NHL University -- Chair Safety & Security

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Policy Plan September 2004 - October 2008


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NHL University Leeuwarden
Thorbecke Academy
Chair Safety and Security

Policy Plan September 2004 - October 2008

Introduction

On September 1st 2004 the chair Safety and Security was installed at the NHL University of Leeuwarden. The chair consists of a chair holder (associate professor) and an expert network including experts in the field of Safety and Security from different universities and other institutes.

Safety is the effective protection of human beings against any danger - protection against any physical or psychological damage that is, including any harm caused by the loss of property. Public safety is safety concerning any location open to the general public. Security is the effective protection of a social or technological system against any unwanted invasion. These definitions make clear that although the two terms have a different meaning, they are interrelated. The protection of social and technological systems is, to a certain extent, a necessary condition for safety, albeit that this condition is not sufficient.

The chair's focus is on public safety (including crime, accidents, emergencies), in particular on all formal organizations and informal networks that take care of it. Together the organizations and networks in a community that make an effort to achieve a certain level of public safety constitute that communities public safety care.

According to the prevailing view in the Netherlands public safety can not be tackled by any particular department alone, or by the whole government alone. Public safety requires what might be best called an integrated policy approach: a multi-agency approach where all relevant parties - governmental organizations as well as private enterprises as well as the general public - view public safety as a shared responsibility and collective priority. Core issues in this unified approach to the public safety problem are cooperation between parties and the exchange of information between them.

Mission and goals

The chair's mission is to contribute to the quality and effectiveness of public safety care as provided by first responders like police, fire departments and emergency medical services as well as other institutions such as the public administration, youth welfare and informal citizen networks. The chair will realize her contribution by means of independent research in which a scientific approach is connected with an orientation on everyday practice. The research findings should add to the field of practice as well as education. Within the next four years in the Netherlands the chair should develop into a leading network of knowledge in the field of public safety.

The chair's five main goals are to:
  1. Realise a coherent research programme in the science of 'public safety administration'.
  2. Provide a structural and substantial contribution to the teaching at the NHL University, in the favour of the standards in teaching and its connection with everyday practice.
  3. Establish a prominent position for the NHL University in the field of research on public safety, on a national as well as an international level, and make the NHL University participate in networks of relevant knowledge institutes and organizations in the field of practice.
  4. Provide knowledge to institutions for public safety.
  5. Establish a Master of Science in 'Integrated Safety Policy', in cooperation with other knowledge institutes, preferably a foreign university.

Research questions

The chair's primary field of interest is public safety and public safety care. As the integrated policy approach is central in Dutch safety policy, the chair focuses on cooperation, including the exchange of information.

Furthermore the chair's domain of knowledge includes the nature and the scope of specific safety problems, the effectiveness of measures taken by collaborating parties to reduce the problem, and the development of research methods and techniques.

Since in public safety both information about the social environment and the exchange of information between collaborating parties are important, there is a special interest for the role that information and communication technologies play or could play in public safety care.

Although ICT is a point of interest, it is not the starting point. The research focuses primarily on people, their problems and most of all: their collaborations.

The three main research questions concerning the above field of interest are:
  1. What is involved in the day-to-day collaboration between parties in public safety, which role does ICT play in that, how can these findings be explained, and how can public safety care be improved here?
  2. How effective are ICT-based measures to improve public safety and why?
  3. How can parties in public safety care gather valid information about safety problems in their social environment and which role can ICT play in this?
Furthermore the chair may initiate small scale research in reaction to a topical subject in the field of safety. The goal of the research in such a case is to contribute empirical and theoretical based knowledge and grounded arguments to a current debate.