I527-290 ESRIF Final Report (WEB).indd - European Commission

Handling high-quality societal foresight debate on security.
There is lack of ability to deal with future deep uncertainty; and need for translating strategic insights/concepts into R&D or
investment priorities. No mature security specifi c communities are available; there is a short term focus of policymakers; and a
lack of common vision and understanding of future threats to security interests. This calls for
Foster shared understanding of long-term security issues in European policy communities (content)
A shared conceptual framework for security policy writ large among European decision-making and decision-supporting
communities; embed sound foresight and risk analysis practices in decision-making
Develop strategies for sound foresight and risk analysis practices to aff ect public perceptions of insecurity: processes (process)
Improve understanding the of interdependencies between the internal and the external dimensions of security and
defence issues
Enhancing creative capabilities in foresight.
The potential of ICT is not yet exploited, e.g. virtual reality tools, etc. More sophisticated methodologies are needed to explore
future worlds in a systematic manner. Aspects include:
Advancement of scenario methodology as an essential tool for enabling and organising creativity
Development of cooperative ICT tools to facilitate deliberation and creative collaboration within distributed teams
Development of creativity-enhancing methods and tools
Understanding human behaviour (individual and group) in the context of security.
The impacts of interventions in interdependent sets of root causes can be captured at a very abstract and general level only. Major
threats associated with emerging technologies reside in the – often unexpected - use that can be made of them. Aspects include:
Development of an operational concept of societal resilience
Improve understanding on ways of aff ecting ‘root causes’ of insecurity (e.g. violent radicalisation)
Understand Human-System Integration aspects of the operation of security solutions
Investigate malevolent uses of emerging technologies from an inter-disciplinary perspective
5.7 Conclusions
The work in ESRIF’s Integration Team meant that the eleven WGs came together to develop a joint perspective on ESRIF’s overall
mandate. The common part I elements are typically such that they have their roots in several of the WGs and in many cases
the concrete form of the idea has emerged via the Integration Team process in a way that makes the fi nal product relatively far
removed from all WGs. Still it is possible to say something about which of the various categories of ESRIF statements have the
strongest WG5 links. Needless to say we are in no case claiming exclusiveness here.
Of the key recommendations Societal resilience (not least the social cohesion aspect with its ability to prevent root causes of
crime and terrorism) and A systematic approach to capability development have a particularly strong WG5 pedigree. The long
term perspective makes investment in resilience (which also includes Trust and Security by design) a relevant option, and the
increasing scope and complexity of insecurity identifi ed by WG5 made a more systematic approach to security investment a
necessity in order to avoid excessive cost.
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