NORDIFICATION.COM | Research and delivery proposals

The PhD-level research proposal | Draft one

Background

The first ideation proposed the development and delivery of three interlocking but complementary PhD-level research proposals, after an idea by Lizbeth Goodman, UCD Ireland, some years ago.

It would be hugely engaging, practically, intellectually, and even emotionally, but perhaps in the context of the cognitive, hybrid and asymmetrical warfare which Russia and China, as well as notables in Silicon Valley, are now conducting against Western democracy, a less complex structure imposes itself.

Instead of three separate but connected PhD pathways, it’s now being suggested, as with more traditional examples of such research, that there be one researcher only after all, and that it be the three supervisors in P2P relationships with each other, and with quite differing knowledge- and interest-sets, representing three distinct client constituencies, who should provide a systemic variety and oversight to ensure relevance to the three mentioned client groups and their corresponding real-world needs.

Participating parties

One PhD pathway, but with four complementary parties:

1. The PhD candidate. 

2. Three client-focussed supervisors, with quite separate interests as per their three quite separate client constituencies.

1. The PhD and my own work

- part of this is reflection and research time: what I already do and in already reasonably structured ways | imagineering 

- part of this research and reflection will be the direct result of liaising with stakeholders to keep this research responsive and on-track in its praxis base: information-gathering in the real world | this would be relatively new for me, but, for example, in just two hours with a cyber responsible, the insights began to flow really fast 

- part of this is the traditional responsibilities of a PhD, including working with students of the cluster: this could be a big part I'd be happy to do in all three, if the cluster, whatever cluster, contained three universities

2. The Supervisors

I suggest we then explore three P2P supervisors, one from each university in the cluster in question, and not in order of importance, but more akin to a Holacracy-like process of PhD-level supervision:

- one role: a supervisor with security and military skillsets and the experience to ensure we respond to the needs of the domains in question in the real terms of those domains | the direct client an armed forces of a sympathetic nation-state | rationale: there is an imminent danger of war across Europe, and it's in multiple domains we've lagged behind in for years | we have to begin to forward engineer these kinds of criminal activities more effectively, and with a greater capacity in validation of related high-level domain expertise 

- another role: one supervisor with state-protection and rebuilding interests, including citizen and business protection and defence, in order that we can deliver tools, tech and culture to those communities on the ground, so as to fight Putin et al more effectively | the direct client could be law-enforcement of a sympathetic nation-state | rationale: extreme criminals like Putin and similar need to influence local turfs, and in particular access the datasets they offer up, as well as the resulting revenue streams, so as to enable the control of civil society, voting processes, and the resulting fearlessness (or not) of the wider citizenry 

- another role: a supervisor setting quarterly goals and overseeing what I'm actually teaching and producing, in order to ensure I stay on track for the stakeholders mentioned and related | the direct clients could be individual educational establishments and/or educative systems themselves, as well as the funding state(s) in the context of research around concepts and philosophies of statecraft, alongside democracy's longer term protection and defence 

The praxis-based PhD delivery structure

I suggest we should build the PhD-level research (whether eventually a formal PhD, or simply of a similar level with exactly similar process) into the core of what should be our real-world, sharply client-focussed delivery processes.

Example:

• like the Honda system way back when of producing a car

• a separate development dept for dashboards for electrics, for engines etc 

• you didn't deliver a wholly new car every eight years 

• you started to deliver new bits of a car every time that bit was ready to incorporate into the older design 

• and then every five years a wholly new car

• but in between, not just makeovers: real development on the bits you'd completed

This can, then, serve as a template from year one of the delivery which will be enabled during the lifetime of the research it’s suggested we should individually and collectively carry out:

1. The PhD has associated design, implementation and servicing/after-delivery depts.

2. As soon as the PhD comes up with a new idea that looks like it has practical legs, we hand over the idea to the associated tech-based teams. 

3. These tech teams can be drawn from the university cluster in question, and/or (depending on the particular tech needs) from consolidated and trusted private industry.

4. It's the PhD's job to keep generating new and relevant ideas in the framework of a wider mission of Nordification, as well as the longer-term process of any PhD leading to more traditionally academic validation processes.

5. Finally, it's these depts' role to ensure ideas and world-specific imagineering always become a practical and relevant reality-set within such frameworks.

6. On the delivery side, it would ensure we all remain focussed on real-world relevant product and services. Whatever our own responsibilities as assigned by the Nordification project and its associated workstreams.