ARCHIMEDES, a project funded by the European Union under its 7th Framework Programme (FP7) and coordinated by EOS presents its recommendations in terms of security to the European Research programme and to policy makers.
ARCHIMEDES is involved in increasing the R&T uptake in Europe by focusing on end-users & operators’ needs and involvement in the innovation cycle. To do that it aims at promoting a sustainable public – private dialogue between the demand and the supply side, and at making European research activities more end-user friendly. This should allow for a better identification of end-users & operators’ capability gaps and common operational needs, and facilitate end-users & operators’ participation in security Research & Innovation programmes. ARCHIMEDES will also make recommendations on how the innovation process from basic research, development, standardization, certification and validation to deployment could be improved. It will carry out research on Innovation Management tools, procedures and best practices (e.g. on Pre-Commercial Procurement, regulations, standardisation, etc.). In addition to testing, validation and certification issues in the security domain, it also looks into possible improvements of the legal and operational environment.
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Several years of collaborative work
Recommendations were explored, refined and validated with end-users & operators, the supply side and European and national policy-makers during several sector-specific roundtables. Ten roundtables in total were held in different EU countries over a 3 year span and would support a sustained dialogue and exchange of information among all relevant security stakeholders. The roundtables were dedicated to Civil Aviation Security, CBRN Event Response, Cyber-Crime and Cyber-Terrorism, External Dimension of Security, Smart Borders and Border Surveillance, Crisis Management and Civil Protection, Innovation Management, Robotics in Security, Critical Infrastructure Protection and the last one, Urban Security theme.
To gather these stakeholders, ARCHIMEDES is leverage networks existing at the EU Member State level. These networks are organised and linked through a “Virtual Forum for Security End-Users & Operators” which continuously inform and encourage the debate among security stakeholders on R&T activities, funding, new EU regulations and other developments that might impact their ability to innovate.
At the end of the year 2014, ARCHIMEDES presented its suggestions and recommendations for the future security research work-programme 2016-2017.
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Civil aviation security
The first rountable objective was to research and reflect on possible innovations concerning the airport security, around three sessions: Securing airport infrastructure, Optimizing passenger throughput and How to put the building blocks together: checkpoint of the future. At the end of the roundtable, four recommendations were made.
• Holistic approach: airport security requires a holistic approach that takes into account human, organisational, legal and technological factors.• Integrated solutions: development of integrated solutions that would tackle security as an integrated issue along with other factors such as identity checks and federal intelligence.
• Risk management: it should become part of civil airport management, in cooperation with the authorities. A model should be developed at the EU level which would include risk analysis methodologies, best practices and intelligence sharing platforms, effective passenger profiling, etc.
• Regulations affecting third countries: need for regulations concerning the flights coming from outside the EU and improved checks at arrival. Security standards are lower in third countries or not even used
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CBRN Event Response
The second interactive roundtable, centered on Chimic, Biologic, Radioactive and Nuclear threats and response, took place in Paris in December 2012. The roundtable objective was to discuss the 4 types of situation where the research community could arrive at a closer cooperation with stakeholders and bring some answers to unresolved questions, around four sessions:
Field response to C or R release due to a terrorist event with massive casualties or implicated populations ; Detection and Forensic due to C, B or R release due to terrorist event: timeframe and capabilities ; Mass casualties of B « contagious » patients in hospital and sanitary facilities – the issue of « surge capacities » in medical facilities and finally, Biodefense: the issue of drugs and vaccine development and use – towards an EU-US cooperation ?
After two days, four recommendations were made.
• Improve CBRNE awareness: Finance projects for educating the population (including decision-makers) on how to react to CBRNE threats and hazards. Expand general population awareness, from specialist to non-specialist.• Standardise and harmonise capabilities and response: Standardise CBRNE definitions and terms and mutualise knowledge, best practices and new methods, between CBRNE stakeholders. Create a European map/database of the existing CBRNE capabilities and harmonise CBRNE response throughout Europe.
• EU standards and certification processes for equipment: Implement and develop standards and certification processes for CBRNE equipment, at the EU level and between EU and US when justified.
