Security, Safety & Justice
How do we protect our society against terrorism? Can we secure the complex world of cyberspace? Are self-driving cars safe enough? Who is responsible if something goes wrong? How do we balance surveillance and privacy?
The media pays attention to these questions with regard to safety, security and justice every day, so it is not surprising the topic deserves academic attention as well. This minor will provide you with the basic academic knowledge to understand the background of these questions better. The emphasis in the minor lies on the “security” element. The minor SSJ enables you to broaden your horizon regarding security-related topics in society.
The knowledge base that this minor offers to analyse security-related topics is multidisciplinary, and centres around three broad academic themes, which are connected to specific academic fields:
Security
Safety
Justice
Security covers a broad range of research fields encompassing criminology, antiterrorism studies, and security management; the safety theme contributes via insights from risk management; and justice provides important concepts from legal studies, history and philosophy. Knowledge of essential concepts from all of these fields is necessary to understand and analyse today’s security and safety issues. This unique blend of knowledge from social and technical sciences allows students of the minor SSJ to address and analyse current-day security-related topics.
To provide this broad spectrum of knowledge to students TU Delft and Leiden University set up a cooperation. Leiden University primarily contributes with knowledge from the fields of public administration and legal and antiterrorism studies. TU Delft contributes in the areas of risk analysis and risk management, technology assessment, and system analyses.
Objectives
The minor SSJ gives insight into security issues you read about in the newspaper: terrorist threats, criminality, integrated security and stability. Basic knowledge and research techniques are acquired centered around three themes: security, safety, and justice.
The insights and analyses are applied to current topics, for example in the transport sector, critical infrastructure, and cyber security.
After completion of the minor, students will be able to:
i) Recognize safety, security and justice aspects in contemporary issues, and be able to synthesize scientific arguments for their presence.
ii) Form an opinion on SSJ issues, which is grounded in scientific analysis and argumentation.
iii) Apply basic analytical techniques to contemporary SSJ issues. These techniques include: system analysis, risk analysis and perpetrator analysis.
iv) Assess the value of scientific publications and use them in the analysis of SSJ issues, and be able to find publications that give deeper insight in these contemporary issues.
v) Recognize the role that SSJ issues have in their own study major, describe this role and explain it to others.
Program 2016-2017
The minor consists of 6 courses of 5 ECTS each and takes place during the first semester. The semester is divided into two blocks of eight weeks each. In every block, three courses are taught.
Start seminar
The start of the minor consists of a three day seminar in the last week of August. Students attend guest lectures which are provided by security professionals, and all lecturers present their courses.
Goals and target audience
The minor is multidisciplinary in nature, and is taught by lecturers from both the Faculty of Governance & Global Affairs at Campus The Hague, and from the Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management of TU Delft. The courses take place in The Hague and Delft, respectively. When admitting students, priority will be given to bachelor students from Leiden University, TU Delft and a limited number of students from Erasmus University Rotterdam. If there are still places available, students from other universities will also be admitted. The minor enables students to broaden their horizon, working together on security-related topics with colleagues from other universities.
Questions about the program
Registration
How to registrate for this minor? See the document on the right side of this page
Schedule
To be announced
Extra information
All SSJ courses are taught in English. Please check the individual course descriptions for more information.