Global Security Chair: anticipate and act

Foreword

The Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Police (ENSP, France’s national police college) has launched the first university chair on the subject of security, in partnership with Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University and the Troyes University of Technology (UTT).

The inauguration of the Chair took place on 22 March 2019 at the Institut de France, in the presence of Mr Laurent Nu?ez, Secretary of State; Mr Eric Morvan, Director General of the National Police; and Mrs Catherine Bréchignac, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences.



 

Purpose of the Chair

How is this Chair a revolution for the national police?
Until now, ENSP research responded to calls for tender from the ANR (the French national research agency) or the European Union. Thanks to the Chair and its sponsorship economic model, the national police will now have a greater capacity for initiative and action. It will be free to choose its projects and will be more reactive.
The national police, in addition to being mindful of the use of public funds, also give real meaning to the security continuum by involving private companies in projects of public interest.
Finally, the creation of this Chair confirms the need to bring the police and higher education closer together.

Anticipate and act: why a Chair?
Although the ENSP has been involved in developing scientific research of operational interest for the benefit of the national police since 2013, it became essential for the ENSP to set up a Chair, based on the internal security continuum, in order to sustain its security initiative strategy.
Aware of the security challenges and issues facing society, the ENSP laid the groundwork for this Chair in December 2018 by signing a tripartite agreement (ENSP, Troyes University of Technology and Lyon 3 University).
The official inauguration is a new step for ENSP’s research centre, which is aiming to build a multidisciplinary, flexible and innovative model in order to perform research and higher education activities of public and private common interest, including all security stakeholders.
More concretely, the ENSP’s “Global Security Chair: anticipate and act” will have three missions:

• Research, by producing knowledge on social and societal phenomena, the evolution of the threat, and mobilisable strategies and technologies;
• Higher education and training, through the dissemination of knowledge from research to recognised or innovative schemes; and
• Valorisation, by developing partnerships, knowledge transfer and communication (conferences, publications, etc.).

Scientific contribution of the research team at Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University
The Louis Josserand team’s Centre for Criminal Law (EA 3907) proposes providing scientific and legal support to all the research projects supported by the Chair after validation by the ENSP’s Scientific Council.

This involves:

• Supervising doctoral theses with a highly operational focus.
• A PhD student is currently working in the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) offering assistance to Middle Eastern states to develop counter-terrorism tools that respect the rule of law locally, in order to prevent terrorism from being exported.
• Other avenues of work are envisaged on the link between nationality, justiciability and security or on French minors returning from Syria.
• Organising interdisciplinary conferences on security in the form of monthly conferences on topical issues (e.g., Should Opération Sentinelle soldiers be used in law enforcement operations? What are the challenges of videoconferencing? etc.).
• Awarding a thesis prize in the medium term. The Lyon 3 Centre for Criminal Law will draw on its network to form a jury of independent and impartial specialists.

The Chair is placed under the aegis of a steering committee comprising the three founding members – ENSP, the Troyes University of Technology (UTT), Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University – a representative of the sponsors and the two Chair holders.

Coordination is ensured by the two Chair holders, Patrick Laclémence (UTT) and Xavier Pin (Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University).

? See the interviews with Luc Presson, Director of the ENSP, and Pierre Koch, Director of UTT.