Vienna Centre for Societal Security
Vienna Centre for Societal Security (VICESSE) is a private non-profit research organization, financed through project funds of the European Commission as well as national funds.
Mission Statement
VICESSE focuses on the analysis of a wide array of security issues in a broader societal context. We locate security problems and proposed solutions emerging at local, national and European levels in wider social and historical contexts. Conceiving of security as a societal concept, we strive to integrate and combine different analytical perspectives into a complex framework providing the basis for rigorous empirical and theoretical academic studies and pragmatic policy solutions alike. The VICESSE mission statement is to bring security back into society. This entails a dual task: linking contemporary security solutions to the everyday world of citizens and giving members of society a critical voice in security research.
research fields
VICESSE operates at the interface between science, technology, law and policy.
We do research and coordinate nationally and internationally funded projects.
democratising
security
Security is a public good and a state of mind. Both are intimately interrelated and should be evenly distributed and accessible to all citizens. Democratising security entails more than expanding surveillance and control. It covers economic, social, psychological, environmental and many other forms of security. A robust multi-dimensional security level emerges as a side-effect of a just society, providing equal living condition for its members on the basis of mutual respect. Investigating specific security problems against the background of this programmatic understanding our research addresses normative questions and integrates citizens’ understanding and security concerns as a key factor in the analysis.
understanding organisations & technology
Contemporary security measures heavily rely on advanced technologies of surveillance operating with an instrumental understanding that conceives of technological assemblages as neutral tools to be applied for a specific, well-defined purpose. We analyse security technologies as complex techno-social systems, moulding humans, organisations and their environment. This opens a new and realistic perspective on the use and effect of security through technology pointing out side effects and unexpected changes in the operation of organisations employing these technologies.
enhancing legal protection & transparency
Security is about protecting fundamental rights and the public authorities and institutions providing this protection are expected to act in a transparent way. Current initiatives in the area of security provision should be transparent and accountable. Developing solutions that enhance citizens’ security in a transparent and accountable way is a challenge we address in our research in the field of socio-legal analysis.
fields of application
Organisational development
Organisational change in the context of law enforcement institutions is a complex process and in many respects different from governing change management processes in private enterprises. The members of VICESSE have ample experience with organisational development in the domains of police and security services and provide consulting services for the implementation of new organisational structures.
Privacy Impact Assessment
With the growth of electronic data-processing systems and the collection of personal data by different private and public actors privacy has become an issue in many different fields. PIA is a methodology to assess the privacy impact of systems and practices where person-related data are collected and processed. VICESSE is cooperating with the leading scholars and consulting experts in this field and offers comprehensive services for PIA.
Support for Security Investment
DESSI (Decision Support System for Security Investment Decisions) provides a process and a decision support system to end users of security investments. It contributes to a transparent and participatory decision making that accounts for context and multi-dimensionality of society. It is useful for public authorities, developers of security solutions, commercial enterprises and for social organizations that VICESSE can assist using the DESSI tool to make a comprehensive assessment as an input to strategic discussions or public debate.