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 partners from the European funded CO-SECUR projects and its Advisory Board will be also discussed and shared with the audience.

Moderated by Maite Ferrando PhD and Meike Hecker, several international experts on the topic 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.