Topic: Research

What is societal security?

[Speech held for the European Security Research Programme Workshop Security research and Europe’s societal challenges: What do citizens want?, Oslo, 8 June 2011].

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Among the many successes of the European Security Research Programme is the growing wisdom and insight into what security actually means in our day. Most prominently this can be seen in the growing awareness of the importance of society in the security equation.

European research in the framework programmes has long been aware of the important link between science and society. Indeed the last few programmes have developed a dedicated rubric for this function alone.

Yet among the new insights that have emerged through the first half of the 7th Framework Programme is the meaning of security in society and the notion that security is in fundamental ways societal.

What does this mean? An answer to this question begins by asking another, even simpler, question: What does it mean to make Europe secure? [ More… ]

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