Dr. Rubén Arcos is an associate professor [profesor contratado doctor] at the School of Communication Sciences of University Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) in Madrid, Spain, and a researcher at the Cyberimaginario research group on Communication and Digital Culture. He is also a Visiting Professor at the EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies Department of the College of Europe in Bruges. Arcos is faculty of the PhD program in international security at IUGM-UNED.
He is currently the Vice Chair of the Intelligence Studies Section at the International Studies Association (ISA) and has served previously as program Co-chair (2020-2023). Arcos is a co-founder and co-director of the International Online Intelligence Hub – IntelHub, a joint initiative between the American Public University System (APUS), the University of Leicester in the UK, and University Rey Juan Carlos.
He is a member of the expert pool on information of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats – Hybrid CoE, having contributed to trend reports, with strategic analysis and with a background paper for the report “Hybrid threats: a comprehensive resilience ecosystem”.
He has served as a senior consultant for European Commission’s funded projects related to the security sector in Georgia and The Gambia, and as a freelance contributor for Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Rubén Arcos is currently a co-principal researcher and core theme leader (topic theme: information and strategic communication) of the H2020 EU-HYBNET project (Empowering a Pan-European Network to Counter Hybrid Threats), and of the Erasmus+ projects DOMINOES (Digital Competences Information Ecosystem) and INSET (Critical Studies in Intelligence, Technologies, and Security Governance).
He has been appointed national representative for the NATO/STO research task groups SAS-189 “Anticipatory Intelligence for Superior Decision Making” and SAS-ET-FG on "Prediction and intelligence analysis" and has served as Spanish representative in the project SAS-114 on assessment and communication of uncertainty in intelligence to support decision-making (SAS panel excellence award).
He has been the coordinator (with Manuel Gértrudix) of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Strategic Communication to Counter Security Threats in the Disinformation Era (awarded the International Telecommunications Union’s 2023 WSIS prize in the category of Media).
Arcos has been co-director of the 1st Conference on Exercises, Simulations, and Games for Intelligence and National Security (Georgetown University) and is co-editor (with William Lahneman) of the two volumes (2014 and 2019) of The Art of Intelligence: Simulations, Exercises, and Games (Rowman and Littlefield’s Security and Professional Intelligence Education Series).
He has also been the co-director of the 1st StratcomES Conference – Strategic Communications in Security and Defence– and co-director of the NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division co-sponsored workshop “Responding to Hybrid Threats in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea Region”.
His last books are the “Routledge Handbook of Disinformation and National Security” (co-edited with Irena Chiru and Cristina Ivan) and “The Academic-Practitioner Divide in Intelligence Studies” (co-edited with Nicole Drumhiller and Mark Phythian).
He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and has been Deputy Editor of the International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs (2016-2021).
Arcos founded in 2013 and served as director of the Spanish chapter of the Association of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). He was the academic coordinator (2010-2018) and an instructor of the first-ever MA program in Intelligence Analysis in Spain.
He has a teaching experience of over 17 years in undergraduate and graduate programs and has delivered courses on intelligence and security subjects and participated in conferences and workshops, either on-site or online, in Spain and abroad, in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Greece, Georgia, Finland, Romania, The Gambia, the UK, and the United States.
He has been a visiting expert/instructor for the ‘Readers’ Intelligence and Security Camp organized by the State Security Service of Georgia and has designed with Georgian experts the curriculum of the Master's program in security studies.
Spain