Global Conversations, from Scotland

A discussion between partners in the SCGA-funded project on Scotland’s role in global innovation for addiction care. Dr Gosia Mitka , University of St Andrews Business School; Professor Alex Baldacchino , Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Addiction, University of St Andrews School of Medicine; Moira Mackenzie , Deputy Chief Executive Officer/Director of Innovation, Digital Health & Care In...

Women, Peace and Security in the Age of Fragmentation In this podcast,  Laura Wise , Kasia Houghton , and Fiona Campbell discuss an SCGA Insight report following a workshop - with their colleague Salma Yusuf - supported by Scottish Council on Global Affairs and the Peace and Conflict Resolution Platform ( PeaceRep ), held at Edinburgh Law School on 2 October 2025. They explore what Global Fra...

The audio track from a very timely lecture organised by the Stevenson Trust for Citizenship and co-hosted by the Scottish Council on Global Affairs . It took place at the University of Glasgow in April 2025. The speakers were Professors Rita Abrahamsen & Michael C. Williams , both at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and both Leverhulme Visiti...

A live recording of First Minister John Swinney MSP and former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar with Principal Professor Dame Sally Mapstone , at an event held in the Booth Lecture Theatre to mark the transition of SCGA from the University of Glasgow to St Andrews for the next two years. “The fact that three institutions – the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh – came together to fo...

In this episode we look at the work undertaken by Prof. Andrew Neal and his colleagues on National Security globally. Breaking new ground a corpus and dataset of national security documents has been produced, with SCGA support, offering unprecedented insights into the landscape of international security. This collection encompasses 575 documents from 113 countries, spanning the years 1987 to 2024....

We are joined by Dr Ilia Xypolia , Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen; and Dr Zana Gul , Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling. They discuss their SCGA-funded project on the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne , the first negotiated peace settlement post-World War One, its aftermath and its lessons for the greater Middle East....

Recorded live at the Glasgow Human Rights Network ’s Early Career Researcher event, Dr David Scott talks with Dr Elaine Webster (Strathclyde University), Prof Bruce Adamson (University of Glasgow), and Mhairi Snowden (Human Rights Consortium Scotland) on how to bring academia and practice together to work on human rights in Scotland.  On 13 June 2024, the Glasgow Human Rights Network hosted i...

On 16 January 2024, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 entered into law, ending a multi-year push by civil society to see international children’s rights written into Scots law. On this episode of the SCGA podcast, Dr David Scott (Postdoctoral Research Associate in International Law and Governance at the  Glasgow Centre for Internation...

In this podcast, John Edward speaks to Prof. Tom Scotto and Dr Claire Duncanson of the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively, on their work on public attitudes in Scotland. In the first detailed study of its kind, they have looked at attitudes across nationalist and unionist persuasions to key international issues of today – wellbeing, global justice, colonial legacies, military force...

Four years on since the pandemic broke across the world SCGA looks at the prospects for a new Pandemic Treaty. John Edward speaks to Dr Stephanie Switzer of the University of Strathclyde and Dr Mark Eccleston-Turner of King’s College London .   Equity has been sorely lacking in pandemic preparedness and response, and COVID-19 is the latest example. The World Health Assembly of the WHO is...

In the last edition of 2023 Dr. Tyler White , Associate Professor of Practice and the Director of the National Security Program at the University of Nebraska talks to John Edward about deterrence and assurance. Since warfare entered the atomic and nuclear age, deterrence and assurance have highlighted the perils and sought success in keeping the world safe. Where did the 1980's fear of nuclear wea...

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in Paris 75 years ago. Professor Helen Duffy , Professor of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Grotius Centre of Leiden University and Director of Human Rights in Practice , joins Professor Christian Tams . They discuss the Declaration's origins and progress, its universality and efficacy, and its application as the bedrock f...

John Edward speaks to Professor Christian Tams , University of Glasgow International Law Chair and Director of the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security ( GCILS ). Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948 , the  Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide  codified for the first time the crime of genocide. The Conventio...

Dr Adam Bower is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Relations, and Director of Impact and Innovation in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews . Adam is also a Fellow of the Outer Space Institute . Here he talks with John Edward of SCGA on the difficult questions concerning the responsibilities - and potential vulnerabilities - of space companies...

In this episode, the SCGA's John Edward speaks with Dr Benjamin Martill , Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. We consider his research into the UK's relationship with the growing EU foreign and defence policy, how both sides responded to the protracted process of the UK's EU withdrawal, and the prospects for incremental development in the future...

Dr David Scott talks with Laura Pasternak from Who Cares? Scotland and Mhairi Snowden from the Human Rights Consortium Scotland about the Scottish Government’s plans to write international human rights into Scots law.   On 15 June 2023, the Scottish Government published the long-awaited consultation on its plans to incorporate various UN human rights treaties into Scots law, subject to the li...

Professor Rebecca Kay talks to John Edward on her research on migration and depopulation, prepared for the SCGA. This is at the same time that Migration Policy Scotland , where Professor Kay now works, published a key report on Attitudes to Migration: A view from Scotland ; and the Scottish Census 2022 results were released. The population of Scotland was estimated to be 5,436,600 on Census Day 20...

SCGA Co-Director Phillips O'Brien speaks with Minna Ålander of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs on the implications of the Russo-Ukraine War for the Security in the “Wider North” of Europe. They consider: The Russian security challenge/threat now in the Wider North and in the near future The integration of Finland and Sweden and changing security equation for NATO Wider North regiona...

In our first podcast, SCGA Head of Operations John Edward talks with Professor Peter Jackson , SCGA Executive Director. The episode covers what the Council is, how it works, what its priorities are, and what lies ahead. "There is a pressing need to marshal Scotland’s formidable expertise on international affairs to support the formulation of public policy and to lift the level of debate over inter...