Air Power Studies Division
The RAF has responded to the ambiguities and uncertainties of the current strategic environment and to the RAF’s own diminishing size by providing its officer cadets with rigorous university-level education that significantly develops their strategic understanding, intellectual dexterity and problem-solving abilities. Rather than leave the academic curriculum solely to its own trainers the RAF has invested in a team of King’s College London (KCL) academics, who are permanently based at the Royal Air Force College, and has empowered them to create a more effective balance between traditional “informational” training and broad and critical “transformational” education.
Under the stewardship and guidance of Dr Joel Hayward, the Dean of the Royal Air Force College (a civilian senior academic with many years experience of teaching officer cadets and officers), the new Air Power Studies team of RAF trainers and KCL educators has introduced a broader and more challenging academic curriculum.
To ensure they retain the full academic freedom the RAF wants them to have as well as the critical distance they need as scholars, the academics are not formally part of the OACTU.
Created in partnership by the RAF and KCL's Defence Studies Department, the Air Power Studies team aspires to provide world-class, broad and critical education to RAF officers across various levels from initial officer training through to the RAF's flagship single-service course, the Higher Air Warfare Course.
The Air Power Studies team is developing into a national (and internationally recognised) centre of excellence in Air Power and related Defence research and teaching. In August 2007 it became a core component of the Royal Air Force’s new Centre for Air Power Studies (RAF CAPS), of which the Dean serves as a Director. The team also seeks to generate academic discourse and public awareness of Air Power's unique abilities, activities and accomplishments across the spectrum of conflict.
The team is committed to supporting the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff and the Directorate of Defence Staffs with specialist advice and the production of high-level research.
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Dr Joel Hayward is the Dean of the Royal Air Force College (DRAFC). Queries should be directed to his Personal Assistant, in the first instance. Contact details are:
Personal Assistant to the
Dean of the Royal Air Force College
Cranwell
RAF Cranwell
Sleaford
Lincolnshire
NG34 8HB
United Kingdom
Telephone +44(0)1400 266334
Fax +44(0)1400 266265
Email: daitkenhead-kcl@cranwell.raf.mod.uk
