Dr Hillary Briffa is a Senior Lecturer in National Security Studies in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where she is Programme Director of the MA National Security Studies and Assistant Director of the Centre for Defence Studies. In 2026–27, she is a British Academy Innovation Fellow embedded in the Strategy and Challenge Team of the UK Cabinet Office National Security Secretariat.

Her research examines national security and strategy, with particular interests in small states, climate security, strategic foresight, and net assessment. A recurring question across her work is how states with different capabilities, institutions, and strategic circumstances understand security and exercise agency. She has advised and worked with governments and international organisations on national-security strategy, foresight, defence and maritime security, including the UK Government, the Estonian Defence Forces, the Finnish Government, and UNDP in Fiji. She is also part of an ongoing Qatar National Research Fund project with Georgetown University in Qatar examining maritime-sector resilience in small states, where she leads comparative research on small maritime powers. Her policy-facing research has included the Security & Defence PLuS project “In Defence of the Climate”, on climate change and UK–Australian defence industrial strategy, which brought together government, defence, and industry participants in Canberra and London and fed into subsequent defence-industrial policy work. She teaches regularly at the Royal College of Defence Studies and contributes to executive education for UK government practitioners.

Her recent publications include the co-authored book Convergence: Climate Change and Geopolitical Futures (Jalili, Briffa & Ryan, 2026), and she is co-editor with Joe Devanny of the forthcoming National Security under Labour: Strategy in an Era of Radical Uncertainty, as well as a founding Series Editor of Bloomsbury Academic’s Neutrality Studies series. Her current research includes comparative work on the purposes and practice of national security, small-state strategy, maritime security, and the education of national-security practitioners.

Hillary’s research and teaching are closely connected. She holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s, where her doctoral research asked whether small states can have a grand strategy, and is completing a second doctorate in Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement at Lancaster University. Her educational research examines policy enactment, assessment, student voice, and the ways in which teaching practices shape participation and learning. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and received the SSPP Faculty award in the 2026 King’s Education Awards for Excellent Assessment and Feedback. She is also a co-founder of ASPIRE, a UK-wide network supporting scholarship and professional development for education-focused academics in Politics and International Relations.

At King’s, Hillary is an elected member of Academic Board and King’s Council, contributing to the university’s academic governance and strategic oversight.

Her European and international engagement includes serving as Academic Co-Director of the Climate Hub of Circle U., a European alliance of nine research-intensive European universities, and a long-standing partnership with the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, for whom she has Directed the annual King’s–Clements London May Term: The Past, Present, and Future of the Transatlantic Alliance since 2015.

Her wider impact and academic service include membership of the London Defence Conference Steering Group and service on the editorial board of open access, peer reviewed journal Small States & Territories. Earlier in her career, she served as a Youth Ambassador for Malta to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and worked at the Malta High Commission in London. In 2016, she received the U.S. State Department’s inaugural Emerging Young Leaders Award.

Research interests

• National security and strategy
• Small states and international security
• Climate security and geopolitics
• Strategic foresight and net assessment
• Neutrality
• Maritime security
• National-security education and higher-education research
• First World War propaganda

Fellowships and distinctions

• British Academy Innovation Fellow, UK National Security Strategy / Cabinet Office National Security Secretariat, 2026–27.

• Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow, Notre Dame International Security Center, 2020–21.

• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2026; Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2023.

• Recipient, inaugural U.S. State Department Emerging Young Leaders Award, 2016.

• Participant, Clements Center Graduate Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft, Colorado, July 2016.

• Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs MIRAI educational research exchange scholarship, 2018.

Publications

Published books and edited volumes

• Jalili, D., Briffa, H. & Ryan, M. (2026), Convergence: Climate Change and Geopolitical Futures. Agenda Publishing / Edinburgh University Press.

Accepted and forthcoming publications

• Briffa, H. & Devanny, J. (eds.), National Security under Labour: Strategy in an Era of Radical Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2026.

• Lottaz, P., Golson, E., Briffa, H. & Habtom, N. (eds.), Reframing Neutrality: Debates, Concepts, and Intellectual Traditions. Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming 2027.

• Briffa, H., Lottaz, P., Golson, E., & Habtom, N. (eds.), Neutral Actors in History: Global Case Studies from the Long Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming 2027.

• Briffa, H. & Corbett, J. (eds.), Small Matters: The Life and Work of Godfrey Baldacchino. Island Studies Press, forthcoming 2027.

• Briffa, H. & Männik, E. (accepted for publication, 2026), “Strategic Insight or Costly Burden? Evaluating Net Assessment for Small States.” Defence Studies.

