E2mC aims at demonstrating the technical and operational feasibility of the integration of social media analysis and crowdsourced information within both the Mapping and Early Warning Components of Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS). The Project will develop a prototype of a new EMS Service Component (Copernicus Witness), designed to exploit social media analysis and crowdsourcing capabilities to generate a new Product of the EMS Portfolio. The purpose of the new Copernicus Witness Service Component is to improve the timeliness and accuracy of geo-spatial information provided to Civil Protection authorities, on a 24/7 basis, during the overall crisis management cycle and, particularly, in the first hours immediately after the event. This will result in an early confirmation of alerts from running Early Warning Systems as well as first rapid impact assessment from the field. The technological enabler of the Copernicus Witness is the innovative and scalable Social&Crowd (S&C) Platform, developed by E2mC. Heterogeneous social media data streams (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,… and different data: text, image, video, …) will be analysed and sparse crowdsourcing communities will be federated (crisis specific as Tomnod, HOT, SBTF and generic as Crowdcrafting, EpiCollect,…). Two demonstration loops will validate the usefulness of Copernicus Witness and the S&C Platform suitability to allow EC to evaluate possible Copernicus EMS evolution options. E2mC will perform demonstrations within realistic and operational scenarios designed by the Users involved within the Project (Civil Protection Authorities and Humanitarian Aid operators, including their volunteer teams) and by the current Copernicus EMS Operational Service Providers that are part of the E2mC Consortium. The involvement of social media and crowdsourcing communities will foster the engagement of a large number of people in supporting crisis management; many more citizens will become aware of Copernicus.

CORE contributes to Horizon 2020’s focus on secure societies where citizens are facing increasingly threatening situations. It is built on the activities and results of previous and on-going projects and is driven by end-users within the consortium and their wider stakeholder networks. CORE will develop a harmonized vision of crisis management awareness and overcoming, through a transdisciplinary collaboration involving the environmental science and social science communities. In this way, human factors, social, societal and organizational aspects can be supported by the scientific results obtained in research on environmental and anthropogenic risks. CORE will identify and use best practice and knowledge/learning from certain countries with high levels of risk but where risk awareness is high and will provide optimized actions and solutions to help restructure and rebuild socio-economic structures after a disaster that is essential for the European society. CORE is a multi-disciplinary consortium across and outside Europe established to understand how to define common metrics with respect to the different natural and man-made disaster scenarios, and how to measure, control and mitigate the impact on the populations. Special attention will be given to vulnerable groups: disabled, elderly, poor, as well as women and children. CORE will lead to more efficient policies, governance structures and broad awareness and collaboration among citizens and rescue agencies. Best practices will be identified and reported to policymakers, end-users and disseminated to all stakeholders and NGOs. CORE will devote great attention to education in schools and the training activities are also intended to be an "awareness campaign" for young people about the vulnerability of the weak categories that cannot rely on advanced means of communication and of their importance. The young generation, used to the most advanced technologies, might become a sort of "prevention sentinels".

With the evolving threat of climate change and the consequences of industrial accidents to becoming more severe, there is an increasing need for First Responders to access reliable and agile information management systems that offer as higher Situational Awareness and better Common Operational Picture. To match with current trends, the RESPOND-A project aims at developing holistic and easy-to-use solutions for First Responders by bringing together the complementary strengths of its Investigators in 5G wireless communications, Augmented and Virtual Reality, autonomous robot and unmanned aerial vehicle coordination, intelligent wearable sensors and smart monitoring, geovisual analytics and immersive geospatial data analysis, passive and active localisation and tracking, and interactive multi-view 360o video streaming. The synergy of such cutting-edge technological advancements is likely to provide high-end and continuous flows of data, voice and video information to First Responders and their Command & Control Centres for predicting and assessing the various incidents readily and reliably, and saving lives more efficiently and effectively, while maximising the safeguarding of themselves, before, during and after disasters. To this end, RESPOND-A envisions at exercising First Responders for getting familiar with the project technological outcomes, and demonstrating their real-world performance and effectiveness in the classified training facilities of our Responder Partners under hydrometeorological, geophysical and technological disaster scenarios.

"While the role of civil protection organizations is particular crucial during disasters and major emergency situations, these events are fortunately rare and a significant part of the daily work in civil protection regards often prevention and preparedness in situations less dramatic but nevertheless important. The development of disaster prevention and awareness in the civil protection is closely linked to the ability of drawing in the experiences and learning of this daily work as well as using the daily operation in non-disaster situations to create networks with and broader awareness among other key stakeholders and the public on risk-management, disaster prevention and preparedness. Having said this, the overall rationale of the CiProVoT project is to provide:a. Free Access to and Open Educational Resources in different languages (English, Portuguese, Italian and Greek).b. Knowledge, skills and core competences for CP volunteers.c. Supporting integration Services (i.e. self assessment tools like mini games, a coaching session) for informal CP volunteers with lower levels of qualifications In general, the consortium decided to work on the development of basic and transversal skills because is crucial for Nature Conservation and Social Safety facing Natural Disasters.The most important results of CiProVot are:a. Report on practices and skills identification of Civil Protection volunteers.b. Comparative training methodology for dealing with knowledge, skills and core competences of Civil Protection volunteersc. A MOOC with four modules and orginal training material and videos for those who are approaching CP actvities for the first time, The MOOC has been validate by both experts and volunteers in the field of the CP and it is now freely available through the project website https://ciprovot-project.eu/ under the ""Learn"" section."