Inclusive International Security
Inclusive International Security
The Challenge
The field of international peace and security suffers from a chronic lack of demographic and cognitive diversity, which harms its legitimacy, professional culture, and ability to solve complex global problems. This manifests in the under-representation of women in official and non-governmental positions (especially in senior management), discrimination, harassment, and exclusive research and communications. Such problems are amplified for women of colour and other minority groups. These problems need to be fixed today, and not reproduced in the next generation of professionals.
Our Approach
BASIC is a leading advocate for reforms to diversify the peace and security field, building on the norms set by the Women, Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security agendas, and parallel agendas in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament forums. This not only means having more women ‘at the table’, eradicating ‘manels’, and enforcing diversity in policymaking, but also to ask more fundamental questions using a gendered analysis, like: ‘Who’s affected, who makes the decisions, and how are the health and lasting peace of a society impacted?’ In addition, we’re taking active steps to bake in this awareness through a robust and geographically diverse set of high-potential next generation stewards of the global nuclear order.
What we’re doing
- The Emerging Voices Network: Each country has high-potential, next generation leaders on nuclear weapons issues who will eventually inherit the responsibility to manage the nuclear threat. Yet today they are siloed and disconnected from each other, as there is no effective global network to enable cooperation, especially in the Global South. As a contribution to the 2020 NPT Review Conference, BASIC is organising two events specifically targeted at the NextGen of NPT stewards. These events are designed to springboard off the recent Youth, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation UN Resolutions, fostering a more robust dialogue and sense of purpose among like-minded youth from around the world.
- The Inclusive Think Tanks Toolkit: Launched in February 2021, the Inclusive Think Tanks Toolkit provides practical guidance to international affairs organisations who want to audit and improve their diversity, and has been developed jointly by BASIC, Chatham House and The Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP). The Toolkit was developed from a series of quarterly breakfast meetings on gender in international affairs bringing together experts and practitioners from academia and the international affairs community from around the UK for an open-ended conversation under Chatham House Rules.
- Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy: BASIC has joined the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy. As well as refusing to appear on all-male panels, BASIC’s Co-Directors have pledged the following commitments in 2020:
- Increasing the diversity of our Executive Board, aiming for gender parity by 2021;
- Ensuring that all BASIC staff feel skilled up on our gender work; and
- Launching the Inclusive Think Tanks Toolkit and applying it internally.
- Overhauling our own HR Policies: As part of a wider refresh of our workplace policies, we are also reviewing and updating our HR policies to ensure we provide an equitable working environment to all staff members.
- Publishing think pieces: BASIC looks to apply a gendered analysis across our programmes, as well as writing discrete analysis for the Outrider Foundation.
Programme Manager: Anuradha Damale-Day
With thanks to our funders at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Global Affairs Canada and Outrider Foundation.
Publications and Analysis
BASIC is developing new approaches to overcome states’ dependency on the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, which blocks global nuclear disarmament and drives proliferation.

EVN: Youth Consultation on the NPT PrepCom Process
With the support of the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, early career leaders from a variety of regions will act as ‘Youth consultants’ (hereby, consultants) steering a youth/early career consultation on the NPT Preparatory Committee meeting and processes in the lead up to the 2026 RevCon.

Event: The 2023 EVN Policy Cycle Launch
We are delighted to announce the virtual launch event of the Emerging Voices Network’s (EVN) new Policy Cycle themed ‘De-siloing Existential Threats: challenging identity, power, and inclusivity in the nuclear policy field’.

New EVN Policy Cycle and Activities
The Inclusive International Security Team is excited to announce that the Emerging Voices Network’s next Policy Cycle is here.

Youth Recommendations for the Tenth NPT RevCon (BASIC-ROK-UNODA)
Read ‘Youth, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: Recommendations from Early-Career Experts to the Non-Proliferation Treaty’ here. Read…

Video: Exchange on Youth Recommendations (BASIC-UNODA-ROK NPT 2022 Side Event)
On Thursday 11th August, BASIC, alongside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, hosted the final session of a side event series to the Tenth NPT Review Conference, on ‘Advancing the ‘Youth, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’ Agenda’.

Video: Advancing the ‘Youth, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’ Agenda (BASIC-UNODA-ROK NPT 2022 Side Event)
On August 2nd, BASIC, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and UNODA, hosted an event on ‘Advancing the ‘Youth, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’ Agenda’.

Examining ‘Gender-Sensitive’ Approaches to Nuclear Weapons Policy: a Study of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
In this article published in International Affairs (98:4) Laura Rose Brown and Dr Laura Considine examine what ‘gender sensitivity’ means in the nuclear policy context.

Events: Inclusive International Security at the Tenth NPT Review Conference
For the Tenth NPT Review Conference, the Inclusive International Security Programme, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea and the UNODA, is hosting three side events.
Active Programmes
BASIC believes in making progress on nuclear disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation through multiple complementary approaches. We continuously develop our programmes – streams of research – through sustained engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, collectively searching for the art of the possible.
Our current programmes are listed below. View the current programmes page by clicking here.