PfP Activities

 

Overview
The GCSP is involved in activities related to the Partnership for Peace programme – especially within the framework of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes and the PfP Training Centres. The PfP Consortium allows the GCSP to be involved in a variety of activities which are related to teaching and education and offers an important network with similar institutions.

PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Together with other partner institutions - such as the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF), and the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) of the Centre for Security Policy, Zurich, - the GCSP supports actively the PfP Consortium which offers a platform of exchange on a variety of issues “in the spirit of PfP”. It enhances the collaboration with other educational institutions in the field of security and defence and contributes to a strong network of collaboration. (http://www.pfpconsortium.org)

Within the PfP Consortium, the GCSP is currently chairing the Working Group on Curriculum Development, the primary goals of which are to promote excellence in curriculum development and course accreditation and to grant easy access to existing courses on security policy and international relations. Therefore, it strives to establish common technical standards for courses and other training activities and ensure a diversity of views on teaching and curricula development in defence and security.

The Working Group on Curriculum Development concentrated on the development of so-called Reference Curricula which are a guide for establishing new or revising existing courses. The group has established a broad variety of reference curricula which address traditional and emerging security issues. In addition, the group examines issues of accreditation, recognition and validation and conducted a survey on these issues. It also collaborates with the ADL Working Group and aims to develop a strong pillar on teaching and education. It continues to maintain an updated database on curricula. (http://www.pfpconsortium.org/wgcd)

PfP Training Centres
The PfP Training Centres have been established to assure training on an operational level and to coordinate and harmonise collaboration. The GCSP is mainly a liaison between the PfP Training Centres and other initiatives such as the PfP Consortium since it operates more on a strategic than operational level. As one of the officially recognised PfP Training Centres, the GCSP hosts and maintains the website of the PfP Training Centre initiative which serves as a tool of information sharing among the centres. Within the framework of the PfP Training Centres, the GCSP has also enhanced collaboration with SWISSINT – the newly established training centre for peace operations. This collaboration will be further developed in order to assure that the two Swiss institutions profit best from the PfP Training Centres initiative.