RUSI Workshops Promote Responsible Cyber Behaviour at UN Internet Governance Forum 2024
RUSI’s Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour (GP-RCB) group joined government officials, industry, and civil society representatives at the United Nations (UN) Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Riyadh to discuss opportunities and challenges in inclusive cyber policy.
RUSI and Virtual Routes - a GP-RCB member - co-organised two sessions at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. This included a networking session to connect cyber policy research and practitioner communities. Titled “Cyberpolicy Dialogues: Connecting Research/Policy Communities”, the session provided a dynamic platform for civil society, academia, technical experts, and intergovernmental institutions, such as NATO and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), to engage in cross-regional and multi-stakeholder exchanges.
The discussion addressed challenges in fostering inclusive and comprehensive engagement with international institutions and reflected on the role of the IGF in facilitating dialogue across sectors. Participants emphasised the importance of mid- and early-career professionals in promoting diverse perspectives and fostering connections within the cyber policy ecosystem.
In providing opening remarks for the session, Corinne Casha (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malta) said:
Cyber policy should not be restricted solely to government. When it comes to drafting national cyber strategies, it is important to have different ideas; not only restricted to what cyber policy is by government, but it is important to also factor in the research and academic perspectives coupled with other partners.
Corinne Casha (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malta)
Reflecting upon RUSI’s GP-RCB participation at the IGF, RCB Lead Louise Marie Hurel noted:
We will only be able to have a proper conversation, and we will only be able to develop a critical mass and critical thinking, if we are able to identify those researchers that are based in different regions. And that has been our arduous task since we launched the Partnership.
Louise Marie Hurel
Research Fellow
The second workshop, hosted under the IGF’s sub-theme “Improving Digital Governance for the Internet We Want”, tackled the complexities of inclusion in global internet governance. Titled "The Paradox of Inclusion in Internet Governance", the session explored potential areas of overlap and duplication in internet governance institutions, as well as gaps such as digital inequality along gender and intersectional lines. Participants discussed how silos at the national level are replicated internationally, with inter-agency divisions of responsibility and lack of skills and knowledge filtering into multilateral internet governance processes.
Reflecting on the session, the Virtual Routes Co-Director James Shires noted:
The starting point is recognising that inclusion matters, and that there are genuine and very well-developed efforts to make internet governance inclusive. But sometimes these efforts actually bring up barriers to participation, through requiring such a thin spread of attention and resources across the internet governance portfolio.
Virtual Routes Co-Director, James Shires
About RUSI's Cyber Research Group
RUSI's Cyber Research Group takes a global approach to its research, examining UK and international strategic responses to cyber. The team leverages the broader experience of RUSI staff and Associate Fellows and has fostered a growing network of cyber experts from both the public and private sectors and academia.
Its research agenda is structured around the following themes: cyber strategy, cyber resilience, cyber threats and offensive cyber. The team pursues different aspects of these themes, depending upon policy priorities at any given time.
Current research projects examine the implementation of the UK’s 2022 National Cyber Strategy, offensive cyber operations, technology, and national security in the context of the Net Zero environmental transition, cyber insurance and ransomware, responsible cyber power, and cyber capacity building.
Visit the Cyber Research Group page to view their work.