About Escalation Lab

Escalation Lab is made by Hallam Burnapp, PhD researcher at the University of Aberdeen. It builds crisis simulations for teaching and research on crisis escalation: how decisions taken under time pressure and uncertainty interact, and how escalation runs away from the people who believe they control it.

What it is for

  • Teaching. FLASHPOINT:2027 is a branching crisis-origins exercise for security and strategic studies seminars. It is free to use for non-commercial teaching, training and research, with credit; the facilitator annex has session formats and debrief structures.
  • Research. The sealed research labs are sessions run with partner institutions, by invitation and with an access code. What they collect, and how consent and retention are governed, is set out on the Research and privacy page.

How to cite

Harvard

Burnapp, H. (2026) FLASHPOINT:2027: A Crisis-Origins Exercise [Online simulation]. Escalation Lab. Available at: https://escalationlab.org/flashpoint/ (Accessed: date).

OSCOLA

Hallam Burnapp, 'FLASHPOINT:2027: A Crisis-Origins Exercise' (Escalation Lab, 2026) <https://escalationlab.org/flashpoint/> accessed date

Chicago and BibTeX formats are in the How to cite panel at the foot of every FLASHPOINT:2027 page, and in CITATION.cff (a file for reference managers).

Licence

© 2026 Hallam Burnapp. All rights reserved. FLASHPOINT:2027 is free to use for non-commercial teaching, training and research, with credit: seminars, modules, assessments, and linking from course pages and reading lists. Commercial use, re-hosting or redistributing modified copies, and reuse of the scenario text require written permission. The full terms are on the Licence and permissions page.

Contact

Hallam Burnapp: h.burnapp.25@abdn.ac.uk · LinkedIn · Source repository

Feedback, teaching enquiries and requests for permission are all welcome at the same address.