Universiteitstraat 4, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium T +32 (0) , F +32 (0) Tom Vander Beken – SRC’10 - Societal Security – 23 September Trick or threat? Implicit understandings within security research and their consequences Prof. dr. Tom Vander Beken SRC’10 Research, development and innovation for a more secure Europe Societal Security session Ostend, 23 September 2010

Universiteitstraat 4, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium T +32 (0) , F +32 (0) Tom Vander Beken – SRC’10 - Societal Security – 23 September Background & focus Reflections on the conclusions from the Workshop on 'Societal security' in security research and development of 1 July 2010 in Brussels. Background & focus: security and criminal policy reseach

Universiteitstraat 4, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium T +32 (0) , F +32 (0) Tom Vander Beken – SRC’10 - Societal Security – 23 September Research on implicit understandings … of what the threats to Europe really are. Many projects and tasks consider these threats as given. Few research makes them explicit and provides transparency about the way they are defined; … of the concepts used and their utility and relevance. Threats, risks, harms and vulnerabilities are different concepts; … of the availability of knowledge about threats and risks. How to assess them in an uncertain (and thus uncalculable and unpredictable) world? … of the consequences of a resilience based approach and anticipation of high impact events? … of the consequences of these epistemological problems on the transparency and accountability of the European security policy. What is the evidence base for preparatory, preventive and repressive action?