of Arts in Defence Studies 
• Masters by Research in Defence Studies
• Master of Science in Defence Innovation.