As part of the EU Horizon Project ‘Innovative Approaches for Urban Security’ (ICARUS), Heiko Berner and Markus Pausch from the Department of Applied Social Sciences took part in the conference ‘Security, Democracy & Cities 2024’. The 8th edition of the conference took place in Brussels under the patronage of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
More than 700 urban security stakeholders, including politicians from local to European level, researchers, social workers and NGO representatives, discussed the major social, political and democratic challenges of the present in the run-up to the European elections. In the ICARUS project, in which the cities of Stuttgart, Lisbon and Riga, among others, are involved, the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences is responsible for the scientific monitoring of innovative measures. Heiko Berner and Markus Pausch are drawing on their "Handbook for Inclusive Democracy and Empowerment on the Local Level", which they published in another EU project in 2018.
For the two researchers at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, the idea of democracy education is always at the centre of their activities:
‘The measures developed in the ICARUS project not only strengthen urban safety, but also the democratic dialogue in European cities,’ says project lead Markus Pausch.
Heiko Berner addresses the specific measures and projects from which not only the participating cities will ultimately benefit:
‘In Stuttgart, we support measures that serve to prevent extremism and encourage young people in particular to reflect critically,’ says Heiko Berner, explaining the approach.
