“The Intelligence College in Europe : does it contribute to trust building in European intelligence cooperation?”

In its 7 th year of functioning, the Intelligence College in Europe has the pleasure to see published by Dr Artur Gruszczak, Chair of National Security at the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the very first exhaustive study on the College. Well known academic authority in Intelligence Studies, interested in European intelligence cooperation, European and transatlantic security, Professor Gruszczak has published, among others, a reference book on “Intelligence Security in the European Union: Building a Strategic Intelligence Community” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

In his new academic study, published online (first) the 28 Apr 2026 in the “Intelligence and National Security” review, he examines the objectives, activities, and outcomes of the Intelligence College in Europe from the perspective of reciprocal trust-building, a topic of utmost importance in intelligence partnership & exchanges.

It focus itself on the College’s efforts to bridge the gap between the intelligence community’s culture of secrecy and the culture of openness found in academia and civil society. The paper adopts a neo-functionalist framework to argue that trust-building through the IntelCollege has involved intelligence stakeholders in a heterogeneous organisational network aimed at fostering trust and mutual confidence. This synergetic, education- and professionalisation- driven approach seeks to enhance intelligence cooperation in addressing security risks and threats facing European states and societies.

This first comprehensive (2019-26) and exhaustive scientific research, covering the intelligence training aspect but also the thematic seminars and the outreach activities (Pilar 2 of the College) is based on a 360-degree approach, i.e. interviews with senior ICE officials, with representatives of EU and national intelligence authorities, as well as a survey conducted among scholars with expertise in international intelligence cooperation.

As demonstrated by Professor Gruszczak at the end of his study, the initial reservations expressed by certain national counterparts and international organisations have been overcome and the Intelligence College in Europe’s position “as a credible institutional entrepreneur” is now well established. The College has strengthened its reputation and trustworthiness “as a networking platform, enabling participants to exchange experiences and identify best practices.”

The IntelCollege has made progress “through careful and balanced propositions directed at state intelligence services as its primary stakeholders. Over time, it has developed a credible formula for strengthening intelligence cooperation, (…). This could serve as a valuable example of trust building in international intelligence cooperation.”

If you want to dig in :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684527.2026.2664489

The Intelligence College in Europe participated for the third time in the international Paris Defence and Strategy Forum, organised by the Defence Academy of the École militaire (ACADEM). This forum, which follows on from the more nationally oriented event La Fabrique Défense (LFD), where the Intelligence College was also present, gained increased significance this year.

We took part in this international event organised by our ACADEM partner through three academic activities:

On 24 March, to mark the entry of the French Ministry of Defence think tank IRSEM into our academic network and to promote our European academic network ahead of our upcoming Munich academic conference, we organised an academic roundtable entitled “Intelligence failures: how to avoid or address them”. It was moderated by Dr Clément Renault (IRSEM) and featured three specialists in the field: Dr Dan Lomas (University of Nottingham and the Oxford Intelligence Group), a specialist on the Butler Report on the Iraq War; Professor Philippe Silberzahn (Emlyon business school), author, inter alia, of "Constructing Cassandra"; and Dr Bjørn Grønning (NORIS), author of one of the most recent non anglo-saxon studies on 16 cases of intelligence failures, published by Edinburgh University Press ("Contemporary Intelligence Warning Cases").

https://youtu.be/qItICyj6gEA?si=dQLV1bDfbvDQdIhO

On 24 and 25 March, as has been the case since 2022 (LFD, then PDSF 2024, 2025 and 2026), the winners of the Intelligence College-supported Lithuanian outreach initiative “Intelligence Officer for a Week” were invited to the forum. Since its inception, the College has been part of the selection board and provides the first prize in order to support and promote this excellent initiative. The Lithuanian intelligence community and the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, led by Dr Margarita Šešelgytė, offer students the opportunity to discover the work of an intelligence analyst - an excellent outreach initiative that could be extended to other countries.

Presentation of the College and its activities during an interview conducted by Etienne Girard (L’Express) in the “Café stratégique” session on 26 March.

https://youtu.be/blCFEkqaUkA?si=SUGlYHxliW_4h7Qv

In 2025, we delivered the same number of activities, with as a highlight the keynote speech by Dr Gerhard Conrad on the challenges facing European intelligence, ahead of the ICE German Presidency.

The Intelligence College was pleased to welcome a significant number of colleagues and partners from intelligence services and academia, and to showcase its achievements - particularly in the academic field - which will culminate in June 2026 in a major academic conference in Germany and the first-ever European Intelligence Prize. The strong attendance at our roundtable, with a fully packed Castex conference room, clearly demonstrates the growing interest in a European intelligence culture.

