On 27-28 March, in Warsaw, Poland The Main School of Fire Service (SGSP) hosted the 3rd meeting of the Baltic Sea Region Research Network on Societal Security (BSR-RNSS) project (funded by the Swedish Institute). The project aims to support demand-driven research by bringing researchers in the field of societal security closer to the practitioners. After formulating the need to establish a stable interface, enabling the practitioners to formulate requests for research, during the last project meeting in Finland, the partners proceeded to develop a work plan for achieving this goal. After two days of in-depth discussions the main elements were:
- Using the BSR-RNSS partners as a core, create an Advisory Group on Societal Security Research with the participation of both researchers and practitioners.
- Establish regular consultation meetings of the Advisory Group with the networks of practitioners back-to-back with the Civil Protection Network’s Senior Experts Meeting, and put societal security research on the agenda of the Annual meetings of the Directors General in Civil Protection in the Baltic Sea Region.
- Develop a Roadmap for societal security research in the Baltic Sea Region through broad consultations with researchers and practitioners (name of the concept might change).
- Create a working group driving the process of the consultations: plan and organise workshops, create questionnaires to collect input and analyse connections with various important strategic documents, as well as drafting the first version of the roadmap.
- The document will a) provide directions for the researchers, making sure that the most pressing issues in societal security in the region are addressed and b) influence funding authorities in their prioritisation of financing research.
- After the first version of the Roadmap is ready (2020 – 2021) there will be continued regular consultations between researchers and practitioners through the Advisory Group on Societal Security, revising the issues highlighted to ensure that they are up to date.
The next steps:
- The partners in the project will produce a concept for the process of creating the Roadmap for societal security research in the Baltic Sea Region.
- The concept will be presented to the Directors General in Civil Protection in the BSR during their 17th meeting in Riga, 28-29 May 2019.
