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Abstract The role of ethics in research and innovation projects (R&I) has become much more important in recent decades. Particularly, security-related research is required to reflect on normative issues within the research process. At the same time, the form in which ethics is addressed differs greatly. This is not only due to different research agendas (e.g. ethics as an evaluation criterion of research or a research endeavour in itself) and aims (e.g. technology development, social or medical research) but also because of different perceptions with regard to the role of ethics within the research project (e.g. ethics as an external standard to comply with or ethics as a research strand within an interdisciplinary research project). As differences in the level of ethical reflection are not problematic as such, but might be rooted in the specific research interest itself, it might be difficult for those in charge of performing ethical research in R&I projects to develop ethics research designs for new projects. Focussing on security research, we present in this contribution, how ethics was included into the work performed in a trans- and interdisciplinary EU research project. Thereby, four levels of ethical reflection are distinguished and illustrated with examples. These levels can be subsumed under the categories research ethics and ethical research . The paper is intended as one example of how ethics can be integrated into security-related research, which might and should be complemented with other approaches in order to help researchers developing an ethical inventory of procedures to conduct ethical research in security domain.

AbstractThe role of ethics in research and innovation projects (R&I) has become much more important in recent decades. Particularly, security-related research is required to reflect on normative issues within the research process. At the same time, the form in which ethics is addressed differs greatly. This is not only due to different research agendas (e.g. ethics as an evaluation criterion of research or a research endeavour in itself) and aims (e.g. technology development, social or medical research) but also because of different perceptions with regard to the role of ethics within the research project (e.g. ethics as an external standard to comply with or ethics as a research strand within an interdisciplinary research project). As differences in the level of ethical reflection are not problematic as such, but might be rooted in the specific research interest itself, it might be difficult for those in charge of performing ethical research in R&I projects to develop ethics research designs for new projects. Focussing on security research, we present in this contribution, how ethics was included into the work performed in a trans- and interdisciplinary EU research project. Thereby, four levels of ethical reflection are distinguished and illustrated with examples. These levels can be subsumed under the categories research ethics and ethical research. The paper is intended as one example of how ethics can be integrated into security-related research, which might and should be complemented with other approaches in order to help researchers developing an ethical inventory of procedures to conduct ethical research in security domain.

AbstractWhile social vulnerability assessments should play a crucial part in disaster management, there is a lack of assessment tools that retain sensitivity to the situation‐specific dynamics of vulnerabilities emerging in particular hazard scenarios. We developed a novel scenario‐based vulnerability assessment framework together with practitioners in crisis management and assessed the suitability of its components in three past crises and their scenario‐based derivations: a large‐scale power outage, the COVID‐19 pandemic, and a cyber‐attack. Rather than deterministically concluding about vulnerability based on prefixed factors, the framework guides relevant stakeholders to systematically think through categories of vulnerability pertinent to a scenario. We used a table‐top exercise, interviews, and focus groups to demonstrate how the framework broadens the crisis managers' understanding of the scope of factors that may cause vulnerability, the related sources of information and enables to identify individuals burdened by certain vulnerability mixes. The new framework could be applied to different types of crises to enhance preparedness, demand‐driven relief and rescue during critical events.

AbstractIn this article, we provide an overview of the ways in which disaster managers in eight European countries use social media to mitigate people's vulnerability to hazards. Our document analysis and 95 expert interviews in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and Estonia revealed six distinct institutional social media practices that may reduce disaster vulnerability: sharing educational guidelines, informing and warning the public, identifying citizens' concerns, identifying missing persons, sharing guidelines during disaster, and organizing volunteers. We discuss how these practices could affect people's ability to access, understand, and react adequately to information about risks and hazards. Our findings can be used to improve guidelines for official crisis communication on social media and demonstrate the value of using social media in disaster risk reduction.