Students Security Studies challenged by real-life security problems
Lecture
During their second year, the students of the bachelor Security Studies get a feeling of what their professional career might look like. By looking into real-life security problems they are introduced to the complexities of developing policy recommendations.
The course Integrated Project 2 prepares students for the professional road ahead. Students will consult a security or safety challenge presented to them by organisations and practitioners from the security domain. Eventually they design a policy advice report in which each group presents their security and/or safety challenges and integrate their findings and formulates recommendations for further action.
Valtr and Anouk, tutors of the course, saw their students actively engaging with the clients. Valtr and his group worked together Paul Comenencia, member of the Council of State. Comenencia joined the course as a client for the first time and addressed security threats in the Dutch Caribbean.
Security in the Dutch Carribean
For Valtr, ‘this case was highly needed because the Caribbean part of the Dutch Kingdom is often marginalised despite the increasing amount of threats. Comenencia really challenged students to think about ways to improve kingdom-wide unity in policymaking within the domain of international security. When students presented their report, many came up with unique angles for the problem: while others zoomed in on measures to combat drug trafficking, another group highlighted the urgency of dealing with the climate crisis as this has disproportionately been impacting the Caribbean part of the Dutch Kingdom'.
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Students at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment -
Final conference of Integrated Project 2 -
Students with Paul Comenencia
Valtr noticed students working on this case gained a newfound interest in security in the Caribbean and are considering internships they had not previously considered. Comenencia praised the students’ abilities to ground their ideas in credible sources, and referred to their recommendations as 'spot on'.
Youth radicalisation
Anouk saw her students work together with the 'Expertise Unit Sociale Stabiliteit'. They were invited to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment to discuss their task, which was to find recommendations for prevention of digital radicalisation among youth and to increase the resilience they have against radicalisation.
Students visited the Ministry and got the chance to ‘speed-date’ with employees to deepen their understanding of the issue. Their policy recommendations included implementing a nation-wide online media literacy strategy, creation of educational content and training on resilience against extremist content on social media, and focussing on creating networks of local actors that work on extremism and radicalisation. According to Anouk, ‘this experience proved to be a valuable collaboration between the University and the Ministry’.