Internal bicategories
  We define bicategories internal to 2-categories. When the ambient 2-category is symmetric monoidal categories, this provides a convenient framework for encoding the structures of a symmetric monoidal 3-category. This framework is well suited to examples arising in geometry and algebra, such as the 3-category of bordisms or the 3-category of conformal nets. 
Christopher L. Douglas and Andr\'e G. Henriques
math.CT