The Academic Advisory Council (AAC) is designed to pursue the following scientific objective: understand the effectiveness of VSS and the determinants of effectiveness. Currently, different disciplines approach questions related to the effectiveness of VSS from different theoretical perspectives and focus on different dimensions of effectiveness. The AAC’s objective is to bring these different perspectives into one overarching network on the effectiveness of VSS, thus contributing to a comprehensive understanding of VSS effectiveness.

The complementarities between the partners involved in the VSS Academic Advisory Council are two-fold. First, the VSS Academic Advisory Council will bring together an international mix of experts from a wide variety of academic backgrounds, ranging from public international law, over international political economy, economics and public management, to human rights and sustainability studies. This type of multi-disciplinary approach not only reflects the implicit acknowledgement of the complexity and multi-faceted nature of analysing VSS effectiveness and the challenges associated therewith. It also offers researchers from different thematic and methodological schools a chance to collaborate with, and learn from, one another. Such collaboration in turn, allows the academics involved to create a more comprehensive understanding, a fuller picture, of their research topics.

Second, the VSS Academic Advisory Council will have direct involvement in the work of the UNFSS, spread across different regions of the world. This allows for a unique interaction between researchers and practitioners. On the one hand, it allows UNFSS officials to benefit from cutting-edge academic thinking and innovate data-gathering exercises and research projects. On the other hand, collaboration with the UNFSS gives academics access to the expertise and day-to-day experiences of practitioners involved in the different aspects of working on a daily basis with VSS.