The NEXES Research and Innovation Action aims to research, test and validate the promising integration of IP-based communication technologies and interoperability into the next generation emergency services, so that they attain increased effectiveness and performance. Empowered by smartphones with cameras, messaging and internet-based applications connecting to social media, citizens expect emergency services to use the same technologies. However, this is not the case. NEXES innovates the approach to the dynamics between emergency services and citizens, allowing (i) the use of total conversation capabilities in emergencies, including social media, to the benefit of citizens, including those with disability or special needs (ii) the exploitation of improved location information to rapidly and effectively identify and locate the caller and the incident site and (iii) the leverage of Internet-enabled connectivity to enhance interoperability and shared awareness among emergency services, to the benefit of a more secure society. The NEXES Consortium gathers world-class European entities, well experienced in the research and development of innovative solutions for communications and emergency products and solutions. The NEXES Team presents extensive background knowledge and in-house solutions to adapt, test and validate in NEXES’s open Testing Regime and Validation Framework, ensuring solid results are achieved to produce relevant Recommendations and contributions to Europe’s standardisation effort on emergency services. To leverage related dissemination and market exploitation activities, the NEXES System, Apps and its operational benefits are demonstrated in three realistic pilots to end-users and stakeholders. In fact, end-users’ involvement, directly ensured by NEXES Partners and indirectly by invited Advisors, is a key contributor to guarantee NEXES’s operational validity as a reference implementation system for next generation emergency services.

The main purpose of ASSISTANCE project is twofold: On the one hand to help and protect different kind of first responders’ (FR) organizations that work together taking into account the type of disaster/crisis they are mitigating in each moment and on the other hand, to enhance their capabilities for facing complex situations providing them advanced training based on Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Augmented Reality (AR), tailored to their real needs depending on the type of incident. ASSISTANCE project will use novel technologies such as; UAV, Robots, drones’ swarms and advanced training based on VR, MR and AR for increasing the FR’s situation awareness (SA) taking into account their need in terms of data (e.g. real time video, persons and objects location, evacuation routes status, ad-hoc network coverage and so on). Different types of adapted SA modules will be developed inside a common SA framework capable of offering the sensor outcome needed by each FR organization (e.g. real time video and resources location for firemen, evacuation routes status for emergency health services and so on). Regarding training, an advanced training network based on VR, MR, AR and other novel technologies and methodologies (e.g. tailored curricula, immersive interfaces, adapted training methodology definition, etc.) will be established in order to share different VR platforms and scenarios for enhancing the current training capabilities and skills of different FRs organization. All the ASSISTANCE results will be tested under controlled conditions in three different demostration pilots. Solutions will be developed in compliance with EU societal values, fundamental rights and applicable legislation, including in the area of privacy and personal data protection. Societal aspects (e.g. perception of security, possible effects of technological solutions on societal resilience, gender diversity) have to be taken into account in a comprehensive and thorough manner.

Emergency Medical Services in Europe are characterised by a pluralistic landscape with diverse organisational setups, professional standards, coordination mechanisms and actors which result from different historical and institutional contexts in EU member states. However, diversity is united by the common aim, of providing timely care to victims of sudden and life-threatening injuries, emergencies or disasters within EU-member states (EUMS), in cross-border settings and international humanitarian missions. Fostering the response capacities and increasing the cooperation of the European Emergency Medical Services Systems (EMSS) is of decisive importance for strengthening the resilience of European societies in the light of multiple hazards: Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of disasters, terrorism is becoming a very real scenario for mass causality events challenging both out-of-hospital as well as in-hospital emergency care, and health related hazards are calling for close cooperation of public safety and health authorities on an international level. Not only hazards but also the system’s diversity poses a challenge for preparedness planning and cooperation, which needs to involve the whole EMS system at regional and/or national level and integrate it into the whole health system and fully coordinate with the public safety system to be effective. The iProcureSecurity project seeks to identify the major challenges the system’s diversity poses to the ability to work together, stimulate R&I uptake with a view to increasing standardisation of operations across Europe, and deliver technical requirements for R&I activities to create a European system of Medical Emergency Teams that is more homogeneous and capable to work as singly unit. To achieve this aim, the project will engage in several exchange cycles with practitioners and other stakeholders in the innovation landscape as a preparation for major R&I activities as part of a PCP action.