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
Scholarly Contribution: The Social Ties That Bind
The Social Ties That Bind: Trust & Cooperation in EU Intelligence
Traditional views on intelligence cooperation emphasize transactional exchanges—quid pro quo deals between states. But is that the full story? In his PhD research, Dr. Pepijn Tuinier, senior policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Defence and professor at the Netherlands Defence Academy, challenges this notion. His study reveals that social relations and trust play a far greater role in intelligence cooperation than often assumed.
As an active member of the ICE Academic Network, Tuinier explores how shared identities and personal networks foster cooperation within the EU intelligence community. Through in-depth interviews with senior intelligence professionals, he demonstrates that, far from being a shadowy world of secrecy and rivalry, intelligence services—like other organizations—thrive on interaction, goodwill, and mutual understanding.