Professor Basil Germond SFHEA FRGS
Professor of International SecurityProfile
I am a Professor of International Security in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion and Co-Director of the University research institute Security Lancaster. My field of expertise is seapower and maritime security. I favour multi-disciplinary approaches across social sciences and beyond. My research on naval affairs and maritime security engages with public policy stakeholders and the wider public.
I joined Lancaster in 2011 as a lecturer and was promoted to senior lecturer in 2015 and to chair in 2022. Prior to my coming to Lancaster, I was Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford (Changing Character of War programme) and Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. I got my PhD from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.
Research Overview
I am a seapower and maritime security expert. My research is cross-disciplinary and aims at understanding human, social and political interactions at, from, within, and with the sea. I privilege mixed methods and approaches, ranging from corpus linguistics to content analysis to the application of IR theories. My specific research interests cover the concept of seapower, maritime security, maritime strategy and geopolitics, the maritime/naval dimension of Global Britain, ocean governance, climate change dimensions in maritime security, and frontiers in IR. I have developed cross-disciplinary research within social sciences (e.g. linguistics, human geography) and beyond, notably with marine science.
The journals in which my research has recently been published reflect my cross-disciplinary approach to ocean studies, e.g., Territory, Politics, Governance, The Australian Naval Review, Climatic Change, The Geographical Journal, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Marine Policy, Science of the Total Environment, European Foreign Affairs Review, Global Policy.
My research engages with, and informs, public policy stakeholders (see for example the I gave to Parliament in May 2022 on questions of maritime security, the I gave in May 2023 on Arctic geopolitics and polar research, the I gave in February 2024 on freedom of navigation, as well as the I submitted in 2021 to the Defence Committee of the House of Commons on the Navy's future, and those I co-submitted to the House of Lords regarding ). My research recently informed the Defence Committee's on "The Navy: purpose and procurement" as well as its March 2022 on "The use of the military to counter migrant crossings". In 2023, my evidence on the geopolitics of the High North were cited/quotes 11 times in the Scottish Affairs Committee's on "Defence in Scotland". In 2021, I informed the Department for Transport and the EU Council on the climate change-maritime security nexus (click to access the underlying research).
My research also engages with the wider public (see for example my June 2021 in The Conversation about the HMS Defender incident, my September 2021 about AUKUS and Global Britain for the Council on Geostrategy, and my November 2021 article for The National Interest on ). I have recently written on the maritime and naval dimension of the Ukraine war (see for example my in the Conversation as well as my and ). I have frequently contributed to engaging the wider public with questions of international security via the Conversation, of which . I have featured, among others, on BBC News, BBC Radio, NBC, RTE, France 24, Businees Insider and the Economist. I have also contributed to raising awarness of the importance of the sea in the local community (e.g. and I organised in Morecambe funded by the ESRC Festival of Social Science).
I am a member of the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science () with projects on maritime security narratives as well as the in collective imaginaries, of Security Lancaster, of which I am the Co-Director, and of the Centre for War and Diplomacy (CWD). My research and engagement contribute to the University's interdisciplinary initiative in Security and Protection Science.
Current Research
1) Within the Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS), ESRC-funded, I have worked on the EU's 'comprehensive approach' narrative, and I currently work on climate change and maritime security narratives as well as on the representation of the sea in British media (see the ). I am also co-authoring a book on Britain, Europe and Brexit: A Corpus Linguistics Approach (Bloomsbury, 2024) with Helen Baker, Vaclav Brezina and Tony McEnery.
2) My new monograph (McGill University Press, 2024) discusses the concept and practice of post-modern and neo-modern seapower. I work on the evolution of the practice of seapower towards a more collective and civilian application of seapower (see for example my recent analysis of ).
3) I am currently working on the conceptualisation of ocean governance and the placefulness of the sea, and the implications for the discipline of IR and Human Geography. See my latest article on the media representation of the sea published in the and in .
4) I work on an inter-disciplinary project on the dependencies and synergistic links between climate change and maritime security (IR and natural/marine sciences). I have advised public policy stakeholders at the UK (e.g. House of Lords, House of Commons, DfT, Navy), EU and UN levels on these questions. I currently work on a of the question. My research on this topic with A.D. Mazaris has been cited in the (Working Group II: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability).
5) In the context of the 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, my research informs stakeholders as to the role of the sea and seapower for Global Britain. I developed the concept of collective and corporate seapower (see the of the expert panel discussion at King's College). I also applied this concept to the case of the Ukraine war and the role played by .
