Research & Information Services

Our mission is to make sense of challenges in the information landscape and turn them to client advantage

how it works

  • Principal-led

    Our service model is built on a straightforward premise: every client engagement is personally led and implemented by a senior Principal.

    This means we don’t bait-and-switch on delivery, offshore core functions, or cut corners to maximize profits.

    The result is senior performance and accountability that’s baked into our company DNA.

  • Operationally Lean

    We work with a core team of consultants to provide the stability, efficiency, and quality assurance that underpins every client engagement.

    This is more than a back-office - it’s a working hub that leverages human expertise and the power of AI and technology assisted research.

    For our clients, it means predictable, professional delivery.

  • Functionally Scalable

    When assignments require it, we upscale or upskill through a network of close colleagues and partners.

    The approach brings to bear principal-level oversight, lateral expertise, and the surge capacity required for more complex or resource-intensive tasks.

    The result is a bespoke, cost-effective service free of bureaucratic obstacles and of the costly overheads of a larger or more established firm.

our competencies

  • The Practice of Intelligence

    In its broadest sense, intelligence can be viewed as a kind of “peculiar genius” - a “quickness in seeing things as they are,” as George Santayana famously put it.

    In professional practice, intelligence is the art and discipline of accessing information, elucidating meaning from it, and communicating the results to the right audience.

    We use it to plan and determine the art of the possible.

  • Social Science & Technical Acumen

    As trained political scientists, anthropologists, historians, lawyers, and data scientists, we have the knowledge and skills to think through, answer and resolve complex questions.

    We apply structured thinking and analytical techniques to matters in which facts are disputed, sources are partial, and deep mapping of context is essential.

    We use it to understand and assess human behaviour in the real world.

  • Research & Development

    Research and experimental development - R&D - organises speculative research in a structured and iterative process, generates new evidence, and learns from it.

    Basic research builds knowledge without seeking outcomes. Applied research uncovers new data to advance a product or process. Experimental research builds, tests, and studies them.

    Our R&D activities are about innovating and advancing the state of the art.

our experience

  • Rule of Law

    We maintain professional and personal commitments to the rule of law, and we have a record of completed assignments to prove it.

    Our work has always been connected either directly or indirectly to rule of law initiatives, including service with international organisations and fact-finding missions mandated to uphold and promote legal process, principles, and outcomes.

    We supported legal process and operations in multiple assignments. This involved legal research, as well as managing elements of the electronic discovery process, including pre-discovery needs assessment, evidence collection, large-scale digitization, and technology assisted review

  • Technology Markets

    We began working on emerging technologies in response to client requests for regulatory, behavioural, and applications research.

    The result was a wrap-around service that provided two things: elements of context that connect product to market, and strategic and market intelligence for investment, procurement, and risk decisions. These were delivered as horizon scanning reports, capability deep dive reports, and briefing packages.

    That matured into a dedicated practice area focused on humans-in-systems, artificial intelligence, user experience and adoption, product benchmarking, use case and scenario development, and the broader spectrum of emerging tech work that shaped us.

  • Liminal Economies

    We implemented an in-house research program on the behavioural, cultural, and social characteristics of financial networks.

    Our desk and field assignments on fragile and conflict affected states frequently overlapped with economic challenges and the financial activities of globally sanctioned entities.

    Programme coverage included multiple desk and field assignments. Field missions included: a rapid field assessment of revenue leakage (in the nine figure USD range) surrounding a major mining concession in Indonesia; and evidence gathering and analysis of illicit networks and economies in denied areas of Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, and Syria.

  • Defence & Security

    Our most robust area of expertise and track record of completed assignments is in geopolitics, defence, and security.

    Private sector and civil society assignments focused on due diligence, open-source intelligence, competitor research, and political, strategic, and operational risk intelligence.

    Public sector assignments, for UK, US, Canadian and Norwegian government clients, covered policy, strategy, doctrinal, and historical analysis, typically delivered as detailed studies, maps, datasets, briefing and workshops. In the UK these were delivered through prime-led consortia (primes were BAE, Thales, PWC, and others).

    Strategic map with infographics

key contacts

  • Routes In

    We prioritise enquiries from organisations, offices, and individuals interested in retaining our services, sponsoring our research, or discussing framework or consortium support.

    Email: enquiries@craigheadkellas.com
    UAE: +971 (0)4 439 6306 UK: +44 (0)207 100 9280

    UK Frameworks
    In the UK, CKS is registered on R-Cloud and is part of the BAE Systems-led framework on Analysis for Science and Technology Research in Defence (ASTRID).

    UAE Connections
    CKS is a corporate member of the British Chamber of Commerce Dubai, and Mike can be reached privately through the Capital Club and the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club.

    Partnerships & Referrals
    We value partnership and referral arrangements, particularly as a vehicle for promoting UK-UAE business. Please contact us to discuss options.

    Sponsorship
    For parties interested in supporting our research on evidence controls, technology benchmarking, and information and communications technology.

  • Dr. Michael A. Innes

    Mike founded CKS, manages the company’s strategic direction, and leads project design and implementation.

    Based in Dubai, Mike divides his time between the UAE, the UK and assignments elsewhere. He spent six years as a NATO official in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Europe, and a decade running a political risk boutique in London. More recently, he spent two years in Iraq with the UN.

    Among the many follies of a misspent youth, he counts with pride seven years of early career military service in infantry and other units. He maintains a portfolio of professional activities, including a research profile at King’s College London, and legal services (under supervision) through a law firm in England.

    He holds a PhD in political science from the School of Oriental and African Studies and a Graduate Diploma in Law from Birkbeck.

  • Dan Davies

    Dan manages business, strategy, planning, and development for CKS and leads the company’s client-facing BD activities.

    For more than a decade, Dan has been helping pre-investment technology businesses define their value propositions, position their solutions, secure investment, and establish routes to market.

    Dan’s portfolio includes multiple government-funded R&D, commercial exploitation, and use case design projects. A highlight is his development and use of hybrid STEM/non-STEM project teams for complex technology R&D.

    He holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from the University of Wales and is working on a PhD in the same field at the University of St. Andrews.