Many challenges arise in the immediate aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster. First responders must deal with pressing and dramatic challenges in a chaotic, dynamic, and dangerous environment while locating and rescuing victims and neutralising threats. They must make urgent decisions, but the zone can be large, complex, hostile, with many areas unsafe to explore. The lack of reliable information and the deep uncertainty present serious obstacles to a quick and effective response. INTREPID aims to create a unique platform, seamlessly integrating Intelligence Amplification and eXtended Reality concepts, with unprecedented Smart Cybernetic Assistants and innovative deep indoor Networking and Positioning capabilities, to improve and accelerate the exploration and assessment of disaster zones. The project will validate its effectiveness, in iterative and complementary pilots, to support the rescue operations in areas that are complex or dangerous to explore. Always first on scene, first responders will be able to immediately start operations without having to wait for specialized teams or for the zone to be fully secured. When these teams arrive, first responders have already used INTREPID to provide them with reliable information and effective assistance. The result is an immediate and targeted response that will allow faster, more effective and safer operations. The consortium consists of world-class research centres and SMEs, coordinated by an industrial with a leading position in the security market. It will follow a user-centric methodology involving many first responders, and an international Advisory Board and Open User Group ensuring diversity. Social, ethical and legal constraints will be carefully considered during the project’s lifetime. The project will design and implement a training curriculum and an innovative evaluation framework along with an ambitious communication and dissemination plan, preparing the ground for successful exploitation.

PARSEC is a project about parcel and letter security in the context of postal and express courier services. The project delivers an ambitious set of solutions by developing, configuring, customising, and piloting innovative tools, services and security management views to fight the abuse of postal and express courier flows for criminal and terrorist purposes. The four PARSEC innovation areas and three use cases strengthen risk analysis and redefine threat detection and resilience capabilities of parcel service providers, customs authorities, police agencies, and other relevant stakeholders. PARSEC develops and tests three next-generation non-intrusive detection technologies (multi-energy photon counting detector, neutron-induced gamma-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction) and combine them into a detection architecture (= system-of-system) for optimal detection accuracy, speed and reliability. With PARSEC solutions postal and express operators, customs, and police authorities will be more capable to fight crime and terrorism, put in place a stronger deterrent, and to ensure safe and undisrupted postal and express services.

A project to build and maintain an innovation-driven network of LEAs combating cybercrime - accelerating the EU’s ability to counteract growing pressures of cyber threats. Heeding advice from EUROPOL’s EC3 flagship report Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, CYCLOPES create synergies between LEAs from MS and connect industry and academia by stimulating and sustaining dialogue on pressing security matters threatening the stability of Europe and Citizen safety. Dedicated teams will scour markets, identifying solutions and research activities to highlight actions and innovative products to assist LEAs tackle the complexity of cybercrime. Besides technology, the project supports continued development of LEAs, working closely with practitioners to define current capacities and elicit capability gaps and requirements in crucial areas: procedures, training, legal and standardisation. Consequently, other objectives are: identification of priorities for standardisation; recommendations for innovation uptake and implementation; social, ethical and legal reports providing guidance and training suggestions for cybercrime investigators; dissemination of results through workshops, conferences, webinars, publications, policy papers and media. All outcomes will be suitably considered for exploitation - helping to propel the EU in the fight against cybercrime. Practitioners’ workshops are a driving force behind the project and cover three 3 domains: 1) cybercrime affecting people directly, 2) cybercrime affecting systems, 3) digital forensics. The project is to synchronise with other activities conducted by relevant parties EUROPOL, INTERPOL, CEPOL, ECTEG, ENISA; networks: ENLETS, ENFSI, I-LEAD, iLEAnet, EU-HYBNET, covering topics that go beyond efforts of these initiatives and preventing duplication. This also applies to projects where activities align with CYCLOPES (i-ProcureNet, Stairs4Security) and future projects funded by the EC, especially in the area of AI.