6) Within Security Lancaster, I work on the maritime dimension of security, including its cyber dimension (click to listen to my , and to read on the ) and critical maritime infrastructures (click to read my op-ed on and defense).
Qualifications
I have an interdisciplinary UG degree (4-year licence) in International Relations (political science, international history, international economics, international law), a 2-year master degree in History and International Politics and a PhD in International Relations (Geneva). I also have a PG Certificate in academic practice (Lancaster) and I am a Senior Fellow of the HEA (SFHEA). I have a level 5 certificate in leadership and management. I am a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS).
Professional Role
I have extensive experience in academic governance and leadership, both in teaching & learning enhancement and academic standards & quality assurance. I held several departmental positions: Director of Postgraduate taught studies, Director of Distance-learning, Admission tutor in IR, and programme director in IR. From 2018 to 2022, I have been a member of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ Senior Leadership team and a member of the University Standing Committee on Academic Regulations. Externally, I have represented the University on AHRC NWCDTP and ESRC NWSSDTP Training, Employment and Knowledge Exchange (TEKE) panels and I have been the ESRC NWSSDTP Institutional Politics Pathway Rep/Lead (2018-2022).
Current roles and external affiliations
-Co-Director of the University Research Institute Security Lancaster. My missions are to increase the social science dimension of our work and our engagement with policy stakeholders.
- Member of the University Data Cyber Quarter (DCQ) Advisory Group, as part of Lancaster's Security and Protection Science initiative.
- Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS).
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
- Associate Researcher, the Pierre du Bois Foundation for Current History, Switzerland.
Current Teaching
My approach to teaching is multi/inter-disciplinary across the Arts and Social Sciences, in particular International Relations theories, foreign policy analysis, security studies, current history, human geography, and discourse analysis. I embrace blended approaches to teaching, including synchronous and asynchronous distance learning.
In 2023/24, I teach 'Seapower and Maritime Geopolitics' to our Part 1 students.
In the past academic years, I have taught modules on International Relations and Security, Foreign Policy Analysis, Quality Assurance in Higher Education, and Qualitative Research Methods, in addition to supervising UG, PGT and PGR research projects on a wide range of International Security topics.
PhD Supervisions Completed
PhD projects
-Andrew Taylor (viva 2017), Maritime Strategy in the Era of Control and Denial of Visibility, ESRC funded, Forthwith award of PhD. Andrew is currently Teaching Fellow at King's College, London.
-Lee Turpin (viva 2017), Developing and utilising a Realist-Constructivist analytical framework towards understanding the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy, ESRC funded.
-Wasiu Balogun (viva 2018), Crude Oil Theft, Petro-Piracy and Illegal Trade in Fuel: An Enterprise-Value Chain Perspective of Energy-Maritime Crime in the Gulf of Guinea, PTDF funded, Co-supervised with Dr Marsden.
-Wai Shun Chan (viva 2020), Bringing the Ports and Port Diplomacy Back-in: A Comparative ذكذكتسئµ of the Role of Hong Kong, Macao and Shanghai in Contemporary EU-China Relations.
-Emma Williams (viva 2020), Ecological Civilisation: Identity, Power and Status, Faculty funded, Co-supervised with Dr Nordin and Dr Chubb.
Internship projects
-Jess Hindley (Summer 2022), The Impacts of Climate Change on Maritime Security: A Systematic Academic Review, funded via PPR undergraduate research internship scheme.
-Kyle Westrip (Summer 2023), Decolonising Seapower: A ذكذكتسئµ of non-European Texts, funded via PPR undergraduate research internship scheme.
Master projects
Since 2011, I have supervised in excess of 50 MA dissertations.
PhD Supervision Interests
I am happy to supervise projects related to my field of research (c.f. above), in particular on maritime/naval affairs; ocean governance; the concept of seapower; climate change and maritime security; the maritime dimension of Global Britain; IR theories in a cross-disciplinary setting. I am open to inter/cross-disciplinary projects including (but not limited to) international relations, political science, security studies, history, human geography, corpus linguistics, and marine science.
01/02/2024 → 28/02/2027
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Election to learned society
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Appointment
Centre for War and Diplomacy
Centre for War and Diplomacy
- Centre for War and Diplomacy
- ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science
- Richardson Institute for Peace Studies
- Security Lancaster (Policy, Law and Ethics)
- Security Lancaster (Security Futures)
- Security Lancaster (Societal Threats)