Strategic Defence Research Programme

The John Lukacs Institute of Strategy and Politics' Strategic Defence Research Programme (SDRP) conducts strategic, security, defence and military policy research, analysis and evaluation with a global perspective. The focus of our research is on the changing power relations and institutional arrangements of the international system, with a particular emphasis on the evolution of the European security architecture, including developments in East-Central European security. We also address strategic issues such as the international military engagement and ambitions of major nation-state actors - the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, China, India - and conflicts in key crisis regions.

The research programme was reorganised in 2024 on the basis of the Strategic Defence Research Institute, founded in 1991 - and although its staff is not large, it has built up an extensive network of contacts with Hungarian and foreign researchers on which we can draw to implement our research programmes. We cooperate with a number of partner institutions abroad, particularly in the Central and Eastern European region, and our staff are involved in several national and international research projects. Our staff members teach at BSc, MSc and PhD level in several higher education institutions in their respective fields of research. The researchers of the programme prepare background papers and analyses for the Ministry of Defence and participate in an advisory role in the preparation of national strategic documents.

Our regular publications include the four times a year "A" category academic journal Nation and Security - Security Policy Review, and SDRP analyses, a series of open-source, peer-reviewed analyses of the most pressing security issues in international politics. Previously, a thematic series of publications on strategic issues of national and international security was published under the title Védelmi Tanulmányok (1994-2005), which will be republished in electronic format from 2020.