Scanning the Landscape of Security Management Education in Europe

• July 2016
• Alexis Below

• Number 6 Policy Paper
• fit4sec / BERKos

This paper summarizes the results of a survey of academic degree programs in security management in Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The survey serves as exploratory research into current offerings and developments in tertiary security management education to provide new insights and ideas for further research to interested scholars, educators and practitioners in Germany and elsewhere. The research was undertaken as part of a larger project funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research seeking to build the capacity of German companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to participate in security research. The study finds that there is a small number of relatively young programs in each country often based at universities of applied sciences with a strong focus on vocational training. While participants’ backgrounds seem similar across countries, most programs are nationally oriented with little to no formal internationalization. Security research conducted at those universities is generally applied in nature and dependent upon topical interests of the respective departments. Nevertheless, there seems to be potential for more European exchange and cooperation in the field of security management.