The Intelligence College in Europe offers to intelligence officers of member countries a range of specific courses and education training developed in close partnership with academia, to help build better mutual understanding.
The College’s Academic Programme does not promote a single vision, but can facilitate contact with different strategic cultures and completes training offers developed at the national level.
The Academic Programme aims at providing flexible and professional training to College Members. The courses are organised in modules and meet the concrete needs of intelligence professionals.
It exists in two formats: a yearly Executive Education Programme and postgraduate courses.
During the academic year 2023/2024, five sessions of the Executive Education Programme were successfully organised, gathering almost 180 participants. Six postgraduate courses have been conducted, engaging over 150 participants.
The academic network is growing year after year. It consists for now of 36 academic institutions, academies, universities and think tanks from 18 different member countries.
For the first time, on May 13th, ICE hosted a landmark promotional event in Brussels for “The Routledge Handbook of Disinformation,” a collaborative academic work produced by three members of its academic network.
The second ICE Academic Conference, held in Salamanca in June 2024, marked a significant advancement in collaboration, setting new cooperative directions and operationalizing the academic network. During this event, the ICE Academic Advisory Board was established, an academic working group was formed, and several practical initiatives were agreed upon. These developments underscore ICE´s commitment to strengthen collaboration within the academic network of security and intelligence services in Europe.
Last academic programme
Spain Leads Flagship European Intelligence Training Programme
In 2024, Spain, holding the presidency of the Intelligence College in Europe (IntelCollege), addressed a key need raised by the College’s Steering Committee: ensuring that intelligence officers are equipped to understand European structures and to support EU security and intelligence agencies.
To meet this challenge, Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) launched a high-level postgraduate course in partnership with the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and its renowned Luis Ortega Álvarez Center for European Studies. Delivered in a hybrid format—combining online sessions with in-person classes in Toledo—the programme offers participants an official certification aligned with the European Bologna Framework.
Following the success of the inaugural edition, Spain repeated the initiative in 2024. The second course concluded on Thursday, 11 September, with a certificate ceremony and keynote address by the Secretary General of the CNI, who personally underlined the importance Spain places on this initiative.
This programme stands as a model of cooperation between the intelligence community and academia, directly supporting one of IntelCollege’s core missions: preparing intelligence officers to work effectively together at the European level, whether in minilateral or multilateral formats.
As one of the College’s flagship training programmes, this demanding course fosters a shared knowledge base among participants, deepens their understanding of European institutions, and strengthens the personal and professional bonds that will underpin future cooperation across Europe’s intelligence community.
