The overall aim is to expand the impact and adoption of Space Tech by bringing together Space start-ups, SMEs, entrepreneurs and the IoT ecosystem to increase commercial relevance of the technologies across industrial sectors and accelerate their access to market and/or scaling. We will achieve this by designing and orchestrating a collaborative ecosystem with adapted tools and instruments that will position a greater number of space-enabled technologies in industrial markets. This ecosystem will be based on a blended community of IoT and Space that brings together a range of stakeholders, large and small, from academia, business and the public sector not just across the three local ecosystems that are directly taking part. The specific objectives are to: • Identify promising tech generated within the European space ecosystem that are susceptible to being used in Industry. • Identify SMEs, tech start-ups and founders who could benefit from space technologies through a range of local activities. • Design and deliver an acceleration programme for early stage space and IoT tech companies. • Facilitate access to innovative financial support to them consolidate their market offering and grow. • Increase the commercialisation and industry adoption of space tech. • Create a Europe-wide network of Space entrepreneurs . We will start by scouting promising space technologies that can be brought to market from across Europe. Their market relevance will be explored by stakeholders through locally delivered design studios. The ventures with the greatest potential will then be supported through an intensive 3+3 month acceleration programme than will build the founders capacity and further enable them to build and implement their go to market strategies. Over the 2 year period, t240 space and data technologies will be explored; the market potential of 90 of these will be scrutinised and 30-45 startups/ventures will have been helped to scale.

The security sector is considerably evolving, by adapting the offer to the risk and threats and by permanently aggregating emerging innovations. The digital is disrupting this industry, by adding new capacities and new threats. The security sector is very fragmented. SecurIT aims to create a new global competitive security industrial (product & service) value chain by supporting a better integration of innovative security systems, with a cross-sectoral and European approach, to support the time to market optimization, the integration of privacy and security by design at all steps of maturity, with a cross-border collaboration between SMEs and other RDI actors. This vision is supported by a 4 step-approach: #1: : Analysis of the demand-side, mobilizing 40 integrators/end-users to identify their needs and 42 potential demonstrators including major actors as large industry, cities, critical infrastructures operators that will join SecurIT as user group, experiment hosting or supportive partners (26 support letters in annex - AIRBUS, THALES, ATOS, COESS, ECSO, cities, EEN etc.). #2&3: Involving supply sides (SMEs), aiming to get 300 EoI to participate in SecurIT and attracting +1000 SMEs to get part through outreach actions (15 letters of SMEs in annex). #4: Select and Support 63 innovation projects involving 126 SMEs with over 3,5M€ of FSTP through 2 Instruments of support from TRL5 to TRL9 (Prototyping and Demonstration/Pilot), and +700K€ in services provided by partners. Highquality experts will be involved in the SMEs selection process. The consortium is as a whole, with 7 Security and complementary Clusters from France, Belgium, Lithuania, The Netherlands and Denmark, coming from most relevant security / cybersecurity Regional Innovation Hubs in Europe, and the SecurIT partners have experience in open call management at national and european level.

SHIELD4CROWD focuses on enhancing the protection of public spaces in EU cities against security threats related to crowd management. Public spaces are indeed largely exposed to several threats like UAV and UGV attacks, CBRN attacks, cold weapons/ firearms attacks or urban riots, and gatherings are by themselves a potential target for terrorist or criminal attacks. This focus is shared, from the start, by several actors and specifically by security practitioners. 3 ministries of Interior from 3 EU countries, 1 Public Transport Operator and 2 security practitioners from Poland and Slovakia are thus involved as full partners. Many other end-users will also be involved through the User Observatory Group (UOG) and some of them have already expressed official interest for the project. SHIELD4CROWD implements a progressive and iterative process to jointly define one common challenge that can be tackled with identified candidate technology serving the basis for future PCP, for which the buyers group will be created during the project, through the continuous involvement of the UOG. First, 10 jointly defined Common Security Use Cases will fully describe the gaps between available solutions, existing processes and identified needs. A technological analysis of those needs will then be conducted by technological experts, including exploration of legal, societal, ethical, and environmental considerations, to allow the end users to converge to 3 uses cases, from which a SOTA analysis and 4 Open Market Consultations will be conducted. All the results will finally serve to the definition of the common challenge and the elaboration of the first set of Tender Documentation. SHIELD4CROWD includes a Security Advisory Board to manage the sensitive knowledge generated by its activities, and several advisors to guide the elaboration of a Common Challenge fully compliant with Europe’s privacy and data protection regulations.

The SHIELD PCP initiative aims to drive innovation by empowering buyers to actively influence the development of cost-effective solutions tailored to their unique requirements. The overarching aim is to equip security stakeholders with cutting-edge technology procured through innovative processes, offering solutions that enable seamless coordination and cooperation among all stakeholders, especially law enforcement agencies (LEAs). Building on the achievements of its predecessor, SHIEL4CROWD, the SHIELD PCP project adopts a top-down approach. This method consolidates widely agreed-upon scenarios to address critical security challenges, providing a detailed identification of innovation needs at both the process and technology levels. This top-down approach enabled the alignment of stakeholders, from security forces to public authorities, ensuring innovative solutions meet shared needs for public space protection. SHIELD4CROWD also developed a roadmap of innovations addressing operational and technical challenges while considering regulatory and economic factors. SHIELD PCP continues this work to enhance collaboration and improve public space security. The project follows a phased Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) process, which includes: Preparatory Phase: Finalizing the tendering documentation developed during SHIEL4CROWD; Phase 1: Solution Design ;Phase 2: Prototype Development; and Phase 3: Operational Validation, conducted across three pilot sites in France, Spain, and Slovakia. A consortium of 10 partners from 6 EU countries, including 3 Ministries of Interior and 1 public transport operators as Public Buyers and 1 end-user, is collaborating on this project. Many other end-users will also be involved through the User Observatory Group (UOG).