The Chief Executive and Commandant of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Major General Peter Rowell, MBE invites you to the Defence Academy Research Symposium 2025:
Integrated Warfighting
- Date: Wednesday 18 June, 1300 to Thursday 19 June, 1300
- Location: Shrivenham
Sign-up for the Defence Academy Research Symposium.
Includes an evening alumni event.
Themes:
- deterrence
- innovation
- leadership and culture
- recruitment and mobilisation
- artificial intelligence, and command and control
Event highlights:
- Advanced Command and Staff Course (ACSC) research sprints and Hacking 4 MOD
- keynote speakers and expert panel discussions
- senior military and civilian perspectives on integration and warfighting
Diary clash? Bring your meeting with you, and we can host it.
For further information, email: defac-researchsymposium@da.mod.uk
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The ACSC 28 research sprints leading to this symposium were launched on 28 May 2025, with each theme sponsored by stakeholders from across defence. During their research, syndicates were mentored by a subject matter expert and an academic from King’s College London.
Course members drew on their vast networks to interview and visit people from across the UK MOD, partner nations, industry and elsewhere, gaining a wealth of knowledge and information to inform their research.
Themes:
Deterrence and Warfighting
- What constitutes deterrence in 2025?
- Achieving deception in a transparent battlespace; lessons for Maritime, Land and Air.
- How do we use brinkmanship to bring success across the spectrum of conflict?
- Integrating Domains for the deep fight.
Artificial Intelligence and Command and Control
- C2 at the operational level against Peer competitors.
- AI application in operational planning.
- How should we develop command decision-making and campaign execution on ACSC?
Innovation
- How do we remove barriers to innovation in UK Defence?
- Armed Forces risk culture. How do we move from peace to warfighting?
- Maintaining the Operational Edge without the Technological Edge.
- H4MOD: From Lost to Found: Prioritising Reverse Engineering of Obsolete Parts.
- H4MOD: Safety First? Training for Weapons Usage on Operations OR From Bridge to Battle: Smarter C2 Solutions for Warships.
Leadership and Culture
- Warfighting and the Leadership Edge Framework.
- What is the role of PME in a peer-on-peer Warfighting context?
- How do we build resilience in our people?
Recruitment and Mobilisation
- Is the UK resilient enough to fully mobilise its reserves?
- Recruiting to warfight. What can we learn from other nations' approaches?
Hacking for MOD (H4MOD) is an innovative programme, originating at Stanford University in 2016. It gives students the opportunity to apply hands-on entrepreneurial and innovative methods to work on real-world government defence problems.
During the module students work in small teams to learn and apply lean start-up principles to a real-world UK defence problem. This learn-by-doing approach is critical to success in H4MOD and is the primary way students gain practice with the skills and concepts that H4MOD seeks to teach them, whilst offering significant value back to UK defence.
The Advanced Command and Staff 28 H4MOD cohort undertook research on the 9 problems listed below. The teams will be available during the Defence Academy Research Symposium if you are interested in learning more about their findings or experience.
| Problem title | Challenge |
|---|---|
| From lost to found: prioritising reverse engineering of obsolete parts | Chief of Defence Logistics Staff needs a way to review the large number of obsolete parts which are unavailable in the Defence supply chain in order to prioritise reverse-engineering and manufacturing the most critical parts to ensure equipment availability. |
| Safety first? Training for weapons usage on operations | Operations Officers onboard ships need a better way to train for weapons usage on operations while adhering to safety restrictions in order to greatly improve Naval warfare capability in a conflicted environment. |
| From bridge to battle: smarter C2 solutions for warships | Ships’ Commanding Officers (COs) need a better way to exercise Command and Control (C2) onboard warships in order to streamline communications in any conditions. |
| Invisible threats: addressing the human factor to novel weapons | Medical Capability Development Teams (MCDT) in frontline commands need a better understanding of novel weapons (NW) use, both present and potential, and the impact they have on the human, in order to better identify, prevent and treat victims of NW use. |
| Decoy dilemma: avoiding multiple sensory seekers | Carrier strike forces need a better way to use decoy capabilities to evade missile threats in order to counter complex weapons systems with multiple sensors and continue to defend platforms. |
| Mission possible: navigation in contested and extreme environments. | The UK Commando Force Programme Team (CFPT) needs to better understand and identify the most suitable and reliable methods of navigation within extreme climatic environments in order to enhance the operational capabilities if the UK Commando Force in increasingly contested environments. |
| Missile madness: countering mid-range drones at sea | Carrier strike forces need a better way to defeat Unmanned Aerial Vehicles/Systems (UAVs or UAS) in order to reduce expenditure on missiles while providing an effect at >10km range. |
| Make your mark: upscaling RAF targeting for global readiness | Air Officer Commanding 11 Group needs a better way to maintain and scale target-generation capacity in order to ensure Defence has a robust and effective targeting capability to support future conflict. |
| Deep decision-making: empowering the future submarine command team with Advanced Insights | Submarine Command Teams need a better way to understand and exploit increasing volumes of tactical sensor data in order to enable improved situational awareness and better strategic decision-making. |
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