The Association of University Chief Security Officers (AUCSO), the UK-based membership body for security people working in Higher and Further Education, is to host its first European Region Winter Conference. It’s due to run at Leiden University in the Netherlands, from Wednesday until Friday, November 27 to 29. It’s free to AUCSO members.
Benny Vandenberghe, Chair of the European Region for AUCSO will open the conference followed by a welcome from Professor Dr ER Muller, Vice-Rector and Professor in Safety, Security and Law and Leo Harskamp from Leiden University.
Day one will begin with a session on โHow UCare and Mental crisis intervention supports mental well-being at Ghent Universityโ followed by โMental support after shocking events and crisis interventions: what can or should we do? Both these sessions will be led by Gunther Groenwals and Sarah Vermeersch from Ghent University in Belgium.
The afternoon will see a session on โHorizon scanning and foresight โ the added value of toolsโ led by Leo Harskamp from Leiden University followed by โFirst Alert and ways to utilise itโ with Gus Hodson from Dataminr. Eric Lanxner from Universitรฉ Libre de Bruxelles and Leo Harskamp from Leiden University will also lead a session on โPhysical security โ counter criminal and counter terrorismโ.
Day Two will see sessions on โProtests as a daily businessโ with Jaap Weijermans from Universiteit van Amsterdam. A long term partner of AUCSO, the software company CriticalArc, will be presenting its emergency management planning tool, Safezone (for a recent UK take-up, visit the CriticalArc website). An interactive session will follow on โWhat should AUCSO Europe focus onโ and announcements of whatโs coming up in 2025. The conference will be closed by Benny Vandenberghe.
Julie Barker, Chief Operating Officer of AUCSO, pictured, said: โWe are really excited to be hosting our first European Region Winter Conference at Leiden University in the Netherlands and we are looking forward to welcoming many of our AUCSO members and colleagues from Higher Education in Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Itโs going to be a jam-packed agenda of topical and interactive sessions together with lots of opportunities for networking and having some fun too.โ
Annual conference
AUCSO has held its annual conference in Benelux once before. The association’s 41st Annual Conference will be at the University of Warwick from April 7 to 9, 2025.
Visit https://www.aucso.org/.
