A multi-campus university asked us to help it protect people and continuity through recurring protest seasons, without ever treating legitimate dissent as a security problem. Unrest had become a predictable feature of the academic calendar, and the institution needed a way to keep students and staff safe and teaching on track while preserving the right to protest. Our mandate was to design readiness, not repression.
The challenge
Recurrent unrest threatened student safety, academic continuity and the university's reputation at the same time. Disruption to teaching and examinations carried real consequences for students' progression, while a heavy-handed response risked inflaming tensions and damaging the institution's standing.
The hardest part of the brief was proportion. The university needed to read emerging risk early and act decisively where safety was genuinely at stake, while drawing a clear line that kept legitimate dissent outside the security response. Getting that line wrong in either direction carried a cost.
Our approach
We designed a protest-readiness programme built around early-warning intelligence, so the institution could anticipate periods of heightened risk rather than react to them. Collection drew on open and community signals to give leadership a measured sense of what was building and when, with enough lead time to prepare calmly.
Around that intelligence we built de-escalation protocols that put dialogue and proportionate response ahead of confrontation. The protocols were explicit about preserving the right to protest, and they gave staff on the ground clear, rehearsed options so that decisions in tense moments were guided by doctrine rather than improvised under pressure.
We then wrote a continuity plan for teaching and examinations, so that academic delivery could be sustained or adapted through disruption rather than abandoned. The workstreams were:
- An early-warning intelligence capability drawing on open and community signals
- De-escalation protocols that placed dialogue ahead of confrontation
- Clear thresholds separating legitimate dissent from genuine safety risk
- A continuity plan to keep teaching and examinations running through disruption
- Briefing and rehearsal so staff could act on the protocols under pressure
The outcome
Across the four campuses covered by the programme, teaching days were protected in full. With early warning giving leadership room to prepare and continuity arrangements ready to absorb disruption, the academic calendar held through the protest season.
Just as importantly, there were no serious incidents over the period. The combination of early intelligence, measured de-escalation and a clear line around legitimate dissent kept people safe while honouring the institution's values.
We kept our campuses open and our students safe without ever treating their right to protest as the threat. That balance is exactly what we were afraid we would lose.
The programme endured because it was designed for a recurring season, not a single flashpoint. The university now holds a repeatable rhythm of early warning, proportionate response and continuity planning that it can run each cycle, which means readiness is now part of how the institution operates rather than a response it has to assemble afresh each time.