• Improve the message: Emphasise the importance of CBRNE and develop CBRNE policies to face the need for terrorism defence, industrial, or bio security at the national and European level.
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Cyber-Crime and Cyber-Terrorism
The third interactive roundtable, centered on Cyber crime & cyber terrorism, took place in Roma on April 9th-10th, 2013. The rountable objective was to discuss around 3 areas: Cyber Intelligence and Forensics to Counter Terrorism and Cybercrime ; Threat identification and impact evaluation systems and Cyber resilience of critical infrastructure. Six recommendations were made by the participants.
• Harmonisation of practices and procedures for effective cooperation at a European level: Current procedures are too slow and not made for cyber-crimes.• Sharing of information: Increase the cooperation among stakeholders and involve private companies in the public/private cooperation.
• Time-effective procedures: New systems should be developed to enable time-effective collection of historical and current data transmitted on the cyber-space.
• Tailored vulnerability assessment and intrusion detection tools for critical infrastructures: Intrusion prevention systems for SCADA networks.
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External Dimension of Security
The roundtable gathered around european end-users, leaders in innovation from the EU R&D community and representatives of the EC and EU agencies funding security research and crisis response.
The objectives were to share the challenges, express needs and priorities, define the related technological development required, that could be part of future projects in accordance with EU resources and policies.
The roundtable explored three fields of research: Information management in external security, Security of EU citizens and assets protection abroad and CBRNE materials non-proliferation. End-user needs assessment ; and made 3 recommendations.
• Development of information management tools contributing to the availability, reliability and impact of evidences relevant to the external dimension of security: research on new social media, satellite surveillance, real-time situation awareness…• More efficient sharing of lessons learned among the actors of the EU external security
• Develop methodologies for country risk assessment: To help understanding how the risks are evaluated, how far these technologies vary form on EU MS to antoher, how is the information shared at the EU level…
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Smart borders and border surveillance
The aim of the RT was to establish a dialogue among European Stakeholders in the Smart Borders and Border Surveillance theme, to foster new ideas and needs for EC consideration under the Horizon 2020 programme to facilitate regular border management and to control and prevent irregular flows of people. « With increasing trends in the number of passenger flows by 2030, current border control systems would be overloaded. Smart border solutions would be required to manage these increasing flows, speeding up the passengers throughput at the border while, at the same time, increasing security. In parallel, the improvement of external border surveillance systems is required, starting where new capabilities are more urgently needed. A public-private partnership is therefore very useful to continuously build these capabilities in accordance with European initiatives. » explains the organiser. Six recommendations were made during the fifth roundtable.
• Improve data sharing and collaboration between authorities: Improve the transfer of relevant criminal data from public authorities to border controllers, improve the integration and collaboration between authorities…• Standardisation, simplification and integration of new technologies: To facilitate the management of security issues and the high increase in passenger flows.
• Creation of a harmonized European e-passport
• Harmonize ABC systems: Inclusion of metrics in the security systems for Automated Boarder Control
• Integrating intelligence from outside the EU with internal coordination of borders: Analyse the dependencies of border control with other fields like crisis management or external security.
• Integration of information at a European level: A definition of a common ICT architecture for data and information interchange to increase cooperation.
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Crisis management and civil protection
The roundtable focused on four topics: Technology needs and technology gaps, New challenges, New technologies that seem to offer promising opportunities and Efficient information management.
A simulation game was organized to create a strong starting point to the discussions, by experiencing the challenges decision makers face in a crisis management centre. Also the visit of the Crisis Management Centre in Warsaw allowed to have a better overview of the tasks and needs of End-users. Here are the three recommendations made by the 48 participants.
• Strengthen integration processes in crisis management and improve communication tools: Research in the field of innovations and the integration of existing and future warning and coordination systems (monitoring, data and information processing…).• Increase society resilience/awareness/knowledge with the education of the population.
• Coordination of large-scale cross-border operations: worldwide monitoring for crisis situation, automatic analysis of situational date, interoperability of coordination centres and information systems.
