Projects

FreiburgRESIST

FreiburgRESIST – Living Safely in Freiburg: Resilience Management for the City

The joint project FreiburgRESIST is developing and testing an innovative, digitally connected resilience management system. The system aims to become a pioneer in security management: security agencies and the public are integrated into the preventive planning of major events, potential evacuations during possible hazardous situations are managed, and crisis situations are reviewed and analyzed for resilience purposes.

Duration: October 2023 – September 2027
Management of the Freiburg Subproject: PD Dr. Elisa Orrù
Subject Responsibility: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann (Sociology), PD Dr. Elisa Orrù (Ethics), Prof. Dr. Alexander Stolz (Resilience Engineering)
Förderer: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space

VIGILANT

VIGILANT – Vital Intelligence to investigate illegal Disinformation

In the European joint project “VIGILANT” (Vital IntelliGence to Investigate ILlegAl DisiNformaTion), a platform with integrated tools is being developed in collaboration with police authorities to detect disinformation from all major online sources and in various languages. The goal is to equip European police authorities with advanced technologies to ensure that disinformation leading to criminal activities is detected and analyzed at an early stage.

Duration: November 2022 – October 2025
Management of the Freiburg Subproject: PD Dr. Elisa Orrù
Research Associate: Zlatko Valentic
Sponsor: EU Horizon Europe

LegiNot

LegiNot – Legitimation of Emergency, Shift in Legitimation during Emergency

The aim of the project is to systematically analyze the mutual conditions and changes in legitimation requirements, legitimacy expectations, and legitimacy criteria during an extended emergency. Based on this, the goal is to develop guiding knowledge for authorities and organizations with security responsibilities to design and communicate emergency measures (locally). Essentially, the current pandemic provides the empirical basis for the research, but the objectives are generally focused on far-reaching emergencies.

Duration: März 2022 – Februar 2025
Project Management: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
Research Associates: Tjorven Harmsen; André Biermann

InGe

InGe – Situation Assessment Tool on the Experience of Violence by Public Service Employees

The aim of the project is to develop a comprehensive situation assessment tool to collect and evaluate the experiences of violence among public service employees. This tool is intended to fill gaps in the existing empirical data on occurrences of violence and enable continuous, comprehensive monitoring of both physical and psychological experiences of violence.

Duration: Oktober 2022 – Oktober 2024
Project Management: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
Research Associates: Markus Jenki, Jasmin Feldmann

DEFERM

The aim of the DEFERM project is to analyze and improve processes and measures in the event of accidental or intentional contamination with unknown biological hazardous substances. Given that the threat posed by pathogenic microorganisms can have a cross-border nature, there is cooperation between German and French authorities and scientists. This involves enhancing the capabilities of response teams at both technical and operational levels, as well as testing and improving specific procedures.

Duration: April 2021 – March 2024
Project Management at CSS: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
Partners (Germany): Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk (THW), Stadt Dortmund Berufsfeuerwehr, Robert-Koch-Institut Berlin, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität Hamburg, Hahn-Schickard-Gesellschaft für angewandte Forschung e.V., Deutsches Rotes Kreuz – DRK e.V.
Partners (France): Bouches-du-Rhône Fire Department, Alternative energies and Atomic energy Commission (CEA), Institut Pasteur, Ademtech, Cabinet d’Etudes Techniques des Environements Propres (CETEP), Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Délégation Ile-de-France Sud, Alpes Martimes Fire Department
Research associate: David Stühler

ZuRecht

The Police in an Open Society

The project analyzes the transformation of the Federal German police, particularly concerning their personnel and training policies since 1990.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly pluralistic society, access to the police service and the socio-cultural competencies within the police are examined from empirical, legal, democratic theoretical, and organizational sociological perspectives.

Duration: March 2019 – January 2024
Cooperation Partner: Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei (DHPol)
Sponsor: Stiftung Mercator

INDIGO

Digitalization of EU Governance

In the European joint project “INDIGO – Information in the EU’s Digitalised Governance,” fundamental issues of digitalization in the European Union are addressed, with the Freiburg subproject focusing on the e-governance of the European internal market. It deals with legal questions concerning automated—especially AI-supported—decision-making in the implementation of EU law.

