North Rhine-Westphalia and the United Kingdom are looking back on 75 years of friendship this year. North Rhine-Westphalia has celebrated this anniversary in a series of events and is focusing on further deepening cooperation. Against this background, the Henry Kissinger Professorship at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn has set itself the goal of further strengthening cooperation with British partners and advancing scientific and research coordination for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the field of security and strategic research. The Joint Declaration of Intent between the two foreign ministries on German-British foreign policy cooperation of June 30, 2021, sets the framework for this. The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union and the current reorganization of transatlantic relations make it all the more necessary to strengthen the "silent alliance" that exists between the two countries today.

The joint event of the Henry Kissinger Professorship and the "Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics" on 22 June 2021 "The United Kingdom, Europe and North Rhine-Westphalia: Towards a New Partnership in an Uncertain World" in the context of "75 Years of "Friendship" between North Rhine-Westphalia and the United Kingdom" marked the start of a new research focus of the Henry Kissinger Professorship within the framework of the "Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies" (CASSIS).

 
In cooperation with our partners in the United Kingdom, the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Global Security and Governance at the University of Aberdeen, and in parallel with the process of developing a new Strategic Concept for the North Atlantic Alliance, in 2021/2022 we will look at issues of particular concern to both countries in connection with the future development of the international order. In doing so, we will focus in particular on the power-political shifts in the Asia-Pacific region and their geopolitical and geoeconomic implications for North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition, we want to make the scientific expertise on questions of geo-economics and strategy research in the United Kingdom useful for North Rhine-Westphalia in view of the focus of the Henry Kissinger Professorship and in connection with the master's program "International Security and Strategy" planned at the University of Bonn.