Conference on Global Security

RWTH will host an international conference titled Science – Peace – Security.

The international conference Science – Peace – Security (SPS) will be held from September 8 to 10, 2021. The focus this year is Impact of New Technologies: Destabilizing or Enabling Resilience? The organizer of SPS'21 is Professor Malte Göttsche, head of the Nuclear Verification and Disarmament Group at RWTH. Around 200 participants from all around the world are expected to attend, including Ambassador Marjolijn van Deelen, EU Special Envoy for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and Professor Robin Geiß, Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. Due to the pandemic, the conference will be held remotely.

Today's international security environment is marked by the return to great power politics and eroding trust between states. On the one hand, new technologies that can be used for military purposes can have a destabilizing effect; on the other hand, scientific and technological developments also make important contributions to peace and security, such as procedures for verifying whether arms control agreements are being observed. This interdisciplinary conference examines the impact of these technologies and seeks to identify approaches to achieving a more resilient security environment through scientific contributions and policy action. Nuclear, biological, and chemical risks, space threats, and IT developments such as cyber security or artificial intelligence will be explored.

The aim of the conference is to discuss the results of ongoing research through dialogue between academics, think tank scientists, and policymakers. This will generate new research questions and policy proposals that can address the most pressing challenges where science, peace, and security intersect. The conference is funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the Research Association for Science, Disarmament, and International Security.