Saturday, March 20th, 2027 from 8:00am - 12:00pm

You’ve done it. You’ve been working on your project for a while. The data is collected or generated. You have a theoretical hunch, a conceptual plan. There are notes and memos. Ideas and outlines. A working title. And below that: the blank page. You hesitate. How do you find the story in your data? How do you move from doing the research to writing it up? What have you come here to say? This seminar begins where most methods discussions end: when the research is done and needs to be committed to the page. It approaches writing as a practice and introduces ideas and tools for different stages of the ‘writing up’ process. Its aim is to foster a sense of the power and responsibility that writing holds, think critically about the opportunities and drawbacks of new technologies like generative AI, and make space for creativity and joy. Its ideas and tools may be applied to different academic writing projects yet may be most applicable to long-form non-fiction prose, such as articles, chapters, or books. The seminar focuses on techniques to begin or continue writing; to situate texts in relation to ‘the literature’; and how to argue ‘up’ from the mess of unstructured data.

Saturday, March 20th, 2027 from 8:00am - 12:00pm

As intelligence organizations confront increasingly complex strategic challenges—from great power competition and emerging technologies to terrorism, cyber threats, migration, and societal instability—the demand for rigorous research capable of informing intelligence and national security decision-making continues to grow. Yet many intelligence professionals, educators, and researchers receive limited formal training in how to design, conduct, evaluate, and communicate academically rigorous intelligence research.

This short course presents the National Intelligence College's approach to developing intelligence professionals as researchers and producers of knowledge. Participants will learn how the College connects with Intelligence Community stakeholders to identify high-priority intelligence challenges, translates those challenges into researchable questions, and guides students, faculty, and research fellows through a structured process of research design, proposal development, data collection, analysis, and dissemination.

Drawing on the College's graduate curriculum, research fellowship programs, faculty scholarship, and community engagement initiatives, the course provides participants with practical frameworks, instructional resources, and examples that can be adapted for intelligence education, professional military education, government research organizations, and university intelligence studies programs.