University of Leicester

University of Leicester

The School of History, Politics and Internatiuonal Relations at the University of Leicester is home to world-leading research and a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The School specialises in research, training and teaching on security and strategic studies, offering bespoke undergraduate and postgraduate modules in nuclear politics and supervising a number of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers working on nuclear issues.  The School is also home to the European Research Council-funded “Nuclear Revolution” research project.

Contact information

School of History, Politics and Interantional Relations (HyPIR),

University of Leicester,

University Road,

Leicester, UK,

Website: https://le.ac.uk/hypir

Tel.: +44(0)116 252 2587

Contact: hypir@le.ac.uk

Twitter: @HyPIRUoL

Point of contact

Dr Andrew Futter (primary)

Professor in International Politics, PI on the Third Nuclear Age project

Ajf57@le.ac.uk

 

Dr Bleddyn Bowen (please CC on significant correspondence/events)

The team

Contacts Resume Speciality
Dr Andrew Futter.

Professor in International Politics, PI on the Third Nuclear Age project

Ajf57@le.ac.uk.

Andrew Futter is Professor in International Politics. Professor Futter has authored several books, including: Ballistic missile defence and US national security policy (2013/5); The politics of nuclear weapons (2015 and 2020); Reassessing the Revolution in Military Affairs (2015); The United Kingdom and the future of nuclear weapons (2016); Hacking the bomb (2018); and Threats to Euro-Atlantic security (2020), and regularly publishes in academic journals and contributes to conference papers. He recently completed a three-year UK Economic and Social Research Council funded Future Research Leader’s award into cyber threats and nuclear weapons and is currently working on a five-year European Research Council Consolidator Grant exploring the technological drivers of the Third Nuclear Age: https://thethirdnuclearage.com.

Andrew was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC, as well a Visiting Scholar at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. In Spring 2017, he took up a Fellowship position at the Norwegian Nobel Peace Institute in Oslo. Professor Futter is an alumni Member of the Younger Generation Leadership Network.

  • Nuclear weapons issues, proliferation, deterrence, and arms control.
  • Impact of emerging technology.
  • Cyber security.
  • UK nuclear weapons.
Dr. Bleddyn Bowen

bb215@leicester.ac.uk

Dr Bleddyn Bowen is an expert on space warfare and has published on numerous topics including space arms control. 2020 sees the publicaiton of his first monograph, ‘War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics’  with Edinburgh University Press. At Leicester he primarily teaches his specialist finalist module, ‘Politics and War in Outer Space’, and the first year module ‘The Global Cold War’, both of which involve arms control at various junctures. He is also the Director of Postgraduate Teaching in International Relations at HyPIR. Dr Bowen is an internationally recognised expert in the global military space community, having addressed the NATO Engages Summit in London, 2019, on NATO declaring space an operational domain, and having provided oral testimony to the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Exiting the European Union on the issue of Brexit’s impact on the EU’s Galileo system. He is a regular columnist on the independent space news website, SpaceWatch.Global. Space technology sits in the nexus of nuclear and missile regimes and is often a neglected dimension to such studies and debates.
  • Space warfare
  • Space arms control
  • Space policy
  • Space doctrine
  • Strategic Theory
  • Modern conventional warfare
  • Strategic Studies
Dr. Joshua Baker Dr Joshua Baker is an expert on US-Iran relations regarding nuclear nonproliferation and the JCPOA. In particular his research for his forthcoming monograph focuses on the role of emotions and trust between individuals and governments in negotiating agereements such as the JCPOA and their implications for nuclear nonproliferation more widely.
  • Nuclear non-proliferation
  • Iran-US relations
  • JCPOA
  • Trust and empathy in international relations
  • Security dilemma theory
  • International relations theory
Dr Tanvi Pate

tp191@leicester.ac.uk

Dr Tanvi Pate specialises in Indian foreign and security policy and has researched on varied issues pertaining to the US-India nuclear relations, India and the NPT, India-Pakistan deterrence and non-proliferation. Her monograph entitled, ‘The United States, India and the Global Nuclear Order: Narrative Identity and Representation’, published with Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy in 2018, focuses on the US-India civil nuclear deal and the evolution of this bilateral relationship in the nuclear domain. Dr Pate is interested in spatial and temporal management of state identity and co-constitution of foreign and security policy.

Along with her association as an Associate Tutor with the School of History, Politics and International Relations (HyPIR), University of Leicester, Dr Pate is a Panel Tutor at the Institute of Continuing Education (ICE), University of Cambridge and a Visiting Research Fellow and Senior Sessional Tutor at the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick.

  • Indian foreign and security policy
  • Nuclear proliferation
  • Conventional warfare and geopolitics
  • Discourse and state identity
  • Critical geopolitics
  • Great power-rising power encounters
Dr. Olamide Samuel

 

Research Associate in Nuclear Politics

 

Os135@leicester.ac.uk

Olamide Samuel is a Research Associate in Nuclear Politics at the University of Leicester, on the Third Nuclear Age project https://thethirdnuclearaage.com. Previously, he was the Coordinator of SCRAP Weapons 2019 – April 2021, initiated and convened the Global #FreezeWeapons Campaign and was a Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.

He is also a Senior Researcher, and member of the Scientific Committee at the Centre for International Strategic Analyses (KEDISA), a member of the Vatican Covid-19 Security Task Force inaugurated by Pope Francis, and is affiliated with the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University.

Olamide holds a PhD in National Security Strategy from the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. He earned his B.ILD degree in International Law and Diplomacy in 2013, from Babcock University, Nigeria, where he specialized in researching on the global emergence of Private Military and Security Companies. He also holds an MA in Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy from the University of Buckingham (2014).

  • Strategic Culture,
  • Nuclear weapons issues, proliferation, and arms control.
  • Postcolonial perspectives on arms control
  • AI and Structured Data in Comparative Foreign Policy
Dr. Cameron Hunter 

Research Associate in Nuclear Politics

 

Ch500@leicester.ac.uk

Cameron Hunter is a specialist in the intersection of technology and security, with a particular focus on nuclear weapons, outer space and critical theories of technology.

He was awarded a PhD from the University of Bristol, UK after completing an ESRC funded project on American responses to China’s “rise” in space. Cameron previously worked as a British Research Council Fellow at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and taught politics at Bristol and Leicester universities.

Cameron is a member of the UK Project on Nuclear Issues and the British International Studies Association.

  • Security and insecurity in outer space
  • Nuclear strategy and technopolitics
  • Asia-Pacific strategic dynamics
  • Philosophy of technology