Thank you for following the work of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs.
The Annual Report of SCGA activities for 2023-2024 is available online and to download at https://scga.scot/2024/12/12/scga-annual-report-2023-24/
SCGA is now open to accepting external submissions of work on global affairs for publication. Submissions must be policy relevant, based on high quality research, cover a global affairs topic (broadly defined), and at least one author must be based in Scotland at a Scottish Higher Education Institution, think tank or NGO. Submissions by PhD students are encouraged, as are submissions by researchers outside of academia.
For more details see the SCGA web-site page.
Annual funding call
The following projects have been successful in the 2024-2025 call for proposals issued by SCGA:
· How inclusive is the revolution in Myanmar?
· Young People in Criminal Justice (see 28 March event below)
· Women, Peace and Security in the Age of Fragmentation
· Migrant Worker Support Project
· Pax Caledonia: Mapping Scotland’s Counterterrorism Priorities
· International Procedural Law Research Hub
· The future(s) of Europe
Coming up:
International experiences with children in conflict with the law – 28 March
Workshop in person at Edinburgh University; co-hosted by CISRUL – University of Aberdeen, Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures and Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice – University of Strathclyde, and Change for Change. Funded by the International Science Partnerships Fund and SCGA.
Events & outputs
How nations like Scotland and Ireland can provide a hub for discussion on international affairs
Scotland’s First Minister and the former Prime Minister of Ireland helped St Andrews celebrate taking over the chairmanship of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs at an event held in St Andrews on 6 February. John Swinney MSP and former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar joined Principal Professor Dame Sally Mapstone, at an event held in the School of Medicine’s Booth Lecture Theatre.
“The fact that three institutions – the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh – came together to found the Council is very good practice and not something I have seen in any other jurisdictions.” Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach from 2017-2020 and 2022-24.
Full video, podcast and further material available online.
As part of the transition of universities, an Early Day Motion was tabled in the House of Commons by Wendy Chamberlain MP, whose constituency includes St Andrews. The Motion recognises “the important role Scotland and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs can play in meeting current and future challenges to global security.”
Maintaining Ukraine’s resilience
“Russia’s war on Ukraine threatens the very existence of Ukraine as a state. To date, Ukraine’s leadership, its army, and its people have denied Putin his ambition. Western military and economic assistance underpins Ukraine’s success in defending itself and repelling Russia. However,the tipping point in this war has not yet arrived, and it has already exacted a heavy toll on Ukraine’s armed forces, its wider population, its economy and its infrastructure.”
The panel event took place on 16 January 2025, where experts discussed what support Ukraine needs to maintain its society and institutions in the face of Russia’s continuing war of aggression. This event was co-hosted by Chatham House, the United States Embassy in the UK and the SCGA, and the Governance and Democracy Research Theme of the University of Edinburgh’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for its partnership on this event and use of the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
Workshop Report: cross-border relief operations in situations of armed conflict
The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue organised a workshop on 25–26 November 2024 to examine the current legal framework governing humanitarian assistance in armed conflicts. A key focus of the workshop was the potential revision of a critical condition imposed by this framework: the requirement for the consent of the territorial state to conduct relief operations. Recent armed conflicts around the world, including those in Gaza, Syria, and Myanmar, have highlighted instances where territorial states have unlawfully withheld consent for the provision of humanitarian assistance.
Round table report: the future of Russia
SCGA convened a round table discussion focused on the future of Russia on 2 December 2024. The event brought together the ten fellows from the John Smith Trust 2024/25 cohort of the Leaders in Exile: Future of Russia Fellowship Programme with invited guests from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO),the Scotland Office, and the Scottish Government, alongside academics from the University of Glasgow.
Mapping Just Transition – From Concept to Practice
An SCGA Insight award enabled colleagues from the universities of Aberdeen,Dundee and Glasgow to map the evolving concept of Just Transition so as to elaborate the distinct features of Just Transition as a concept and to evaluate its application to transport as a case-study..
The Just Transition Research Cluster was established in the University of Glasgow’s School of Law in 2022 with the aim of building on various activities that were undertaken as part ofCOP 26 in Glasgow. The cluster members are: Iain MacNeil, Calum Stewart, Giedre Jokubauskaite, Vera Pavlou, Rebecca Williams, Katarzyna Chalaczkiewicz-Ladna and Mingzhe Zhu (all University of Glasgow), Daria Shapovalova (University of Aberdeen) and Sufyan Al Droubi (University of Dundee).
Podcast
Our “Global Conversations, from Scotland” podcast has further stories on A Global Perspective on National Security and The next 100 years of peace in the greater Middle East – Beyond the 1923 peace settlement and the reconfiguration of the East-West relations. The audio of the Leo Varadkar event (below) is also available.
Latest publications
Scotland’s Global Role in Outer Space Sustainability
This report is the result of a SCGA-funded workshop held on June 4 and 5 at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, which brought together policy makers, universities and industry to discuss Space Environmentalism and Sustainability in Scotland.
Networking nuclear research in Scotland and the UK
The study collates for the first time a detailed database of nuclear weapons policy expertise at UK universities, along with information about where those academics are based, what issues they research, and where courses related to nuclear weapons are taught.
Updates from colleagues
In October Dr Gail Lythgoe, University of Edinburgh,was one of the organisers of an event at the UN 6th committee on International Court of Justice Gender Parity.
https://www.un.org/en/ga/sixth/79/pdfs/events/25_october_2024_7cn.pdf
Dr Adam Bower, University of St Andrews, was, a residential Fellow at the Academy of International Affairs NRW in Bonn, Germany, as part of a thematic research group on “the geopolitics of outer space” from September-December 2024. Alongside research he co-organised and participated in a series of academic and policy-focused discussions, including a side event at the UN World Space Forum 2024.
Dr Claire Duncanson,University of Edinburgh, co-authored a report on Gender, the Environment and Security in Ukraine, for the British Embassy in Kyiv. Co-authored with Ukrainian feminist expert, Sofiia Shevchuk, the report aims to provide recommendations for the Ukrainian and UK Governments as they develop Ukraine’s forthcoming Women, Peace and Security Action Plan. The report is available here: https://wpshelpdesk.org/articles/gender-the-environment-and-security-in-ukraine/
In October 2024, Dr Gavin Sullivan, University of Edinburgh, was awarded almost £600,000 by UKRI for his Future Leaders Fellowship research project, Infra-Legalities:Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law,running until February 2028. In December 2024, Dr Sullivan was invited to present at a high-level meeting in Geneva,Switzerland co-organised by International Crisis Group and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, on the UN Security Council sanctions issued against Hay’atTahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria.
Social media
SCGA has suspended activity and engagement on the X platform.
Please follow us at https://scga.scot and:
https://bsky.app/profile/scga.bsky.social
