Abstract
This project connects a revival of functionalism as a peacebuilding strategy with a reinterpretation of geopolitics focused on urban security. The energy sector has been selected as the main issue area and sphere of action, because energy transition projects for a sustainable society provide great incentives for public/private transnational cooperation. Win-win situations can be created for groups of people who otherwise are stuck in zero-sum conflicts. Such transition projects require a new approach of collecting empirical data for tracing connections between local security complexes and global networks. To this end a business plan will be developed for setting up a Functionalist World Survey Centre. Existing approaches are predominantly state-centric, which produces a national focus on conflict management and peacebuilding in which state security gen-erally trumps human security. A focus on urban security offers a more promis-ing perspective. The geopolitical reality for the majority of the world population is an urbanised world. Moreover, the functioning of urbanised areas is increas-ingly dependent on a critical infrastructure of global networks. By reinterpret-ing geopolitics in terms of urban security insight in new functionalist solutions will emerge. To this end, this project will develop: 1) an academic elaboration of the geopolitics of urban security in a histori-cal context; and 2) a PPP business plan for setting up a Functionalist World Survey Centre for delivering tailor-made micro/macro data for cooperative projects. The results of both will be evaluated during the interdisciplinary Groningen En-ergy Summer School, which in 2016 will be organized for the fifth time.