College Academic Award : summaries of the First Prize and the two Honourable Mentions.

Giacomo Leccese (LUISS Guido Carli University, Italy) for his essay: “The Sea’s Signature: Turning Oceanographic Data into Intelligence for Underwater Infrastructure Security”

SUMMARY: "The article examines how civilian oceanographic sensors can support intelligence collection for the protection of critical underwater infrastructure, focusing on three core challenges—detection, attribution, and intelligence sharing—identified by the academic literature as the main problems that hybrid threats pose to this activity. It adopts a counterfactual analysis to assess how the use of such sensors might have influenced intelligence collection in three attack scenarios: the weaponization of civilian vessels, interference by submerged vectors, and cyberattacks. Beyond addressing a pressing European security issue, the study contributes to the literature by exploring the role of Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) in infrastructure protection and by focusing on the underexamined civilian dimension of this intelligence collection discipline."

Clara Grothe (University of Leiden) with her essay “Who is to blame for Germany’s shock? Assessing the role of the intelligence-policy nexus in the failure to predict the Russian invasion of Ukraine”

SUMMARY: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 exposed Germany’s lack of preparedness and prompted major policy changes under the Zeitenwende. This essay examines how failures in the relationship between policymakers and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) contributed to Germany’s inability to anticipate the invasion. Drawing on the performance criteria of Ikani et al. (2022), it argues that weaknesses in the intelligence-policy nexus, particularly policymakers’ limited responsiveness to intelligence assessments, undermined Germany’s ability to act on early warnings. The essay concludes by identifying lessons for strengthening intelligence-policy relations and preventing similar failures in the future.”

Anonymous student (University of the Bundeswehr, Munich) with his essay “Missing in (discursive) action - What exactly is a method in intelligence analysis and why is there a need for more precise definition?”

SUMMARY: “Despite vast amounts of literature about intelligence analysis methodology, there is no common comprehensive and precise definition of “method” in the field. By discussing the use of the term “method” in publicly available journal articles as well as authoritative monographs and anthologies, the essay develops the main argument that there are currently at least three different concepts associated with the term: 1) method as an organizing process, 2) as operations conducted on raw data, or 3) as cognitive exercises to support the critical thinking of the analyst. Based on these categories, the essay argues that a proper distinction of these different meanings of the term is necessary to improve the quality of intelligence analysis, given the assumption that analytic quality ought to be judged by the proper application of methods and not solely by the measurement of analytic outputs.”