The project is funded by the AEI, AKA, DFG, and FNR, and is conducted through the NORFACE network, which is co-financed by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 framework program, in collaboration with other European research funding organizations.

Duration: November 2020 – October 2023
Project Management at CSS: Prof. Dr. Jens-Peter Schneider
Sponsors: AEI (Agencia Estatal de Investigación), AKA (Academy of Finland), DFG and FNR (Fonds National de la Recherche)

NO-FEAR

Network Of practitioners For Emergency medicAl systems and cRitical care

The aim of the project is to create a pan-European network of users, manufacturers, service and decision-makers from the fields of medicine and security research. This network is intended to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experiences, consolidate knowledge, and thereby overcome the existing fragmentation in the emergency medical sector.

The core team, consisting of 18 project partners, will develop a common understanding of needs, urgencies, and innovation potentials. This will help better address problem areas, close operational gaps, and identify research needs.

Based on the experiences of its partners, particularly those directly involved in the dramatic events in Nice, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, as well as outside Europe, the consortium will develop a structured and comprehensive approach. This approach aims to enhance preparedness and improve responses to new challenges and security threats.

The consortium, led by CRIMEDIM, comprises 18 partners from various sectors of emergency response, such as universities, research centers, government agencies, NGOs, and SMEs.

Das von CRIMEDIM geleitete Konsortium umfasst 18 Partner aus unterschiedlichen Sektoren der Gefahrenabwehr, z.B. Universitäten, Forschungszentren, Regierungsstellen, NGOs und KMU.

The CSS coordinates the work on ethical requirements, and psychological, social, and legal issues. The Freiburg team primarily focuses on legal, professional, and moral obligations and interests in emergency and rescue situations. Of particular interest are situations where medical needs compete with each other (as in triage situations) and those where medical needs and duties of care compete with other interests (e.g., self-protection).

The video of the closing conference from May 4, 2023, can be found here on YouTube.

Das Video zur Abschlusskonferenz vom 04. Mai 2023 finden Sie hier auf YouTube.

Duration: June 2018 – May 2023
Management of the Freiburg Subproject: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann, Nils Ellebrecht
Sponsorr: EU Horizont 2020

ERAME

Detection of Signs of Radicalization in Social Media

As part of the ERAME project, a procedure supported by software tools is to be developed to assist security authorities in monitoring and analyzing extremist content on YouTube. The Freiburg subproject involves the legal support and assessment of the project, as well as the integration of legal expertise into the development process. This is to ensure that…

• the analysis tool itself does not violate legal regulations,
• the development of the analysis tool does not entail legal violations, and
• potential legal conflicts are identified and addressed during the construction of the analysis tool.

The legal expertise contributed to the subproject is necessary because the use and application of the analysis tool occur in a highly regulated and constitutionally sensitive area. Numerous legal questions from constitutional law, data protection law, and security law need to be addressed. This not only concerns the question of whether the use and development of the analysis tool are legally permissible at all. Law also plays a crucial role in determining the extent to which the use of the analysis tool can lead to purposefully usable results.

Duration: December 2020 – November 2022
Project Management at CSS: Dr. Benjamin Rusteberg, Dr. Nicholas Eschenbruch
Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
Research associates: Berit Paulsen,  Isabella Rick

Artificial Intelligence and Civil Security

Effects of the Future Vision “Artificial Intelligence made in Germany” in Application-Oriented Security Research

With the publication of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in 2018, titled “Artificial Intelligence made in Germany,” the German Federal Government presented its vision for the future development and application of artificial intelligence. The strategy identifies “civil security” as one of several promising application fields for this key technology.
The research project examines how expectations directed at artificial intelligence mobilize the future vision “Artificial Intelligence made in Germany,” and how this vision structures application-oriented security research.

Duration: April 2020 – March 2022
Project Management: Dr. Jens Hälterlein
Sponsor: Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung