Stuart Croft
Profile
I am currently Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Warwick, appointed on 1st February 2016 after moving from my previous role as the University’s Provost.
As Vice-Chancellor, I work with my 5,500 colleagues across Warwick to ensure our University delivers excellent education and research locally, nationally and internationally.
I was appointed as Provost here at the University of Warwick in 2013 and this role involved leading on the academic development of the University, including academic resourcing strategy and implementation, working with Pro-Vice-Chancellors and with Chairs of Faculty in developing and supporting academic departments and the line management of heads of academic departments. Previously in 2011 I was appointed as Warwick’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (Arts and Social Sciences). In this role, I had responsibility for the University’s Arts and Social Sciences research strategy, including the development of research opportunities and collaborations. I also provided academic leadership for the University’s Fundraising and Development activities, and our European strategy.
I joined PAIS in January 2007 as Professor of International Security. Prior to that, I had been at the University of Birmingham for 18 years, latterly as Professor of International Relations, and also served for three years as the Head of the School of Social Sciences. My work is in the field of security studies, and my latest book is "Culture, Crisis and America's War on Terror" (Cambridge University Press, 2006). The book was short listed for the ISA's International Security Section book award for 2007. I'm interested in constructivist and cultural accounts of security, as can be seen in the December 2006 special issue of the journal International Relations, which I guest edited. I also guest edited a special issue of Government and Opposition, published in July 2007. I also collaborated with colleagues in Chatham House in the development of the special issue on African Security published by International Affairs during November 2007, and a special issue on radicalisation and terrorism in July 2010, in which I co-wrote the lead article.
For eight years I was Director of the ESRC's New Security Challenges Programme, a £6.5 plus million programme that supported nearly 50 research projects based at a variety of UK universities and other institutions. The latest initiative under that programme is to support a series of projects investigating Radicalisation and Violence around the world. Before the New Security Challenges Programme, I worked on a project funded by the ESRC on media representations of the war in Iraq, and before that worked with colleagues on an ESRC funded project on the future of NATO. I have also had a NATO research grant, and also grants from Nuffield, the Cadbury Trust and the British Academy.
Research interests
One strand of my research was looking at the interplay of discourses on 'Britishness' and 'jihadi-ism', an early paper from which I published in Defence Studies in 2007. A second project was looking at the foreign policy of American evangelical organisations and thinkers, and I published a paper on that in the November 2007 issue of International Politics. I have completed a book on Britishness and identity constructions called Securitizing Islam, for which I was funded by an ESRC funded Research Fellowship.
In early 2009, I began working on a project funding by the EU, and led by the UN University in Bruges, focusing on issues in security governance, with a total value of €1.94 million; see http://www.eugrasp.eu. From 2011, I was the co-lead of Work Package 4 on security issues in the 8 million euro programme Global Reordering: Evolution Through European Networks.
Teaching and supervision
I have supervised 21 successful PhD students in Birmingham and now Warwick, and have been an external examiner on 25 PhDs in various universities around the UK. I currently supervise 6 research students. I have worked as mentor with 9 postdoctoral fellows, funded by the ESRC, EU and British Academy. In 2006, I was elected as an Academician in the Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Since 2005, I have been editor for the Palgrave book series on New Security Challenges, which has seen the first set of books published in 2007. I was co-editor of the journal Contemporary Security Policy for fifteen years until 2004 and now sit on its editorial board; I am also on the boards of Critical Studies on Terrorism, and of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict.
From January 2009 I was the Chair of the British International Studies Association, having been vice chair for the previous two years; from 2011, I was appointed the President of the Association until 2013.
Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Warwick.
Professor of International Security
Email: S.Croft@Warwick.ac.uk
