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• Transboundary Aquifers: Inventory of tension areas and typology of crises (AQUIFERS)

Project Summary: The dependence of States on groundwater resources is growing wherever aquifers can be found. Even if groundwater is an essential resource for humans, most parts of the world are particularly lacking knowledge about it. In addition to research works on international river basins (surface waters), this study focus on groundwater, and aims to develop an analysis framework of tensions related to the sharing of transboundary aquifers (more of 230 all over the world). This typology of crisis factors and conflicts linked to shared groundwater will be based on several cases study (transboundary aquifers and countries) in order to reintroduce the issue of "tensions related to groundwater" into the complexity of particular political, economic and social contexts.

• Space Proliferation and International Security (SPIS)

Project Summary: The proposed study, SPIS (Spatial Proliferation and International Security) intends to identify the potential elements leading to the proliferation of space launchers and their effects on global Security over the next 20 years. The study will focus on the analysis of new launch vehicles capabilities of emerging countries such as Brazil and South Korea. This analysis will consider China and India as historical reference cases, learning from these experiences with the objective to identify similarities and differences in the construction of a model for development of key space capabilities. Iran and North Korea will also be considered.

• Sprots diplomacies: new tools at disposal for state's foreign policies (DIPLOSPORTS)

Project Summary: Over the last years, differents forms of sports diplomacies have blossomed around the globe. This new trend can be explained by several factors: spread of the media coverage of major sports events, emergence of minor-sized countries that use policies to gain international visibility and growing importance of "soft power" in contemporary geopolitics.
International sports activities have thus become infuential tools that can easily be used by states seeking power and recognition. The present research program plans to frame this new concept of "sport diplomacy" inside a definition and a theoretical scope. The major models of sports diplomacy will be analyzed from their practical implentation and results to their integration into state's larger diplomatic strategies.
Strengthened by a thorough understanding of the role of sports in current international relations, the research pogram will then provide a policy paper aimed at renewing the french sports diplomacy and France's status in international sports organizations.

• China's and India's energy security (CIES). Two hungers for one world: a comparative analysis of China’s and India’s respective energy policy and their impact on global security

Project Summary: For fast-developing countries like India and China, economic growth has become a political necessity as well as a tool to gain recognition among the international community. Ensuring energy supply sufficiency is now, more than ever, a fundamental stake for these countries. Geopolitical changes and new technical challenges recently made energy issues more complex and come back to the forefront, thus making China’s and India’s paths way more difficult, the share of energy supply from abroad rising inexorably. A balance in the relationship between the two giants - highly linked to energy stakes and issues - seems hard to attain, and will definitely influence future patterns of worldwide geopolitics. The project will identify key actors and major stakes at hand, which will be decisive for coming evolutions of Indian and Chinese energy situations. Scenarios will be drafted, taking into account confrontational, innovative and cooperative possibilities between the two countries. The project will thus enable to categorize the key factors and drivers of potential future crises, with the aim of better anticipating such issues and drawing up answers to ensure French and European security.

• The Development of Security Technology in China (DSTC). Sthdy of political and industrial dynamics of domestic security in China

Project Summary: According to the Chinese Ministry of Finance, in 2010, China spent about 513 billion Yuan (57 billion euros) to maintain its domestic security. If we compare this figure to the Chinese defense budget (525 billion Yuan, or about 58.5 billion euros), we see that China spends almost as much for its domestic security than for his defense. This shows that more than any other issue, domestic security is a political priority for Chinese leaders. The increase of mass protests, the latest development of organized crime as well as terrorist acts against the authorities (in the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet for example) constitutes the major challenges Beijing has to face. And Beijing agreed to meet mainly with force. In order to do this, the Ministry of Public Security has developed new means of action. This development goes hand in hand with the development of technology security and surveillance by Chinese manufacturers, but also by the market entry of foreign contractors. So, while security technologies are essentially dual (biometrics, telecommunications systems, C4ISR, remote sensing equipment, counter-insurgency equipment, etc.), the security market in China is growing rapidly, far from the scope of China analysts. Yet, in China the civilian-military integration of defense industries blurs the distinction between public security and military capabilities. Our study aims to analyze the security policies in China, to identify the main political and industrial actors and the dynamic of technological progress.

• Political governance of VIolence in VEnezuela and MEXico (VIVEMEX)

Project Summary: What are the forms of violence in Latin America? What are the strategies developed by the State, particularly when it has recourse to the Army? The security crisis makes these questions a burning issue in the cases Venezuela and Mexico. These oil countries are coming forward an important explosion of violence: since the nineties in the metropolitan area of Caracas and since 2008 in all Mexican territory. The VIVEMEX project has the ambition to draw up an overview of these situations by comparing the logics of the political strategies and tries to understand why the governments are failing to stop the escalating violence.

• The French Intelligence Community’s adjustment to the Globalization of Security (COMRENS)

Project Summary: This project will answer to the query: in which extent the French Intelligence Community complied with the Strategic turn embodied by the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new Era marked by the Globalization of Security? The hypothesis is that the adjustment’s ability of the Intelligence Organs to the new Strategic Issue can be explained partly by the professionals Features of their Senior management and by their perceptions of the Strategic context’s evolution. As part of this project, the French Intelligence Community will be defined by the high ranking officials of three Agencies: the DGSE, the DCRI and the DRM. This Research project that will meld empirical sociological and oral History Approaches is supported by the National Coordinator for Intelligence that gave its support to COMRENS. The Coordinator will help to set up interviews with Officials and to give access to administrative material and data. Positing its empirical Research in a prospective aim, COMRENS puts its expertise forward to the CSFRS on the current evolutions of the Intelligence actors, a topic that has been neglected by the Academic Community.