Paris Defence and Strategy ForumFourth Edition

Academic Conference "Understand, Act, Endure"

Call for Papers : Understand, Act, Endure

Location: École Militaire, Paris, France

Forum dates: 9–11 March 2027

Academic conference: 9 March 2027 (provisional)

Submissions open: 1 October 2026

Submission deadline: 20 December 2026

Acceptance notification: 20 January 2027

Conference Description

How can societies understand emerging threats, act effectively under uncertainty, and sustain their capacity to respond over time? The fourth Paris Defence and Strategy Forum invites research addressing these questions through its theme, “Understand, Act, Endure.” The academic conference brings together scholars and practitioners to examine defence, security, and strategic challenges across their technological, organisational, human, and geopolitical dimensions.

The theme connects three complementary concerns. Understanding involves explaining threats, assessing their consequences, and anticipating how conflict may evolve. Acting concerns the design, implementation, and evaluation of responses by states, armed forces, businesses, and civil society. Enduring involves sustaining essential capabilities, learning from disruption, and adapting institutions, infrastructures, and communities to prolonged or changing threats.

Cognitive and information warfare remain central to the Forum. We welcome research on how influence operations, information manipulation, and digital platforms affect perception, trust, and decision-making, as well as studies that evaluate responses to these challenges. This edition also strengthens its cybersecurity focus, including human and organisational security, critical infrastructure protection, software supply-chain integrity, and the risks and opportunities associated with AI-assisted software development.

These questions extend across physical and digital settings. Relevant contexts include armed conflict, hybrid threats, disruptions to essential services, electoral interference, and strategic dependencies in energy, raw materials, and technology. Research may examine threats and responses at the individual, organisational, national, or international level, including their ethical and legal implications.

The conference welcomes empirical, conceptual, theoretical, and design-oriented research at both early and advanced stages. In-depth case studies, inductive enquiry, evaluated prototypes, and research developed with practitioners are particularly encouraged. Contributions may draw on information systems, computer science, management, law, economics, psychology, political science, strategy, entrepreneurship, and related disciplines. Our aim is to build an academic community that advances rigorous research through sustained exchange with military decision-makers, policymakers, industry, and civil society. Authors of accepted papers will present their work and receive substantive feedback from practitioners and academics. Participants will also have opportunities to meet potential collaborators from North America and Europe.

Tracks and Topics of Interest

The tracks below welcome contributions across their boundaries and on related topics. Submissions should clearly address defence, security, or strategic challenges. Engagement with the annual theme is encouraged but not required. Practitioner-oriented and interdisciplinary research is welcome across all tracks.

1. Cognitive Warfare, Information Influence, and Human Behaviour

How information and influence shape perception, trust, and decisions in conflict and crisis.

• Cognitive warfare, disinformation, propaganda, & influence operations

• Social engineering, cognitive vulnerabilities, & human factors in conflict or crisis

• Public cognition, institutional trust, leadership, & decision-making under threat

• Measurement of influence & evaluation of interventions, education, & training

2. AI, Autonomous Systems, and Human–Machine Collaboration

How AI and autonomous systems change defence capabilities, human judgement, and accountability.

• AI, machine learning, & autonomous or semi-autonomous systems in defence & security

• Human–machine interfaces, human oversight, & adaptive command & control

• Reliability, explainability, bias, & safety in security-related AI applications

• Ethical, legal, & governance questions arising from AI deployment & technological warfare

3. Cybersecurity, Cyber Resilience, and Digital Threats

How organisations and societies prevent, withstand, and respond to cyber threats.

• Cybersecurity behaviour, leadership, organisational culture, & security education

• Ransomware, insider threats, targeted attacks, & cross-border cyber threats

• Critical infrastructure protection, incident response, recovery, & cyber resilience

• Secure software, supply-chain integrity, & AI-assisted or AI-generated code

• Cyber deterrence, diplomacy, governance, digital platforms, & crowdsourced security

4. Information Systems and Digital Infrastructures for Defence and Crisis Response

How digital systems support security operations and essential services.

• Information systems for coordination, planning, logistics, & operational deployment

• Systems design, requirements, interoperability, & defence/security project management

• Data analytics, open-source & crowdsourced intelligence, & decision support

• Continuity of healthcare, energy, transport, communications, & other essential services

• Internet of Things, digital services, & resilient military & civilian infrastructures

5. Strategic Adaptation, Organisational Learning, and Institutional Endurance

How institutions develop and sustain the capabilities needed to respond to evolving threats.

• Defence strategy, organisational change, digital transformation, & governance

• Preparedness, anticipation, resilience, & adaptation during prolonged disruption

• Training, knowledge management, professional skills, & organisational learning

• Resource allocation, workforce sustainability, & operational capabilities

6. Defence Innovation and Public–Private Collaboration

How collaboration advances innovation for defence and security.

• Collaboration among armed forces, public agencies, industry, universities, & civil society

• Innovation ecosystems, procurement, technology transfer, & dual-use technologies

• Design science, prototypes, & proofs of concept addressing operational problems

• Organisational arrangements for joint innovation & operational collaboration

7. Geopolitics, International Cooperation, and Societal Security

How geopolitics shapes security, strategic dependencies, and collective responses.

• Comparative & regional studies, including perspectives from the Global South & beyond Europe

• International cooperation, alliances, deterrence, private military companies, & proxy networks

• Economic security, supply chains, energy, critical materials, & technological sovereignty

• Climate-related security challenges, societal resilience, & civilian consequences of conflict

• International law, ethics, & human values in responses to conventional & hybrid threats

Submission Information

Submit papers as PDF files through EasyChair. Submissions may be written in French or English.

Submission platform: EasyChair -

Submission Types

• Completed Research Papers (RP): up to 8,000 words. Present a completed study, its approach, findings or theoretical/design contribution, and implications.

• Work in Progress Papers (WP): 1,200–3,000 words. Describe the research question, approach, progress to date, and next steps; final results are not required.

• Extended Abstracts (EP): 600–1,200 words. Outline the problem, proposed approach, and intended contribution of an early-stage idea or concise study.

RP and WP submissions must include an abstract of no more than 200 words. Word limits include the abstract, main text, footnotes, appendices, and text in tables and figures; references are excluded. Use APA style, seventh edition, for references.

Submissions that do not comply with the stated guidelines may be excluded from review. PDSF does not claim copyright over submitted papers and permits simultaneous submission elsewhere; authors remain responsible for complying with the other venue’s submission policies.

Questions: pdsf2027@gmail.com

Program Committee

Christine Dugoin-Clément — IAE Paris-Sorbonne Business School

Jason B. Thatcher — Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder

Willem-Jan van den Heuvel — Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS)

Daniel Pienta — Haslam College of Business, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Camille Salinesi — Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Scientific Committee

Marten Risius — Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences

Rui Chen — Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University

John D’Arcy — University of Delaware

Sebastian Schuetz — Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder

Kevin M. Blasiak — Curtin University; TU Wien

Heng Xu — Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

Éric Lamarque — IAE Paris-Sorbonne Business School

Jean-Loup Richet — IAE Paris-Sorbonne Business School

Guillaume Gravier — CNRS, IRISA

Jean-Yves Marion — Université de Lorraine, LORIA

Karima Bouaiss — IAE de Lille