SPAIS student Alex Cole, who graduated with a MSc International Security in 2025, has been awarded a prize for Best Master’s Thesis on Peace, Conflict and Violence. The prize is awarded each year by the Peace, Conflict and Violence Research Group and the Global Insecurities Centre, and is generously sponsored by Bristol University Press.
Jury members Genevieve Kotarska and Aaron Villarruel Mora, who co-lead the Research Group, praised the “theoretically innovative and empirically outstanding” nature of Alex’s dissertation, which examines why and how some armed groups undergo ideological change during conflicts, like recently Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria.
Alex, who now works for HM Treasury, was delighted to hear the news and said: “The breadth of the Master’s in International Security at SPAIS in Bristol, and the opportunity to engage with different theoretical and regional perspectives, played a key role in shaping the direction of my thesis. I owe a lot to my lecturers for their high standards”
The Prize for Best Master’s Thesis on Conflict, Peace and Violence is a joint initiative of the Global Insecurities Centre and the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Violence in order to celebrate the excellence of the work done on these issues by Bristol and SPAIS postgraduate students and provide visibility to the best dissertations.