The theme for this year’s APPSNO is “Cooperation in Strategising National Security” where the theme focuses on cooperation to address national security concerns as a response to an increasingly competitive and nationalistic global context. It begs the questions of: How can states creatively collaborate over securing domestic trade and economy, critical infrastructures, borders, law enforcement, environmental matters, and government institutions? Within societies, what are possible collaborative and cooperative solutions in addressing national security issues of the day? How can technological advancements support these challenges? Should there be new ideas, institutions and blueprints to create new paradigms or rules of the road?

Leading experts (made up of a combination of local and international speakers) in the domains of cybersecurity, extremism, communication, homeland security, non-traditional security have been invited to share their thoughts and experiences to address topics such as:

1. Cooperating on Countermeasures for Violent Extremism – extremist rehabilitation, evolution in violent extremist organisations, countering far-right extremism and post-crisis resilience.
2. Cooperation in Managing Strategic Communication – Crisis communication, managing disinformation in the digital age, formulating policies for digital literacy.
3. Cooperation in Creating Cyber Agendas – Establishing cyber resiliency, protecting data and privacy in the digital age, digital governance.
4. Cooperating Across Fault Lines – Managing cleavages at the intra-state and inter-state levels, interfaith and cultural models for managing societal fault lines.
5. Case Studies in Cooperation – Urbanisation, climate change, disaster relief, crisis management.