The Center for International Security and Cooperation is a leader at Stanford in bringing together people to tackle some of the most intractable security issues around the world. Its faculty, fellows and researchers delve into nuclear energy and nonproliferation, intelligence and terrorism, cyber and biosecurity, governance and migration. Students have the opportunity to participate in some of the most innovative courses on campus and online.
Some of CISAC's signature courses include:
“International Security in a Changing World” was CISAC’s defining class, born from the turbulent Vietnam War era in the 1970s. Still one of the most popular classes on campus today, the course culminates in a two-day emergency U.N. Security Council simulation that tackles a topical global issue.
In a series of videotaped lectures packaged on a new YouTube channel, Security Matters, some of Stanford’s leading professors, former government officials and other scholars from around the world lecture on everything from cybersecurity to lessons learned from the Cold War. CISAC co-director and intelligence expert Amy Zegart and terrorism authority and CISAC Senior Fellow Martha Crenshaw have teamed up to bring the course online with support from the Vice Provost of Online Learning and the Flora Family Foundation.
CISAC and the Hoover Institution launched a foreign policy working group during the 2013-2014 academic year to bridge the coast-to-coast divide between academics and policymakers. Additionally, CISAC sponsored a weeklong cybersecurity boot camp for legislative aides in 2014.
For more than 25 years, CISAC has brought together the greatest minds in the natural and social sciences in an effort to build a safer world. This includes high-level workshops designed to bring together academics, policymakers and professionals to collaborate on international issues.