• Briffa, H. & Männik, E. (forthcoming 2026), “Confronting the Future: Cultivating Small State Resilience through Strategic Foresight.” In E. Charalampaki & B. Gonçalves Bernardes (eds.), Small States in the European Landscape: Openness, Resilience and Vulnerabilities. Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Briffa, H. & Clayton, K. (forthcoming 2026), “Weather Politics and Maritime Security: Analysing the Impact of Nationally Determined Contributions on Caribbean Climate Resilience.” In N. Michelsen, S. A. Haughton, C. Zepeda & C. Sewell Lewis (eds.), Weather, Politics, and Security in the Caribbean. Bristol University Press.

• Briffa, H. (forthcoming 2026), “After ‘Blockchain Island’: Malta’s Second Bid for Digital Power.” In K. K. Sagun Trajano (ed.), forthcoming RSIS volume on emerging technologies and small states. S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

• Briffa, H. & Rickli, J.-M. (forthcoming 2027), “Building Bridges under Fire: Active and Pragmatic Neutrality in Malta and Switzerland.” In Survival Strategies of Small States: The Russian Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine, NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme volume, edited by Thorhallsson and Davtyan.

Selected peer-reviewed and scholarly publications

• Briffa, H., Murfett, M., Engelkamp, S., Kalaycioglu, E., Varaki, M., Kirkham, K., Fulco, C., Kerr, M., Larkin, C. & McGarr, P. (2026), “War Studies on the Board of Peace: A New Perspectives Roundtable.” New Perspectives, OnlineFirst.

• Briffa, H. (2026), “Making Students Visible: Transparency and the Politics of Digital Assessment”, Politics, OnlineFirst.

• Detyna, M., Ogunbase, A. & Briffa, H. (2025), “A Socio-Material Approach to Investigating Classrooms: Student Engagement in an Innovative Learning Environment”, Learning Environments Research 28(3), 473–502.

• Briffa, H. & Högenauer, A.-L. (2025), “From Margins to Momentum: Ten Years of Small States and Large Questions”, Small States & Territories 8(1), 5–18.

• Gearson, J., Briffa, H. & Devanny, J. (2024), “National Security Studies,” in M. Goodman, R. Kerr & M. Moran (eds.), An Introduction to War Studies. Edward Elgar.

• Briffa, H. (2024), “Everybody’s Supporters’ Club: Maltese Constitutional Neutrality,” in T. Borg & J. Stanton (eds.), The Constitution of Malta at Sixty. Kite Group.

• Briffa, H. (2023), “Small States and COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities for Multilateralism,” Global Perspectives 4(1).

• Briffa, H. (2022), “Neutrality and Small States: A Strategic Approach,” in P. Lottaz, H. Gärtner & H. Reginbogin (eds.), Neutral beyond the Cold. Lexington Books, 19–38.

• Briffa, H. & Agius, G. (2021), “Tourism and COVID-19 in 2020: The Case of Malta as a Small State,” Small States & Territories 4(1), 75–104.

• Briffa, H. (2021), “Neutrality and Shelter Seeking: The Case of Malta,” in Anne-Marie Brady and Baldur Thorhallsson (eds.), Small States and the New Security Environment. Cham: Springer, 135–151.

• Briffa, H. (2020), “Small States and the Challenges of the International Order,” in After Disruption: Historical Perspectives on the Future of International Order. Center for Strategic & International Studies, 50–59.

Selected policy publications and research outputs

• Briffa, H. & Freer, W. (2025), “Crunch Zones,” in Britain’s World: The Strategy of Security in Twelve Geopolitical Maps. Council on Geostrategy.

• Strating, B., Bisley, N., Patalano, A., Briffa, H., Masao, C. T., Aizawa, N., Sato, Y., Hatakeyama, K., Edwards, S., & Lee-Brown, T. (2024), The La Trobe Asia Brief: Enhancing Global and Regional Maritime Order.

• Briffa, H., Hall, I., Patalano, A. & Strating, B. (2022), Enhancing Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific. Griffith Asia Institute.

• Briffa, H., Devanny, J. & Gearson, J. (2022), The Integrated Review in Context: One Year On. Centre for Defence Studies.

• Briffa, H. (2021), “The Integrated Review and the View from Small States: Time to Think Smaller?” in The Integrated Review in Context: A Strategy Fit for the 2020s? Centre for Defence Studies, 86–92.

• Regular contributor to the Council on Geostrategy’s “Big Ask” series on UK national security, defence, strategy, NATO, minilateralism and resilience, etc.