Centre for Geopolitics

14/10/2026

📢 Call for Participation - Submit your proposal today!

Join academics, think tankers and policy practitioners at the 2027 Indo-Pacific Roundtable, Europe's largest conference of its kind and the flagship event of our Indo-Pacific Strand, hosted by the Centre for Geopolitics at Robinson College, Cambridge, on 6–7 May 2027.

Themes range from political economy and security to great power politics, Europe–Indo-Pacific relations and the UK's role in the region. We welcome panel proposals and individual applications, and limited travel and accommodation support is available.

⏳ Apply by Tuesday 1 December 2026: https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/news/2027-indo-pacific-roundtable-call-for-participation-deadline-1st-december/

13/10/2026

Join Dr Gillian Tett as she talks to the former Prime Minister of Australia and President of the Asia Society, the Hon Dr Kevin Rudd AC, in a fireside conversation on China, geopolitics and a changing world order.

📅 Friday 30th October 2026, 16:30-17:45
📍 Keynes Hall, King's College, Cambridge
👉 Register: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/kingscollegecambridge/2456689

13/10/2026

Ukraine’s European Path

Accession, Reform and the Future of a Federal Union — a UEF webinar

On 6 October, the European Commission presented its long-awaited Communication on the EU's preparedness for enlargement. The key takeaway is that accession will no longer be a single moment. Instead, it will be reached through a cascade of gradual integration decisions guided by roadmaps, and safeguards will continue to apply for ten years or more after accession. This phasing aims to make enlargement politically feasible, chiefly because member states fear reform backsliding in new members, and this arrangement gives them at least some safeguards.

Providing a talk on this will be Dr Victoria Vdovychenko, Joint Programme Leader, "Future for Ukraine" Project, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge and Viktoriia Melnyk, Head of International Relations and European Integration Centre of Policy and Legal Reform, Lead Coordinator EuroHub.

📅 Wednesday 14 October, 17:30
📍 Online webinar — live-streamed, open to the public
👉 Register - https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_OK4vFYcQliAvGyR8hNZeQ #/registration

13/10/2026

Reminder! This event is happening today!

PLEASE NOTE A CHANGE IN LOCATION
🇯🇵 Does Japan have a grand strategy?

From the Meiji Restoration to the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific," how have Japan's leaders shaped and reshaped its place in the world?

Prof Saori Katada (UC Santa Barbara), co-author of the new OUP book Japan's Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World, explores how Japan has navigated its status as a "liminal power" at key turning points in its history, in conversation with Prof John Nilsson-Wright and Dr Giulia Garbagni.

📅 Tuesday 13 October, 5pm
📍 Room 8-9, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Sidgwick Avenue

Details and registration 👉 https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/events/does-japan-have-a-grand-strategy/

09/10/2026

This term’s second instalment of the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar is a talk by Dr Patrick Lennox, 'On treason'.

Secession votes are the loose threads of the liberal democratic world. The global far right has pulled and will continue to pull on them opportunistically to see how far they can unravel exposed societies. The observed foreign interference targeting the secession referendum scheduled in Alberta for 19 October 2026 must be situated within the context of the last twelve years of European secession referenda. Equally importantly, it must be considered within the context of the current Canada–US relationship.

Liberal democracies will need to consider how to insulate themselves from such threats from within as they begin to consider their defences against the rise of the global far right.

📅 Friday 16 October, 5.30pm BST
📍 Online Event. Mailing list subscribers receive the Zoom link before the session.
👉 https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/events/dr-patrick-lennox-on-treason/

09/10/2026

Reminder, This Cambridge Intelligence Seminar is happening today!

🕵️ The Cambridge Intelligence Seminar is back!

We're starting the new academic year with a story that could only be told now. Professor Christopher Andrew will speak for the first time about his secret collaboration with Oleg Gordievsky, Britain's most important Russian agent of the twentieth century, after Gordievsky's dramatic escape from Moscow in 1985.
Expect original KGB documents and photos of real KGB dead letter boxes and signal sites in London churches and pubs, some of which you can still visit. He'll also describe a mildly hair-raising trip to Moscow in 1990, when he made contact with Gordievsky's family while filming a BBC documentary.

🗓 Friday 9 October, 5.30pm BST
📍 McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

💻 Can't make it in person? Join us online. Mailing list subscribers receive the Zoom link before the session.

👉 https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/events/prof-christopher-andrew-my-secret-collaboration-with-oleg-gordievsky-after-his-escape-from-moscow-in-1985/

08/10/2026

PLEASE NOTE A CHANGE IN LOCATION
🇯🇵 Does Japan have a grand strategy?

From the Meiji Restoration to the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific," how have Japan's leaders shaped and reshaped its place in the world?

Prof Saori Katada (UC Santa Barbara), co-author of the new OUP book Japan's Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World, explores how Japan has navigated its status as a "liminal power" at key turning points in its history, in conversation with Prof John Nilsson-Wright and Dr Giulia Garbagni.

📅 Tuesday 13 October, 5pm
📍 Room 8-9, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Sidgwick Avenue

Details and registration 👉 https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/events/does-japan-have-a-grand-strategy/

07/10/2026

🕵️ The Cambridge Intelligence Seminar is back!

We're starting the new academic year with a story that could only be told now. Professor Christopher Andrew will speak for the first time about his secret collaboration with Oleg Gordievsky, Britain's most important Russian agent of the twentieth century, after Gordievsky's dramatic escape from Moscow in 1985.
Expect original KGB documents and photos of real KGB dead letter boxes and signal sites in London churches and pubs, some of which you can still visit. He'll also describe a mildly hair-raising trip to Moscow in 1990, when he made contact with Gordievsky's family while filming a BBC documentary.

🗓 Friday 9 October, 5.30pm BST
📍 McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

💻 Can't make it in person? Join us online. Mailing list subscribers receive the Zoom link before the session.

👉 https://www.cfg.cam.ac.uk/events/prof-christopher-andrew-my-secret-collaboration-with-oleg-gordievsky-after-his-escape-from-moscow-in-1985/

06/10/2026

'Four Kinds of Empty: Rethinking China’s Ghost Cities and their Implications'
Dive into the latest analysis by Professor William Hurst
Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/4hyzNoW

05/10/2026

What are the causes of great-power war?

Great-power decisions for war are driven largely by balance-of-power considerations and prevailing military circumstances. Most great-power wars of the modern period illustrate this phenomenon, from the Franco-Prussian War (1870), the Spanish-American war (1898), and World War I (1914) to the Soviet–Hungarian War (1956).

Join us for a talk on the great-power decisions in war with Prof Sebastian Rosato (University of Notre Dame). Prof Rosato is a fellow of the O’Brien International Security Center, the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies, the Liu Institute for Asian Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He is also the editor of International Security, the leading journal in the field of international politics.

📅 Friday 23 October, 5pm

📍 The Long Room, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Details and Registration 👉 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-causes-of-great-power-war-tickets-2002116603657?aff=oddtdtcreator