Seven Years of Activities and Research: Presented and Celebrated

Last month, we celebrated seven years of CDSN-ing.  Our seven year grant ends in March,* so we held a Symposium on Monday focusing on our various activities and we filled our annual Year Ahead conference with our research teams presenting the culmination of their reserach projects.

Both days were terrific, and overall, it was a blast, as I learned a lot and I enjoyed how much everyone appreciated all the work we all did over the grant's timeframe.   

Our first day started with a roundtable about partnership, appropriately enough.  We had speakers from across the defence and security community: Caroline Leprince of DND, Cesar Jaramillo formerly of Project Ploughshares, Adam McCauley of CANSOFCOM, and our Visiting Defence Fellow Shawn Guilbault.  We talked about the challenges of bringing together actors with different perspectives, what each needs from and contributes to our partnership, and how we can better bridge the various gaps.

The second session focused on our post-docs--formerly (or still) emerging scholars who spent a year at one of our research centres, receiving mentoring on their research as well as much professional development and networking.  Linna Tam-Seto and Thomas Hughes now co-host our Battle Rhythm podcast, Manu Ramkumar may be doing similar stuff in the future, and Sanjida Amin is our current post-doc.  It was great to hear what they got out of the experience with us, and I am grateful for the insights and energy they brought the CDSN.  

The third session focused on our podcast network.  We started out with just one podcast on someone else's network, and now we have seven programs on the CDSN podcast network.  So, we talked about what each program was trying to achieve and what they learned along the way.  I chatted with Hannah Christensen of the NATO Fieldnotes podcast, Frieda Garcia Castellanos of Bylines and Frontlines from Women in International Security-Canada, and ....  They came to the podcast network in different ways, so it was really interesting to learn what they had picked up and what they wanted to do next.

The fourth session featured the victims of our book workshops--emerging scholars who had their books collaboratively scrubbed by local colleagues and experts the CDSN brought in. Stephanie Martel, Sara Greco, and Thomas Hughes spoke about their experiences with Srdjan Vucetic moderating the panel.   

Our fifth session had our past and present Undergraduate Excellence Scholars discuss their experiences.  Our aim was to include undergrads from historically excluded groups more involved in our network and in the Canadian defence and security community.  Chimdinma Chijioke, Armon Jeffries, Stella-Luna Ha, and Bianca Siem did different things, some were more involved in our stuff, some less so, some have moved on to graduate programs in defence and security, others are now employed in this sector, and some found work elsewhere.  This effort was not part of the original grant, but became a key CDSN activity as we realized we could do more to help foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable network and community.  These folks proved that our modest investment was well worth it.

The last panel of the day focused on what the CDSN Co-Directors learned from seven years of partnership, research, and my nagging for reporting.  Anessa Kimball, JC Boucher, and Stefanie von Hlatky were instrumental in our success partly because none were shy about telling me and the rest of the team what we could do better/differently, and this roundtable illustrated that nicely.

That evening, we had a wonderful reception that helped to celebrate our accomplishments and continue the networking that has been both vital to our efforts and helpful to the individuals who found us along the way.

The second day of CDSN fest was a twist on our yearly Year Ahead conference.  Usually, we ask our partners in the defence and security community about the issues that most concern them in the near future--the year ahead--and then organize panels around those issues.  This year, we did something different--we had our SSHRC-funded research teams present on some of the stuff they learned over seven years of research.

The first panel was our Operations theme--what is the CAF doing in the world and what are we learned about it.  Alex Moens presented the state of the NATO Field School, which has been his passion project for at least a decade.  Andrea Charron discussed the challenges of US-Canadian relations as it affects continental defence, which spoke nicely with Stéphane Roussel's analysis of the efforts to develop greater autonomy from the US.

The next session was our Civil-Military Relations theme organized and moderated by JC Boucher.  Nik Nanos, a key partner, focused on the trends he found in the polling he has done with us.  Alexandra Richards discussed  her research on how the different generations of Canadians vary in how they see defence and security issues.  Caroline Elie from DND's Public Affairs spoke about the challenges of informing Canadians about defence even as it becomes a very high priority and very salient issue. 

The third session was a keynote speaker: LGen Stephen Kelsey, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff.  He did an excellent job of providing a short talk that gave us lots of time and material to spawn a really fascinating Q&A.  

The fourth session was our Security theme roundtable.  It was interesting to see how much of the focus was on NATO as our original intent with this theme was to ponder a variety of conceptions of security.  Srdjan Vucetic addressed what would endure from Trump's NATO skepticism.  Maxime Philaire presented on defence cooperation beyond treaties.  Anessa Kimball considered the credibility of NATO's new 5% standard on military spending.  

Our last session focused on our military personnel theme, which was really the most timely as their work got underway before the abuse of power crisis that dominated the CAF from 2021 onwards.  Irina Goldenberg addressed the reserves, which has gotten more attention as of late.  Stéfanie von Hlatky discussed the efforts to broaden the CAF to be more inclusive.  Linna Tam-Seto discussed the transition of military people to civilian life.  Joakim Berndtsson addressed the total defence idea that is so real in Sweden and, in my words, pretty imaginary in the Canadian case.  

We had one last CDSN 1.0 dinner to mark the occasion with most co-directors, staff, and myself celebrating seven years of researching, connecting, and amplifying.  We recognized each person's
contribution with a CDSN shirt with an affectionate nickname on the back.  Our post-docs, Manu and Thomas, came up with this one for me and it is perfect:

    

 I am so very grateful to everyone involved in the CDSN--the staff, the co-directors, the students, the partners, the participants, and everyone else.  The seven years flew by because everything was so very interesting and fun and engaging.  I learned a great deal about Canadian defence and security, about partnerships, about administering and leading, about reporting, and much, much more.  Thanks again!

 

 

*  As I mentioned last summer, we have applied for a new grant that would extend the CDSN's life another seven years. Given the relevance of the grant's focus, civil-military relations, and our proven ability to deliver (see above), we feel our chances are very good.  We do have a MINDS network grant that will continue our operations until the end of 2026 and maybe beyond that, but that program is under review. So, our best chance of keeping this thing going is with SSHRC.