Increasing security perception by leveraging on Social Sciences

Amidst the evolving landscape of security challenges in public spaces, there is a growing need for effective and socially accepted solutions. Trust, acceptance, and heightened security behaviours are essential. With this in mind, this panel will discuss the existing evidence, including experiences, knowledge and inspirational examples, where social science (social innovation, participatory methodologies, user-centric design, etc) are applied to contribute to increase the security perception of the citizens. Learnings from different institutions involved in the the Horizon Europe funded CO-SECUR project and its Advisory Board will be discussed and shared with the audience.

The panel will be moderated by Maite Ferrando PhD and Dr Meike Hecker. The several international experts invited to the panel will present a 2 minutes pitch on their learnings and experiences in their respective countries, namely Finland, Lithuania, Romania, Greece, Poland and Canada (TBC). After this introduction, an open debate will take place with the panelists and the audience on the relevance and impact of social approaches in security. The confirmed panelist covering the referred countries are Maria Mekri, Andrius Jaržemskis, Lucia Cristea, Dinos Nikolaidis-Konstas and Michal Woch.