48th Future Forum on Public Safety – Exchange between science and politics

Prof. Dr. Lars Gerhold, Technical University of Braunschweig and Head of the Public Safety Research Forum, Prof. Dr. Juliana Raupp, Free University of Berlin, Dr. Christine Wilcken, German Association of Cities, and moderator Dr. Naomi Shulman. Picture credit: Future Forum Public Safety

Close exchange with federal policy makers is of central importance for future-oriented and action-oriented research. The ‘Public Safety Research Forum’, led by the Department of Psychology of Socio-Technical Systems at the Institute of Psychology at the Technical University of Braunschweig, together with the Zukunftsforum Öffentliche Sicherheit e.V. (Future Forum for Public Safety), hosted an event at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research on 5 June 2025. The topic of discussion was ‘Future Visions of Safety’. The occasion: In 2012, the Public Safety Research Forum conducted a scenario study with Karlheinz Steinmueller that looked ahead to 2025.

From the topics and associated scenarios identified at that time, the Research Forum picked up on two – ‘systemic risks’ (using IT security as an example) and ‘risk and crisis communication’.

The aim was to discuss how the security culture is changing, what challenges are emerging and how they can be addressed. Leon Eckert, Member of the German Parliament, emphasised that public security requires dialogue and close cooperation between science, politics and society. As Ministerial Director Dr Ralf Gebel said, ‘Security concerns us all.’

Albrecht Broemme (President of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief from 2006 to 2019) reminded the audience that it is important to talk openly about mistakes in order to learn from how past crises were handled.

In her keynote speech, Interior State Secretary Dr. Daniela Lesmeister reflected on new threats and concluded: ‘The future does not need optimism, but confidence!’ Prof. Dr. Lars Gerhold, Chair of Psychology of Socio-Technical Systems at the Technical University of Braunschweig, described in his keynote speech the guiding function of social visions of the future, since we always shape the future with our ideas about it.

The keynote speeches by Prof. Dr Marian Margraf, Prof. Dr Juliana Raupp and Dr Christine Wilcken impressively demonstrated how structural and political conditions are closely linked to social needs and trust in public safety – both in IT security and in risk and crisis communication.