Certificate in Terrorism Studies - online professional development training course from the University of St Andrews

Course Director

Dr. Orla Lynch
Director of Teaching at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), School of International Relations, University of St Andrews

Dr. Orla Lynch teaches 'Psychology of Terrorism' and 'Terrorism and Liberal Democracy’. Her background is in International Security Studies and Applied Psychology and research interests address the impact of counter terrorism measures on UK and Ireland’s Muslim communities. She is one of the principle investigators on an EU funded project investigating the experience of victimisation through terrorism across Europe, whilst she is also interested in issues around cultural training for police and military plus police-community relations in populations associated with a terrorist threat. During the course of her work, she has worked with national, regional and international security agencies including NATO, the UN, London's Metropolitan Police, Police Service of Northern Island, Irish Military and Gardai. Her publications include work on Islamic extremism in the UK and forthcoming books concern the 'Group Process of Terrorist Organisations' and ‘The Experience of Victims of Terrorism’.

Course Faculty:

Professor Richard English
Director
CSTPV, University of St Andrews

Professor Richard English is the diretcor of the CSTPV at the Univeristy of St Andrews. His books include Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (winner of the 2003 UK Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award), Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (winner of the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, and the 2007 Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize), and Terrorism: How to Respond published by Oxford University Press and over forty journal articles and book chapters. He has lectured widely on terrorism, political violence, nationalism, and Irish and British politics and history, including invited lectures in Britain, Ireland, the United States, India, France, the Netherlands, and Italy. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), and also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).

Charles Bird OBE
Teaching Fellow
CSTPV, University of St Andrews 

Between 1986 and 2010 Charlie was a member of HM Diplomatic Service specialising in the Middle East, conflict, post-conflict, terrorism and counter-terrorism issues.  Postings included the Gulf (1988-92) with involvement in Desert Storm, Belgrade (1992-93) during the war in the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia (1999) for the Kosovo crisis, Greece and Nigeria. During tours in the UK his roles have included Deputy Head of Middle East Department, Head of South Asia Department and leading a project that resulted in the formation of the interdepartmental (FCO, MoD, DfID) Stabilisation Unit which co-ordinates the UK Government’s post conflict reconstruction work in, amongst other places, Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2003 he was seconded to the military and was on the staff of the General Officer Commanding 1st (UK) Armoured Division both during and for several months after the invasion of Iraq.  Between 2004-2008 he was on secondment to the MoD working on issues related to counter-terrorism.  Charlie speaks Arabic and French and has an M.Phil in Linguistics from Cambridge.

Sir David Veness
Honorary Professor of International Relations
CSTPV, University of St Andrews

Sir David Veness is an Honorary Professor of International Relations with CSTPV at the University of St Andrews. David served as Under-Secretary-General of the UN Department of Safety and Security from its creation in 2005 until June 2009. This role carries responsibility for UN operations globally. Prior to this appointment, he was Assistant Commissioner (Specialist Operations) New Scotland Yard from 1994-2005. He joined the Metropolitan Police as a cadet in 1964 and as a constable in 1966. In the course of his police career he specialised in serious crime investigations, hostage negotiation and counter-terrorism. David was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (MA, LLM) and attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1990. David was awarded Queen's Police Medal in 1994, appointed CBE in 2000, was Knighted in 2004.

Dr. Peter Lehr
Lecturer in Terrorism Studies
CSTPV, University of St Andrews

Dr. Peter Lehr is Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the CSTPV, University of St Andrews. Being a regional specialist on the Indian Ocean/Asia-Pacific, he currently specialises on research in the areas of piracy and maritime terrorism as well as terrorism and organised crime in South and Southeast Asia. He also works on critical infrastructure protection, with a focus on airport and seaport security. He is the editor of Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism (Routledge 2007) and co-editor of Lloyd’s MIU Handbook of Maritime Security (CRC 2009).

Dr. Gilbert Ramsay
Teaching Fellow
CSTPV, University of St Andrews

Dr. Gilbert Ramsay is teaching fellow at the CSTPV and is a specialist in terrorism and the Internet and has delivered reports on this issue for the United Nations and the European Union and has been an expert consultant for a UN working group on countering the use of the internet for terrorist purposes. Research interests cluster around the subjects of Internet jihadism, resemblances between hacking and terrorism as practices, and the concept of the subcultural 'ethic' in either case.

Other Course Contributors:

Andy Oppenheimer AIExpE

Andy is an independent defence analyst specialising in chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons and explosives (CBRNE) and counter-terrorism and is author of the Certificate module on CBRN Weapons in Terrorism.

He is Editor of Chemical, Biological & Nuclear Warfare (formerly Chemical & Biological Warfare Review), Editor of Global Defence Review, an Associate Member of the Institute of Explosives Engineers and a Member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators (IABTI). From 2006-08 he was Editor of Jane’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence and NBC International, and in 2004-05 was Co-editor of Jane’s World Armies.

His main areas of interest are nuclear and radiological proliferation, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), explosives and EOD (explosives ordnance disposal), CBRNE threat analysis, counter-terrorism, CBRNE defence equipment, and business continuity and protection. He regularly gives presentations at conferences and as a VIP speaker at professional seminars for institutes, military establishments and law enforcement authorities.

His book IRA – The Bombs and the Bullets: A History of Deadly Ingenuity is published by Irish Academic Press (2008) is widely acknowledged as the seminal work on the military campaign of the Irish republican movement and provides a comprehensive account of more than 150 years of strategic, tactical, and operational details, and analysis of the IRA’s mission, doctrine, targeting, and acquisition of weapons and explosives. It analyses where, how, and why the IRA’s 19,000 bombs were built, targeted and deployed – and what the IRA was hoping to accomplish in its unrivalled campaign of violence and insurgency through covert acquisition, training, intelligence and counter-intelligence.

Dr Eric Metcalfe
Barrister
Monckton Chambers

Dr Eric Metcalfe is a barrister at Monckton Chambers in London specialising in human rights, public law and international law. After completing his D.Phil in law at the University of Oxford he was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1999. Between 2003 and 2011, he was the director of human rights policy at JUSTICE, one of the leading human rights organisations in the UK, and has been involved in many of the key cases before the UK courts involving national security over the last decade, including A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) (2005), Binyam Mohamed v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (2010), and Al Rawi and others v Security Service and others (2011). His publications include Intercept Evidence (2006), Secret Evidence (2009), Freedom from Suspicion: Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age (2011), and 'Terror Reason and Rights' in Civil Liberties, National Security and Prospects for Consensus (2012). He is also editor of Current Law Statutes Annotated for the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 (Sweet & Maxwell).