Knowledge building and social innovation for a successful, more effective and CO-produce urban SECURity solutions

Project Information

CO-SECUR

Grant agreement ID: 101121325

DOI

10.3030/101121325

EC signature date 17 November 2023

Start date 1 December 2023

End date 30 November 2026

Funded under

• Civil Security for Society

Total cost

€ 1 999 957,50

EU contribution

€ 1 999 957,50

Coordinated by

SENIOR EUROPA SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CO-SECUR (Knowledge building and social innovation for a successful, more effective and CO-produce urban SECURity solutions)

Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Recent research demonstrates that citizen participation enhances the acceptance of procedures and measures, improves public trust, and increases the effectiveness of security policies. However, meaningful participation remains challenging in practice, with many initiatives falling into "consultation" rather than genuine co-creation roles.

CO-SECUR was designed in 2022 in response to the referred challenges and aligned with the call HORIZON-CL3-2022-SSRI-01-04. The project aims to build knowledge and suite of tools, including a Societal Development Plan (SDP) to foster and accelerate the adoption of social innovations and responsible innovation principles that contribute to successful, more effective, and co-produced security solutions for public spaces, generating trust, acceptance, increasing security, security perception and security behaviour. Thus, CO-SECUR is the response to a compelling need to unveil and share this knowledge so that successful practices of social innovation and citizens` participation are shared and can serve of inspiration across the EU to increase the acceptance and success of security solutions in European smart cities.

Specific Objectives

SO1: To map and analyse relevant social innovations designed to prevent, detect, and respond to threats that can happen in public spaces (public places, transport, and mobility) with special focus on massive events and crowded public spaces in Europe.
SO2: To involve the Quintuple Helix + media in the project activities to identify how they are being actually and currently actively and participatively involved in the co-creation of processes, measures, and solutions in the field of security in Europe and improve this involvement with bottom-up strategies.
SO3: To contribute to the implementation of SIS among European cities and regions to increase acceptancy and trust in the security solutions for public spaces and security behaviour.
SO4: To provide capacity building and methodological tools for current participative approaches applied to better engage stakeholders from the Quintuple helix within an RRI approach and fostering a comprehensive discussion.
SO5: To share, promote and disseminate the project knowledge and results to be transferable and scalable potential at local, regional, national and EU level.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Knowledge Building and Case Mapping(WP1)

CO-SECUR successfully established a comprehensive knowledge for Social Innovation in Security (SIS) through two key activities. A rigorous literature review analysed over 270 scientific and grey sources, focusing on social innovation, security perception, behavioural responses, and participatory governance.
Concurrently, the consortium mapped 183 SIS initiatives across all 9 partner countries plus additional international cases, creating the most comprehensive cross-national database of participatory security practices in Europe. Each case was documented using harmonised templates covering contextual, methodological, and impact data.
The respective deliverables (D1.1 and D1.2) were delivered on time.

Theory Building and Case Analysis (WP2)

From the initial 183 cases, the consortium developed and applied a systematic selection algorithm to identify 87 cases with the highest potential for providing actionable knowledge and tools. This selection process balanced multiple criteria including social innovation relevance, security alignment, participatory approaches, documentation quality, and transferability potential.
In-depth qualitative analysis and has commenced through desk research for structured case descriptions and stakeholder interviews. By M18, partners had reached 80% of their interview targets (72+ interviews planned), engaging diverse stakeholders including initiative leaders, local implementers, NGO representatives, and end-users.

Capacity Building Foundations (WP3)

Stakeholder engagement activities were initiated across all countries, with mapping and initial contacts with 8-15 actors per country from the Quintuple Helix + media.
Preparatory work for the Societal Development Plan (SDP) included brainstorming sessions with Security Innovation Advisory Board (SIAB) to discuss target audiences, purpose, and structure.
In connexion, with WP3, activities from other transversal workpackages, including the effort made on the communication (T4.2) and the establishment of the SIAB through a competitive process, which has actively contributed to methodological decisions and early validation of results.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The literature review conducted analysed over 270 scientific and grey sources on social innovation, perception of security, behavioural responses, and participatory governance, being the first of its kind. The results of the review also help to establish a clear path for scaling up successful models and replicating participatory processes in diverse urban and social contexts across Europe. The scoping review will be submitted in coming weeks for publication in social sciences journals.

The in-depth analysis of 87 selected cases is generating actionable insights on success factors, implementation barriers, and transferability conditions for participatory security initiatives. This evidence base enables the identification of governance models with demonstrated effectiveness across different cultural contexts, moving beyond anecdotal evidence to systematic knowledge.

This addresses a critical gap in the field where participatory security practices have been poorly documented and evaluated.

In addition, the systematic case selection processes and the qualitative research protocols elaborated represent methodological tools that enable reproducible, comparative analysis of social innovation initiatives across different countries, regions and contexts.