A conference, jointly organised by the CEPS Justice and Home Affairs Unit and PRIO (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo), within the framework of the INEX Project. The INEX project builds on the premise that security and insecurity are implicitly related to human values, that they are social, cultural, political concepts. It follows that sound, meaningful, effective, and cost-efficient security requires attention to and a thorough understanding of the social, cultural and ethical assumptions of security.

The conference will review the results of the early stages of the project. It will present conceptual and empirical research on the social and cultural dimensions of security in Europe, linking analyses of law and technology with current border patrol and policing practices. It will combine the views of project researchers and policy-makers with the commentary of security users in order to measure and assess the salience of the socio-cultural and ethical approach.