URBSEC

While humankind has faced risks and hazards, crises and emergencies, ever since the first humans walked the earth, combined technological, social, and urban development continues to present societies with ever new challenges for the provision of safe and secure living conditions and environments.

Established in 2011, the Urban Safety and Societal Security Research Center (URBSEC) is a shared mission between University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. The center is conceived to meet present challenges and insecurities through research and innovation that cross the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge, bridge divides between the social sciences and technology, and engage multiple external stakeholders.

URBSEC offers an interface between practice and academia where needs and problems as experienced by various social actors can be transformed into research and innovation. The center is a networked community of researchers and research capacities always on standby, functioning as a pool of resources to be mobilized and assembled corresponding to identified needs and priorities as well as requests and urgencies as they emerge in practice.

In collaboration with governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, businesses and think tanks, the expressed objective is to produce knowledge that supports innovations and solutions which contribute to counter, reduce, and manage risks, threats, insecurities and vulnerabilities in ways that build a resilient socially inclusive society.