URBAN CRIMINOLOGY · Establishment of a Research and Training Centre in Urban Security and Facility Management

This ERG will be used to establish a new Centre for Urban Security and Facility Management in the Department of Building and Environment at Danube University Krems (A). The Centre will be a multi-disciplinary knowledge hub at the interface of urban sociology, criminology, real estate and facility management, which will be unique in European academia. The new Centre for Urban Security and Facility Management will be conceived as a research & training site founded on three pillars: Research, education and innovation will be integrated in an approach that follows the concept of “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)”. With special emphasis on crime opportunity structures, research will support a human-centred understanding of crime prevention. In a holistic approach physical, infrastructural and social conditions in combination with management of the built environment are studied with the aim to contribute to the knowledge transfer between practitioners in the building professions, security management and science.Social Area Analyses will help understand the conditions for public order, Crime Hot Spot Analysis will study opportunities for crime in urban space, and studies on private policing in shopping centres will help understand new cultures of control in mass private properties. Crowd monitoring will be used as an instrument to study correlations between crowding and security. Together these research fields will reinforce an innovative approach to crime prevention that looks beyond punitive strategies and blind trust in security technology, but takes into account conditions in the built environment to avoid opportunities for crime, while at the same time designing attractive places in urban structures. Insights from these core fields of research will provide the basis for a certified Masters Programme that will be developed in an international consortium for practitioners and stakeholders who study at the University for Continuous Education.