Intelligence as nexus between state, academia and private sector: a common work for national security interest

The national and international security challenges in the context of the information revolution have generated, in the last twenty-five years, several changes in the intelligence theory and praxis. The need to share principle and the know-how that should guide the intelligence workflow are under scrutiny and lie on the borderline between the defense of the secret and the need to attract the expertise of the outside stakeholders - the Academia and the private sector - in order to cogenerate knowledge for smart decisions. The primary purpose of this article is to highlight the main benefits and limits of a collective intelligence approach as a result of the analysis of different models proposed by intelligence experts. The second purpose of this contribution is to evaluate the particular case of Romania, where there are premises for implementing such an approach in nowadays intelligence organizations. The final proposal consists of creating a social intelligence platform where the analysis has the role to include the expertise of Academia and private sector. In terms of methodology, I used the general principles of analogy and structured analysis (comparative analysis and SWOT). I compared models of collaborative intelligence identified in literature or in intelligence services practice. By analogy with models from the business field, I highlighted the key elements of a social intelligence platform. The use of SWOT has helped the process of identifying the benefits, limitations, opportunities, and challenges to implement a social collaborative platform in intelligence.