Since the beginning of 2026, the ICE Academic Network has continued to expand and has welcomed new member countries and additional institutions from countries already represented in the Network.

We are pleased to welcome Switzerland as our 19 th Academic Network member. The Network has also been strengthened by the addition of the OSINT Centre of Excellence from Croatia and IRSEM from France. Austria has also significantly strengthened its academic presence within the Academic Network through the addition of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and
Security Studies (ACIPSS), Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz.

From 3 to 5 February 2026, the first “Security and Intelligence Awareness” course took place in Brussels, following a pilot session held last year.

Building on participants’ feedback and the observations of the course organisers, an enhanced version was developed, adopting a more direct and pedagogical approach centred on a clear message: because of our access and responsibilities, we are all potential targets for hostile services or organisations. How do they operate? How can an approach be identified? How can we protect ourselves? Who should be contacted in case of doubt?

The decision to deliver a more pragmatic and purposeful course, focused on highly practical guidance, proved particularly relevant. The programme was met with outstanding success, as reflected in the very positive feedback received from participants.

The College extends its sincere thanks to its partners — the Mihai Viteazul National Intelligence Academy (ANIMV) in Bucharest and the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) — without whom this initiative would not have been possible. Thanks are also due to all speakers from the European institutions and the College’s academic network.

We look forward to welcoming participants again in the second half of 2026 for the next edition.

On Wednesday, 18 February 2026, the Intelligence College in Europe Permanent Secretariat (ICE PS) had the pleasure of welcoming the management team of the OSINT Centre of Excellence in Zagreb to its Paris headquarters, led by its Director, Dr Tomislav Dokman.

Although the OSINT Centre of Excellence has only recently joined our 46-member academic network, it has been actively engaged with the Intelligence College for the past two years, taking part in several conferences and events. The Centre is also among the regular contributors to the annual Intelligence College “SIAC Analytical Course”, delivered to new intelligence officers joining the EU Strategic Intelligence Fusion Centres (EU INTCEN and EUMS INT), brought together under the Single Intelligence Analytical Capacity (SIAC) partnership.

This visit between colleagues and friends provided an opportunity to review the Centre’s most recent support to ICE activities, including contributions made in January, to take note of the strengthened academic programme, and to explore new, practical avenues to further develop our long-standing cooperation.

Hvala lijepa !

As part of Germany’s Presidency of the Intelligence College in Europe in 2026, the Permanent Secretariat was pleased to welcome, on Friday 16 January, the new Director General of Germany’s Federal Internal Service (BfV) Mr Sinan Selen.

The visit provided an opportunity to reaffirm Germany’s strong commitment, both in general and through the BfV in particular. This support is reflected in staffing contributions and regular training courses and is further highlighted this year through Germany’s Presidency of the Intelligence College. The President also reiterated the importance of strengthening multilateral cooperation not only at the operational level, but also through strategic dialogue and broader operational exchange, facilitated by the platform the College provides to its European members and partners.

This Presidency includes seven seminars and events throughout the year, including a seminar hosted by the BfV and an Academic Conference. It will also coincide with the election of the College’s first non-French Director. This milestone marks the full maturation and shared European ownership of a project initially launched as a French presidential initiative following the Sorbonne Speech of September 2017, and which has since developed into a lasting, fully European endeavour.

The Permanent Secretariat, and its leadership in particular, warmly thanks the President for his visit and looks forward to working together throughout Germany’s 2026 Presidency.

The ICE Permanent Secretariat warmly congratulates Dr. Lucia Frigo on the successful completion of her PhD thesis, completed in November 2025 at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research explores the timely and highly relevant issue of Euro-British foreign intelligence cooperation in the context of Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with a particular focus on trust and network power in times of crisis.

Please find the abstract below:

Euro-British foreign intelligence cooperation through Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – trust and network power in times of crisis.

This work investigates how the United Kingdom (UK)’s relationship with the European Union’s framework for foreign intelligence sharing adapted in the decade between 2016 and 2025, through momentous changes such as Brexit and Russia’s war in Ukraine. The goal is to understand the extent and effects of these transformations on the EU intelligence network and on its ability to respond to external threats. To address this puzzle, two questions are asked: how have the relationships between British and EU polities, organisations, and practitioners adapted to these crises on a more granular level? And how well do the current intelligence-sharing channels satisfy the parties’ cooperative needs? 

