This Advanced Research Workshop is organized by independent research centres and scientists, within the framework of the NATO programme "Science for Peace and Security". It aims at defining best methods and practices related to security-related datasets and their use, in order to improve the sharing of information as well as of human and technical means, to avoid duplication of work and data, to cross-check information and identify subject areas among non-military threats to security with significant needs. The subject areas themselves are quite varied, including human rights, environmental security, political dialogue, human and societal dynamics, terrorism and more.

Organization and practical information

Some of these information are available in more details at the NATO ARW website.

Dates and time

Location

Grenoble, France [near Geneva]. Depending on country of participants, coming to Grenoble is possible by Train or by plane (Nearest international Airports: Grenoble, Lyon-Satolas, Geneva). Express transportation will be organized from some of these airports.

Participants

There will be about 25 participants coming from NATO countries, NATO partner countries (mainly from Europe) and countries of the Mediterranean dialogue. Participation in any NATO Advanced Research Workshop is, in principle, mainly by invitation, but can be partly opened, hence this call for participants.

In December 2006, about 15 participants had already registered to this workshop, with more to come.

These participants come from a wide spectrum of background (academics of various disciplines, researchers, NGO activists, officers of international organisations, people engaged in actions on the field...) so that everyone could benefit from the other's experience. There would be more time for debate and common work than in ordinary conferences (please see tentative program).

Publication

The papers and results of the debates will be published as an edited book in the NATO Science Series, by IOS Press (Amsterdam).

Languages

All meetings will be held in English. E-mail messages can be sent in English or in French to all members of the organizing committee, except to Ranan D. KUPERMAN (English only).

Fees

There are no inscription fees. The costs related to transport and accommodation will be partially or fully covered by NATO. For an equal quality of proposal, preference may be given to participants who can secure a partial funding for their transport and accommodation from their organisation (see selection criteria).

Social events

At least two social events will be organized in the evenings. In addition, for those who would like to come a bit earlier or stay a bit longer in Grenoble, we will arrange a visit in the nearby mountains and/or a hiking trip, depending on participants wishes (please ask for more information).

Organising committee

Co-directors

Ranan David KUPERMAN; Lecturer; Division of International Relations, School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa ISRAEL. E-mail : ranank@poli.haifa.ac.il

Other members of the organizing committee

Urs LUTERBACHER; Professor; Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, SWITZERLAND.

Wolf-Dieter EBERWEIN; Professor, Director of the MA Program "International Organisation"; Institut d'Etudes Politiques, St. Martin d'Hres, FRANCE.

Dr. Mayeul KAUFFMANN, Senior researcher, Ecole de la Paix [School of Peace], Grenoble, FRANCE. mayeul.kauffmann@ecoledelapaix.org (link with local scientific committee and coordination).

Application for participation or submission of paper

Candidates proposing a paper should send an abstract (20 to 30 lines) and any information they think is relevant.

Candidates for participation as observers should tell us why they are interesting in being a participant. They should tell us their affiliation and field of expertise, if they or their organization is doing work on datasets or planing to do so, what and any information which may show their interest in participating actively in the debates.

Contact information

All requests or submissions should be sent to mayeul.kauffmann@ecoledelapaix.org with at least the words "NATO ARW" in the subject. You can also send any message directly to the other members of the organising committee at the above e-mail addresses (please send a copy to Mayeul Kauffmann).

Deadlines

Submission will be evaluated on a continuous basis, beginning on 1st February 2007. For that reason, do not hesitate to send us a short message saying that you are considering sending an application. At the very latest, we should be informed before the 15th of March 2007 of your intention to submit an application.

Criteria

Some or all of the following criteria may be used in selecting the participants:

Any resident in a NATO country, a NATO partner country or a NATO Mediterranean Dialogue country can apply. All are encouraged to do so. However, because of NATO criteria with respect to the participants' country of residence, preference will be given to residents of two recent NATO countries (Bulgaria and Romania), of eligible Partner countries and of Mediterranean Dialogue countries (see below).

