Message from the Head of College: September 2025

It's springtime in Canberra, and September has suitably been a month of thriving and striving at the ANU National Security College.

While working through a time of change in our institutional environment, we've focused on delivering major programs, including another of our core executive courses for EL2 Australian officials. We delivered another round of the McCain Institute National Security and Counterterrorism Fellowships, a prestigious Five Eyes program for next-generation leaders, and made good use of our distinguished visitor Nick Rasmussen in sharing his expertise with our own academic students and wider audiences.

We provided close support as a platinum sponsor of the 2025 Australian Crisis Simulation Summit, an extraordinary student-led program developing young Australians for careers in policy and security. Our innovative program for schoolteachers, Evidence for Educators, has crossed a new threshold through the establishment of a formal partnership with the ACT Office of the Board of Senior Secondary Studies (BSSS).

Our community consultations continue apace. Colleagues in recent weeks have fanned out across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, seeking a wide range of views on what matters for a secure and resilient Australia. These have included engagements across politics, industry and the wider community, including sport. Last week, for instance, colleagues met Kieren Perkins, Chief Executive of the Australian Sport Commission, to better understand the role of sport in social cohesion and other security-related issues.

We are still very keen to hear a broad range of views on national security. Our submissions portal remains open until the end of this month, so please spread the word and encourage your wider networks beyond government to share their views with us.

I also had the opportunity to promote our Community Consultations project at the Chief of Army symposium, where I joined Duncan Lewis in conversation about national preparedness and resilience. In another sign of the College’s trusted engagement with the Australian Defence Force and its Indo-Pacific partnerships, my colleague Danielle Ireland-Piper was invited to observe a bilateral military exercise in the Philippines, which generated valuable insights.

My own wider outreach and research this past month has taken me to some of Australia's valued partner nations in Europe and Asia. I had the privilege of lecturing at Seikei University in Japan, alma mater of the late Abe Shinzo, as well as presenting Australian strategic perspectives at conferences in Berlin and Helsinki. In Finland, I observed urban combat training for conscripts and advanced collaboration between our College and the National Defence Course, a world leader in providing whole-of-nation education in national security.

This builds on discussions in Canberra earlier in the month with visiting Finnish Secretary of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs, Pasi Rajala, whose podcast interview gives some stark insight into the way Europe is facing up to a new era of power politics, and the lessons for Australia.

In closing, my congratulations to a respected member of the wider NSC family, our Distinguished Adviser James Renwick, on his appointment as a Judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.