Dr Frigo adopts a socio-relational perspective to conduct a longitudinal network analysis of EU intelligence-sharing in three phases: pre-Brexit, post-Brexit, and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By presenting the UK as a node in the EU’s deeply interconnected network, Dr. Frigo examines the UK’s changing power in the network, but also the ways in which the relations between London and the network’s hubs (such as IntCen, EUMS INT and SIAC) responded to the transformations. This highlights the key role of trust in intelligence cooperation and offers insightful explanations as to how the network adapted to changes through formal and informal cooperative avenues. 

The interdisciplinary study, sitting at the crossroads of International Relations and Law, rests on novel empirical data gathered in 31 elite interviews with current and former intelligence practitioners, diplomats and experts from civil society (from the UK, the EU and its member states). The interview data is then triangulated with desk research conducted on publicly available data. The results challenge the widely held assumption that nothing would change with Brexit, since intelligence was never an EU competence and state-to-state relations would survive unscathed. Instead, this thesis highlights the changes in the UK’s network power, both with regards to the influence of its classified intelligence and to the circulation of its expertise and know-how. At the same time, and from a legal perspective, the study reveals the difficulties of ensuring adequate accountability and oversight when cooperation between the EU and the UK (now a third party) takes place through such informal avenues, and especially in times of crisis. 

While bilateral relations and other, non-EU initiatives such as the Intelligence College in Europe (ICE) ensure that the UK remains central in its cultural role, the British influence in the network is also maintained through the lower-level relations, namely the inter-personal and interorganisational ties. These relationships, resting on a more reputational interpretation of trust, grant flexibility and resilience to the network. In practice, they ensured that the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was concerted and collaborative even in the absence of an arrangement on EUUK foreign security cooperation. However, whilst these lower-level channels allowed timely cooperation in the short term, the thesis warns about the perils of overly relying on organisational and personal connections in the long term. Analysing the EU-UK Security and Defence Partnership of May 2025 and confronting it with the interviewees’ demands for the future of intelligence cooperation, Dr. Frigo finds that much remains to be done, at the inter-polity level, to offer stability in the long-term relationship. 

The thesis’ contribution to the discipline is thus threefold. Empirically, it offers a precise and comprehensive explanation of how the UK’s role in the EU intelligence-sharing network adapted to recent developments, and of how these affected the network’s responses to external threats. Theoretically, this project offers insight on how intelligence alliances overcome crises, through an innovative approach that can delve into the specificities of micro- and macro- cooperative dynamics while subsuming them rigorously in a holistic network perspective. Its socio-relational approach challenges the still dominant neorealist school of intelligence cooperation, revealing the importance of factors such as trust in evolving intelligence alliances. Finally, and based on novel interview data, the thesis offers policy recommendations for the future of the relationship, contributing to inform future negotiations.

Thesis Summary Dr Lucia Frigo (PDF)

The Permanent Secretariat of the Intelligence College in Europe welcomes the start of the German Presidency of the Intelligence College in Europe and its theme, “Intelligence and Science”. Please find here the Presidency letter from Philipp Wolff, Coordinator of the Federal Intelligence Services and Head of Directorate-General 7 at the Federal Chancellery.

Norway is honored to hold the presidency of the Intelligence College in Europe (ICE) for 2025. This comes at a time when our collective security is being tested by increasingly complex and evolving threats.

A key priority for Norway is countering terrorism and violent extremism. Like many nations, we have experienced their devastating impact. These threats demand sustained attention, strategic foresight, and international collaboration.

As part of our presidency, we hosted the thematic seminar Tackling Terrorism and Extremism in Europe – Challenges, Strategies and Best Practices in Oslo on 1–2 October 2025.The event brought together 80 participants from 20 ICE member states, fostering dynamic discussions and cross-border learning.

The aim of the seminar was to raise awareness on trends, share academic insights, and strengthen policy development. We were proud to welcome speakers from Norway, the UK, Germany, France, Portugal, Sweden, Europol, and the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, reflecting the depth of our collective commitment to security and intelligence cooperation.

The seminar aimed to focus on emerging trends. Key topics included the shifting threat landscape in Europe, rising polarization, far-right extremism, the role of social media and emerging technologies like AI. Furthermore, the radicalization of minors was addressed.

Discussions emphasized the implications for intelligence and security services, highlighting actionable strategies to address the current problems. Cooperation among various sectors and services remains essential to succeed in preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism. International cooperation is highly important.

This has truly been a collaborative effort, and we are very grateful to our ICE colleagues for all their support in making this a successful event.