BUILDING A PORTAL TO INCREASE THE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION BETWEEN EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE SECURITY AND SAFETY DOMAIN

The academic domain of security and safety is recent in many countries. It is a multidisciplinary domain that is related to almost all the traditional academic fields, but there are few higher education institutions active and few degrees offered. The international cooperation between the active institutions in this security and safety domain could increase the student’s mobility and the international research cooperation between teachers.
In 2009 the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) approved the eSEC project: Competency Based e-portal of Security and Safety Engineering, with the objective to establish a web system, which would be a new tool in the process of learning for students and professionals in the fields of security studies, safety studies and crisis management. The project was important to increase the international cooperation between the members of the consortium: Zilina University from Slovakia; Maribor University from Slovenia; Institute Polytechnic of Leiria, from Portugal; Tomas Bata University from the Check Republic, Messina University, from Italy; and Institut Telecom & Management SudParis, from France. But it was also important because, within the developed work, it already provided a list of the curricular units that are held in the several European countries, in the security and safety domain; it also provided a glossary of terms in this domain in English and in the consortium countries languages and started the European Journal of Security and Safety. The web portal allows the search for curricular units for specific competencies development and in selected countries, it includes a student’s projects database and information about student’s mobility agencies and about the labor market in the security and safety area, in each country. The portal has the following address: www.esecportal.eu and entered the dissemination stage.
One result of the eSEC project that is already being noticed is the increasing Erasmus mobility between some of the consortium institutions, as a result of the increasing knowledge and the better information about the degrees that are offered in each institution. It is expectable that the portal dissemination between more European higher education institutions within this domain will continue to increase the student’s mobility and also increase the international cooperation between institutions in this security and safety domain.