Making Europe more secure for its citizens while maintaining civil rights and liberties is the goal of European Security Research. By co-operating and coordinating efforts on a Europe-wide scale, the EU can better understand and adequately respond to risks in a constantly changing world and enhance its competitiveness at the same time. This is the aim of the a new common research project, called EU-SEC II, which will involve 23 European security administrations and one United Nations agency.

Benefiting from each others experience, to avoid duplication and to obtain a critical mass of resources, is one of the main objectives of a new created research network, called EU-SEC II, which will be funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research. It is one, among many others, concrete action that will be presented at the third European Security Research Conference.

The objectives of the conference, jointly organised by the French presidency and the European Commission are to bring together more than 1000 representatives of the security communities: users such as police forces, fire-fighters, first responders or border guards, public authorities and technology suppliers from the public and private sectors. Security research could only be successful if it effectively brings the final users into the research projects.

“The continued risk of terrorist attacks as well as of natural disasters should not lead to a limitation to European citizens freedoms. This has led the Commission to fund EU wide targeted research efforts”, said Vice President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industry policy including security. “Security research can give us the tools to enhance security while preserving our liberties. We must enhance security but we must also avoid 'big brother is watching you' solutions. Striking the right balance remains challenging, in Europe with such a historical diversity. This underlines the need for non-technological research work also to be covered. The strong European security research programme will not only improve the security of citizens as it will also enhance Europe's competitive edge in high tech applications”.

The Commission aims to ensure that its security research programs lead to practical security solutions, not only bridging the so-called "innovation gap" but also mirroring security policy priorities. The three financial Framework programmes in the Justice and Home affairs area – "Solidarity and the Management of migration flows", "Fundamental rights and justice" and "Security and safeguarding liberties" with a combined budget of more than 7 billion Euros increasingly draw on results of research programmes, including EU ones, and focus on deploying innovating solutions.

Under the authority of Günter Verheugen 1.4 billion Euros from the EU budget are dedicated to security research. The recently launched call for proposals FP7-SEC-2009-1, is focusing on subjects fight against terrorism, protection of infrastructures, crisis management and border security and is also going to be presented to the audience.

Gijs de Vries, chairman of the ESRIF, the European Security Research and Innovation Forum, whose 4th plenary meeting was held in Ispra (Italy) on May 2008, will present during the European Security Research Conference, the mid-term results of these research activities after one year of activity. In ESRIF, public and private stakeholders of the security community are working towards establishing a Joint Security Research Agenda for Europe for the next twenty years.

EU-SEC II Project

EU-SEC is one of the main projects of United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) in the field of Security/Counter-terrorism focusing on the European region, which is funded by the DG Research of the European Commission within the framework of the ERA-NET programme.

During the course of four years, the EU-SEC project supported and improved the coordination of the research activities on security during Major Events of ten European Countries by carrying out a networking activity among national research programmes in the field and laying the bases for joint transnational coordinated research.

The EU-SEC II project aims at contributing to the common identification of priorities through the creation of a durable structuring effect of the demand side of the European technology market. Thus, the involved partners will be able to push the technology suppliers market to effectively react to meet their exigencies.