Assessing evolving concepts of security

The core objective of the Evolving Concept of Security (EvoCS) project is to offer a clear yet detailed overview of security concerns that exist in different regions of the European Union. A proper understanding of these concerns is vital to both effective and representative priority setting in European security policy making. The results of the EvoCS project are therefore intended to be directly relevant to security policy makers and security research and development planners at the European Commission. The EvoCS project also offers a general model, which relies on a combination of quantitative and qualitative inputs, to assess regional and temporal variation in security concerns in the future. This document sets forth the analytical framework guiding the research conducted in the EvoCS project. It elaborates on the vision, introduces key methodological concepts and describes operational research guidelines. Accompanying this document is an online repository which is only accessible to members of the Consortium. Policymakers interested predominantly in the background of the EvoCS project need not read more than the introduction. The methodologically inclined reader who would like to know more about the research design of a project stretching twelve countries and executed by four different research teams, might wish to read the document in full.