SOURCE Societal Security Conference 

GLOBAL THREATS

LOCAL ACTORS

21-22 March, Haus der Europäischen Union, Vienna

 

(For PhD students applying for travel support, please fill in relevant question in registration form)

Attention to societal security permits industry, technology developers, policy-makers and end-users to capture and act upon threats that often form on the global level (climate change, pandemics, trafficking, migration, trans-national terrorism, etc.), but play out locally. Political measures often do the reverse: efforts at security governance need contextual anchoring in specific local contexts. Media representations play a crucial role in regulating this dynamic.

The complex interplay between threats to European security and the measures put in place to address them, changes with the societal reactions they provoke. Society’s role in response to insecurity is growing—both in terms of new demands for security measures, and in terms of its own contribution to enhancing its own resilience in the face of evolving threats.

• What are the emerging challenges to societal security?
• How are stakeholder interests in societal security evolving?
• How do these changes translate into challenges to security R & D?
• What decision-critical knowledge do we need?

Few ideas have the political power as societal security, gathering together the parallel challenges of technological foresight, policy development and societal concerns into a single, interdependent ecosystem:

• How can we assure that security measures are taken in line with societal expectations?
• When does the line go between rule of law and ethics?
• How can good governance be assured when security work is increasingly automated by algorithms?
• How should and can the human dimensions of security research fit into this equation?
• What is the future of privacy in security research and development?
• How can we assure trust both people and technologies?
• Who has ownership of the costs and benefits of security research and development?

These questions and others will form the core of this SOURCE Societal Security Conference.

 Please find more information here