Interview with Gabriele Jacobs 'I hope that my research inspires people to form unusual alliances'

As a psychologist, what insights do you bring to the field of international security management?

I started researching this topic in 2010 when I received funding from the EU to explore national or cultural differences between police forces within Europe. The most important insight I got during that project was that questions about safety and security are relevant for everyone, as it's about our safety and security. Also, nowadays, to detect security issues on time, we do not only need to engage the police but also for example neighbours, teachers and business owners. And that's why I think it's important to not only leave the issue to the security researchers but also engage academics from different fields. As a psychologist when I look at security issues, I start at the individual level and ask people how they experience feelings of safety. Taking this approach, you quickly find out that safety and security needs are different for everyone; my security needs are different from those of a young girl or an elderly man or from those of a refugee from Afghanistan. 

What do you hope people who read your book or complete the Coursera course takeaway from it?

In the book and the course, we really wanted to implement a multistakeholder perspective by hearing views from, for example, academics, consultants, but also artists and journalists. After reading the book or completing the course, we hope that people reach out to parties they usually don't talk to and start building unusual alliances. Interesting enough, we hear that police often feel left alone with many safety and security problems. Everyone says 'make me feel safe' but don't really offer support or actively contribute to solutions. It would be great if, for example, a police officer is helped by an artist or journalist perspective, or vice versa. It's really amazing to see that the 10.000 learners who already completed the course come from a really diverse background. We see not only police officers or security consultants completing the course but also activists or entrepreneurs. They have all in common that they are busy with questions around safety and security in their professional life.

One of the most pressing security and safety issues of our time is the refugee crisis. In a recent study with two of your PhD-students, Mark van der Giessen and Christina Langenbusch, you tried to understand why some people cooperated to help the refugees and others choose not to. What are some observations you made during this research?

For our research, we went to Lesbos to speak to different parties such as the locals, international volunteers and professionals employed by NGO's. I spent two weeks there and Mark and Christina lived there for a couple of weeks. By talking to all the different parties involved, such as locals, non-governmental and governmental players we applied the multistakeholder perspective to see how they perceived the crisis. We observed that, on the one hand, everyone really wants to help, but at the same time, the system did just not fly. We tried to see the reasons people could not or would not collaborate with each other.

Did your research make you hopeful that the situation of refugees can improve?

Having been there to carry out the research and talking to many people affected by this crisis really broke my heart. Mark, Christina and I spent a lot of time in our research team with other involved colleagues to reflect on our role in the crisis, and what we can actually contribute as researchers. I admire my PhD students that they confronted themselves with these challenging topics and to turn data and insights into meaningful scientific contributions. The experience also taught me that when we increasingly address societal topics in our research, we also need to keep a stronger eye on the emotional demands for our junior colleagues. I personally still get emotional when talking about this study because I just can't get my head – or better heart - around it. But at the same time, I am also hopeful. I mean, there are no easy solutions, but we identified some successful initiatives founded on principles of humanitarianism instead of political ideals during our time there. The people behind these initiatives changed the refugee response system by seeking out like-minded people to step out of the existing system and successfully change the system. So that gives me hope that if we look further than our political differences, we can work together, and true change is possible.