Safety and well-being at work is one of the most important and developed aspects of the EU employment and social affairs policy. This field is an integral part of the conception, organization and development of work processes and has the role, by means of specific measures and means, to prevent possible dysfunctions in the labor system, so that the labor process takes place in the most efficient way. The ultimate goal alt EU level is to protect the lives, integrity and health of workers against the risks of injury and occupational illness that may occur at work and to create working conditions designed to provide them with physical, mental and social comfort. Our responsibility as member states is to align to the EU policy in the field and thus requires a transnational approach and exchange of good practices. The authorities responsible for national public order and safety, are responsible for the organization, coordination and supervision of the activity in the area of occupational health and safety within their units due to the particular categories of personnel employed by these institutions (policeman and military personnel). In this context, we needs to take immediate action and design its policy in the area considering the particularities of the work environment within its units. The support measures requested will help to correlate the institutional actions in the area of occupational safety and health with the strategic lines set at national and European level. I. Improvement of the institutional capacity to reduce the risks and work-related accidents through measures based on scientific analysis and a valid mechanism of data collection.II. Upgrading of policy in the field of safety and well-being in workplace in law enforcement systems through integration of HR, Health and Occupational Psychology activities into a system of multidisciplinary services.III. Improvement of the institutional capacity to increase safety and well-being in workplace through restructuring the periodical evaluations and interventions so they become more accessible at local level.The increased capacity to gather data in an integrated manner will allow for the integration of local data in performing comprehensive analysis. Also, tools, materials, procedures, resources adapted to the European context and addressed to professionals will become available, assuming new cooperation commitments in multi-disciplinary and pluri-disciplinary teams at local and regional level. The direct beneficiaries of improved occupational safety and health standards are most of them working in highly exposed functions (police, gendarmerie, emergency services, border guard), who will benefit from improved working conditions. Indirectly, these actions will result in improved performance of law enforcement authorities and departments, improving thus the overall functioning of society. The implementation of the proposed measures will produce a structural change in the area of human resources management central units and its subordinated structures, and will impact upon the central public administration as a whole. The expected impact consists in improved working conditions and increased efficiency of human resources management in law enforcement through the development of the institutional mechanisms and necessary competences to ensure the proper administration of the human capital – a strategic resource of the organization, highly important for the consolidation of the knowledge based economy, a goal which has been set at European level through the Europe 2020 Strategy. The strategic documents and instruments developed through this action will ensure an appropriate work environment and protection of employees against professional accidents and diseases and the provision of proper care when these occur. Through this action, the awareness level is raised among decision makers regarding the importance and benefits of ensuring a healthy and safe environment for the employees. In addition, by involving staff in joint teams with external experts throughout the various stages of project implementation, there will be ensured the transfer of the skills necessary for the modernization of the institution. The desired increase of synergies, complementarities and avoidance of duplicities in taking all the actions necessary for validating tools and instruments reviewed by experts, which otherwise they wouldn't have met to work together, to commonly use and share their resources and their experience in order to develop innovative techniques, methods, tools and instruments tailored to meet the needs of each partner. Impact of the project will take the form of networking with other relevant institutions, and through the dissemination within regular conferences/seminars/forums we expect to increase the interest of other stakeholders to adopt the integrated system and multidisciplinary approach developed in the project SAFEWELL.

With the rise of potentially disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality, a particular challenge has emerged for LEAs and other civil security practitioners. Tasked with fostering safe societies and protecting European citizens from new forms of criminality, they need to pre-empt technological evolutions, turning potential threats into opportunities, and anticipate the operational future of policing. Technology foresight is one possible anticipatory process. However, pure technology watch-based approaches are not helpful for decision-making if not embedded in a qualitative assessment of threats and capabilities. Hence the need to move towards a comprehensive foresight framework which is the rationale behind AHEAD. Standing for TowArd TecHnological ForEsight for IncreAseD Security, AHEAD is a LEA-led project which will adopt a 360-degree approach accounting for megatrends but also contextual elements (i.e. legal, ethical, societal and economic) to design and operationalise a sustainable capability-based civil security foresight framework. Tested through iterative Foresight Exercises addressing the five Destinations of the Horizon Europe Cluster 3 (Fighting crime and terrorism, Border management, Resilient infrastructure, Increased cybersecurity and Disaster-resilient society), this framework will be tailored to the needs of civil security practitioners to generate “evidence-based” capability roadmaps. Such roadmaps will translate the foresight process’ outcomes into concrete courses of actions to support decision- and policy-makers at EU and national levels when deciding on strategies and policy actions in the field of civil security, including the programming of security research and innovation investments. By enhancing a forward-looking culture in civil security, AHEAD will contribute to the strategy put forward in the European Commission's Foresight Agenda to embed in a more systematic way strategic foresight into policy-making.