From the 17th to the 19th I attended the 40th conference of the British International Studies Association. With 700 participants it was the largest BISA conference so far. And with a location right next to Tower Bridge perhaps the one with the nicest view from the conference facilities. At the conference I presented at two roundtables which focused on the state of Security Studies and the rationale of the new European Journal of International Security (find a summary of the roundtables at the EJIS website here). In addition I also participated in a roundtable on Methods and Critique. Overall it was good to see a thriving British IR community in action. The discussion on methods and methodology continues to be one of the major themes the discipline is currently discussing, which is a move into the direction. What kind of social science IR and its many subcommunities wants to be is after all crucial a question of how it wants to combine theory and empirics and what types of empirical experiences enrich the formulation of theory and concepts.