ORGANIZATION

The GRSG is a federative structure, born from the association of three research teams, including three component units and three areas of research:

1. « International relations and security», Morris Janowitz Centre (CMJ) ;
2. « Security, police and society», Centre for Research and Studies on the Police (CERP) ;
3. « International penal law and conflict analysis », Centre in International Penal Law and Conflict Analysis (CDPIAC).

This new host team comprises nineteen permanent lecturers-researchers (six professors, thirteen assistant professors) et seven « other categories » fully appointed researchers, approximately twenty French and international associate researchers, (among whom sixteen professors), and over eighty PhD students. The diversity of their academic profiles – there are political scientists, sociologists, lawyers and historians – and the variety of their geographical areas of specialization – Latin America, Africa, the Middle-East and the Euro-Atlantic world – singles out the team as a truly multidisciplinary research group, working from a comparative perspective

SCIENTIFIC POLICY

It focuses on the topic of security and of its governance, with specific emphasis on intra- and inter-societal risk and conflict register, their understanding and their management.  Seen from this perspective, three levels of analysis, arising from and cross-cutting the areas of interest of the three units, can be identified: threat emergence and crisis outbreak, crisis prevention and restoration of peace, and the stakeholders involved, whether private or public, lawful or not, as well as of their interactions in various contexts, from local to national, from state to transnational contexts.

Among the issues to be considered at each of these levels, the following areas of research have been privileged by the team:

• New perceptions and experiences of insecurity;
• Causes and  origins of contemporary inter-state and civil conflicts;
• Conflict nature and dynamics and operational strategies (asymmetry, « hot » wars, prevention/pre-emption, etc.);
• Emerging security risks (proliferation of weapons, lethal technologies misappropriation and hijacking, immigrations, “denationalized” spaces, terrorism, new authoritarian powers, etc.);
• Overall security schemes  and political, legal and penal systems of crisis prevention and resolution.
• Security policy bodies (army, police, justice, non-governmental organizations, transnational criminal organizations, mercenary activities, etc.), their institutional transformation (professionalization, “policirization” and militarization, outsourcing) the way they are being used (multi-lateralization, etc.);
• Governance levels of security (local, regional, national, transnational), conditions for governability, decision-making process in crisis and extreme situations, stakeholders’ relations to social contexts  and political authorities.

Relying on the accumulated expert knowledge, the centre provides the different Master’s degrees offered on the site with appropriate educational material. More particularly, for the three international tracks and the Master’s degree II in political science, major - police and society-. The objective could be to set up a complete Master’s degree on the issues of risks and security.

As shown by the different evaluations of the publications, the research work carried out within the GRGS is a tangible contribution to knowledge: it is therefore planned to build up more unified production, in terms of both publication media and topics studied. Thus the group, assisted by PhD students, will commit themselves to publishing annually a significant collective work about a common issue.

An annual report is made by the researchers in charge of each area and submitted for assessment to a scientific committee including experts from UT Capitole and IEP scientific committees on the one hand, and on the other hand, from AFUDRIS, from the GERN (European research group on normativities), from the Organization of the United Nations, from Inter-University Seminar and from John Jay College of Criminal Justice of New York University.