Faculty of Business, Humanities and Social Sciences | School of Humanities and Social Sciences | Economics and International Studies

Dr Ian Stanier

Senior Lecturer in Security/Intelligence Studies

Contact me

Twitter: @covert_intel

Twitter: @BUCSIS2

Biography

Dr Ian Stanier is a senior lecturer for the Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. He leads on a number of BA/MA modules including 1) Intelligence History, Tradecraft and Intelligence Machinery, 2) Media, Society Security and Cyberspace, 3) Analytical Simulation, 4) Security, Intelligence and Policy-making, 5) Covert Action and 6) Human Intelligence (HUMINT).

Dr Stanier is the Chair of the National Police Chief’s Council’s (NPCC) Intelligence Practice Research Consortium (IPRC), a body which seeks to encourage staff and students to undertake academic research in the area of intelligence policy and practice (Twitter: @npcciprc). He is a member of the NPCC Intelligence Portfolio and an academic advisor on the National Crime Agency’s HUMINT Academic Hub.

He organises the regular BUCSIS sponsored NPCC IPRC Keynote speaker events on Intelligence. The most recent have included conferences on Elicitation of Intelligence, Operational Ethics and serious organised crime and intelligence. These free events are aimed at the student and intelligence practitioner communities

Dr Stanier is a former senior police officer who has undertaken the roles of Source Handler, Controller and RIPA 2000 Authorising Officer. He was previously the head of the National CT HUMINT Unit at National Counter-Terrorism Policing Headquarters. During a thirty-two-year law enforcement career he has been responsible for the development of specialist intelligence in several operational arenas including serious crime, prisons, local community, public order events, domestic extremism and counter-terrorism.

He was an adviser to the UK Government’s Home Office on the review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the primary legal provision for covert policing in the UK. He was instrumental in the 2012 review and development of the UK National Intelligence Model and associated practices and had previously edited the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice on Intelligence Management. His doctorate focuses on UK information sharing pathologies and law enforcement intelligence failures between 2004 and 2013. He has designed bespoke intelligence related courses, delivering these in South-East Asia, Australia, the USA and Central America. He is aiding the International Institute for Justice & the Rule of Law (www.theiij.org) to promulgate and implement Global Counter-Terrorism Forum Good Practices across North and West Africa, the Middle East and Caribbean.(www.thegctf.org) He has also acted as an advisor on intelligence for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as part of their Intelligence Led Policing programme.

He is the founder and lead for Project Harpocrates, an initiative that seeks to encourage the recruitment, development and retention of ethnic minority officers and staff within UK and international overt and covert intelligence roles. This is achieved through the offer of scholarships, organising targeted conferences, and supporting relevant academic research.

Research Interest

His current research projects include the examination of intelligence elicitation techniques in a HUMINT context, the recruitment and motivation of covert human intelligence sources (CHIS – informants), the study of effective front line intelligence collection practices, the use of juvenile informants and various operational areas relevant to the effective and ethical use of CHIS.

PhD Supervision

  1. PhD candidate (2022) – Understanding the extent and impact of Chinese Organised crime operating in the United Kingdom within the sex industry, human trafficking and modern slavery – Status: ongoing.
  2. PhD candidate (2023) – Law Enforcement and Intelligence Reform in Anglophone West Africa -– Status: Proposal approved.

Publications

Journal article

Internet publication

  • Nunan, J. Stanier, I. 2021. Intelligence Gathering During a Pandemic. CREST CRS 12
  • Stanier I, Nunan J. 2021. Identifying informant motivation FIREPLACES framework. CREST CRS 11
  • Stanier I, Nunan J. 2021. FIREPLACES and informant motivationCREST
  • Dover R, Stanier I. 2021. Coming in from the Cold? The Contested Role of Juvenile Informants in Intelligence Operations Publisher Url
  • Stanier I. 2020. The welcome rise and worrying fall in covert investigation

Book Chapters

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