On May 12th and 13th the mid-project conference of the IcARUS project was held in Riga, Latvia. During the conference, Massimo Fattori – who is a PhD candidate at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication – organised two workshops in collaboration with Makesense. The sessions, which were based on the project’s methodology of Design Thinking, received very positive feedback from participants, who actively engaged in discussions and activities. Dr. Daniel Trottier (ESHCC) also attended the conferences as representative of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR).
The first workshop revolved around the concept of creativity: how to develop this skill at the workplace and what techniques to use for finding creative and alternative solutions to problems. In this first session, Massimo presented a real-life challenge that participants, divided into sub-groups, had to find a solution for by using Design Thinking methodology.
The second workshop focused on how to foster multi-stakeholder cooperation, which is vital for security policies. In this second session, Massimo listed the main principles and the do's and don'ts for an effective multi-actor approach. Participants were actively involved in the development of the workshop by constructively contributing to every part of it. The audience was then divided in small groups, reflecting the number of social challenges brought up in the discussions. In doing so, participants found efficient ways of involving stakeholders for partnerships for each given challenge using a structured approach.
The purpose of the Riga conference was to foster exchanges among local and regional authorities, academia, civil society and the private sector on their experience and practices of local security policies. It was an opportunity to look at 35 years of urban security policies and to share innovative approaches.
About IcARUS
IcARUS is an EU-funded project which aims to help local security actors anticipate and better respond to security challenges. It does so by learning from past experiences in urban security policies and by rethinking and adapting existing tools and methods. EUR is a leading partner in the project.
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