Eligible Partner countries

(Submission strongly encouraged. New countries – since December 2006 – are marked with *)

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina*, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Montenegro*, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia*, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

Mediterranean Dialogue countries

"Non-eligible" partner countries

(Participation is possible but financing by NATO will be limited or null, except possibly for key speakers)

NATO countries

(Submission is possible for all NATO countries. It is especially encouraged from Bulgaria and Romania)

Scientific rationale

As noted by Eberwein and Chojnacki ¹, disregarding the ancestors of international conflict research on the study of war (such as Richardson, Sorrokin and Wright), the first systematic dataset on security dates back to the Correlates of War Project (cf. Singer & Small, 1972; Small & Singer, 1982), and focused mainly on international armed conflicts. The end of the cold war, the emergence of new threats to security and the third wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991) played a major role in the revival of security-related datasets. The need for both more thorough and alternative datasets became clear in the light of new studies related to the structural problems of weak or failed states (Holsti, 1996), the privatization of violence, terrorism and other threats to security (e.g. related to the societal system, human rights and scarce natural resources...).

These new conflictual issues represent a challenge to international politics and to the scientific discipline of international relations in general, conflict and security research in particular. With nuclear, superpower confrontation no longer being the major threat to world security, the more narrow disciplinary focus on interstate, military conflict is no longer justifiable. New theoretical developments need to be confronted to empirical facts; moreover, actors on the field (diplomats, NGOs, military officers...) have a need for a clear, detailed picture of the situation in an uncertain world. An improvement in datasets availability will benefit both goals.

In effect, many improvements are possible. Historically, the databases dealing with traditional analyses of security (military capacities, international grievances, political regimes, ethnicity...), were generally conceived at university research centres. By contrast, databases made by independent research centres, national agencies, international organizations or NGO, mainly focused on broader aspects of insecurity (human, societal and environmental security; terrorism...). Many of these databases have been widely used but their design was most often thought of on national grounds, mainly by individual research centres. Efforts to start making the concurrent use of some of these databases possible has already started, mainly from university research centres. The proliferation of datasets or database has come to a point that "finding the right dataset" (Eck 2005 finds 60 major databases ²) has been a difficult task, and merging two or three of them often a very cumbersome one. One important step towards this goal has been the creation of a list of states in the international system (names, dates and country codes³), making it possible to manage multiple or changing states names, unifications and secessions; however, this is currently implemented for only 25 % of the main databases. One software takes advantage of these characteristics (EUGene, at the yearly level), but some issues still have to be resolved, including: non-state/transnational actors (such as terrorist groups), multi-national threats such as regional environmental threats, variables coded with a daily precision, datasets at the conflict level, disputed territories, small states, and geolocalization. In the meantime, technical developments have made that task easier, thanks to the development of internet and the creation of free, open-source, professional grade web-orientated database systems (RDBMS) and web servers with GIS [Geographical Information System] functionalities (e.g. MapServer, by the University of Minnesota and NASA).

In addition, several of these datasets have been devised in countries located in Occidental or Nordic Europe and in the USA, with little or no cooperation between them and some of the major countries they have been studying in theses datasets (especially Mediterranean countries). There is a scientific as well as a political necessity to bridge the gap between the traditional actors in this research field and the new actors.

With this in mind, the proposed workshop will aim at bringing together the different actors that create, own, manage, use and/or need security-related databases. These actors will try to improve and share these datasets, by identifying methods and best practices in order to share information as well as human and technical means, to avoid duplicate work, to cross-check information, to identify inconsistencies, to debate technical specifications of datasets for merging and sharing, to improve existing synthetic indicators, and to prioritize new subject areas with significant needs. The work of the participants would be orientated to the effective use of the datasets, for instance for scientific research, information, teaching, and action (structural prevention, early-warning, reconstruction...), to allow for future development and appropriate uses of these tools.

Tentative programme

THURSDAY, 21 June

Opening session

FRIDAY, 22 June

Uses of datasets 1

9:00 Scientific necessity and political utility: which dataset for which research ?

A step by step example (with non-military threats to security): finding the good compromise

Uses of datasets 2

10:45 The uses of databases for political action, both in offices and on the field

Use of databases by 2 human rights NGOs from partner and Mediterranean countries

Synthetic indicators

14:15 The meaning of alternative synthetic indicators: methods and experience from the UNDP

Debate: which synthetic indicators are needed and what should they be made of (60'):

SATURDAY, 23 June

SGBDR and GIS: information technologies for managing and displaying datasets

Merging datasets

14:00 Lessons learned from the Correlates Of War project and the EUGene/MARGene software

3For inclusion in the State System Membership List (currently 1816-2004) maintained by the Correlates of War project (COW), states must have membership in the League of Nations or the United Nations, or a population of at least 500,000 and recognition by two major powers. Additionally, any change in the status of a state must last for at least one month to be included in the system membership list.