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Innovation management
In Europe, Innovation process in security field faces many gaps – fragmented EU security market, heterogeneous regulations between the different States, lack of standardization, etc. The roundtable aimed at defining an innovative management model to make the process of bringing research development to the market faster and more efficiently through innovative tools and policy.
The discussions in the course of the workshop were divided into two main parts: Understanding innovation management and the ARCHIMEDES Innovation management framework and The innovation management lifecycle. Out of this discussion emerged the following five recommendations.
• Include the access to the market inside the innovation process: not only from the proposal side, but also from the EU side.• Create a clear common view of operational needs at the EU level: Creation of further links between national end-users and existing national security programmes for research as well as other stakeholders for innovation.
• Involve end-users in all the phases of innovation management
• Participation of end-users in R&D projects: especially in those where the results are expected to be with high TRL level.
• Help SMEs face and reach the fragmented market at a governmental level
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Robotics in Security
CAMELEON NRBC pour la détection et analyse NRBC – ©ECA ROBOTICS
The workshop was a great opportunity for the end users of mobile robots working in the security services, researchers and technology development engineers to meet and discuss their ideas. The discussions in the course of the workshop were divided into three main parts: Implementation of new technologies in security; Use of mobile robots by the Police and the Border Guard and Use of mobile robots in CBRN operations ; and led to two main recommendations.
• European standard for robotic construction: To ensure a further successful deployment of the robotic technology to the first responders.• Interoperability of platforms: To ensure cooperation between robots and to shorten and simplify the training process as the operators would already be familiar with the system.
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Critical Infrastructure Protection
In Europe, critical infrastructure protection faces many issues – unclear notion between the Member States, increase of interdependencies, unidentified threats and vulnerabilities, heterogeneous legislation between the different States, lack of standardization, etc. The Roundtable aims at defining the common guidelines for critical infrastructure protection and identifying the tools to support potential difficulties. Six recommendations are already pushed by the ARCHIMEDES members.
• Organise cross-border, multi-lateral exercises: To provide lessons learned in an area where no research has been done yet.• Further improving the level of research in the CIP field • Better organising the public and private dialogue in Brussels through a cluster of national organisations: To have a better sharing of the results of the projects conducted at EU and national levels.
• Finding an efficient way to share information between the different stakeholders from operators and industrials to the States: To define acceptable resilience measures with an economic point of view based on a local level.
• Focusing on a detection phase of incidents
• Create a specific emergency centre at a national level: where operators could meet to work together on interdependencies.
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October roundtable conference: security in urban areas
At the roundtable event held in Paris at the end of October, the discussions included topics such as video surveillance, urban security during major public events, security and critical urban infrastructures, and the matter of security and urban transportation. The debate on video surveillance centered on the issue of technology and equipment in relation to the obsolescence of first-generation equipment and its “fragile cohabitation with second-generation equipment which has serious repercussions on the doctrine of use”, with Paris as a primary example in the information provided by the Paris Police Headquarters.
The topic of major events and corresponding urban security needs was illustrated by concrete examples such as the internationally-acclaimed success of the security “hypersystem” set up by Thales in Mexico City or Germany’s experience with security issues during the last European Cup. The latter should open the door to further reflection concerning the 2016 Cup events.“We are focusing more on research possibilities than on concrete solutions,” said Christian Sommade, Head of the French High Committee on Civil Defense. To this end, the firm Euralarm was present at the roundtable with a highly attractive approach. “The concept is to link the alarm systems used in public buildings, for example in offices or high-rise buildings, to the overall public network. Concretely, this would allow the population to be alerted, through these already-existing systems, in case of natural disasters, CBRN attacks and so on. Because we do not currently have any urban system that allows the population to be warned and to indicate either evacuation procedures or confinement measures… This approach would thus allow for the use of existing installations for extended and pertinent purposes,” Sommade explained, going on to say, “In this era of urban densification, it is an important question that must be addressed.” All the more important since in Europe and in countries in “the South” in general, the public remains poorly-informed. “A lot of effort will have to be made both in terms of the potential risks we may have to overcome as well as in the ways we react to them,” Sommade added.
The aim of the roundtable was to stimulate discussions between all the participants in order to define clear recommendations for the European Commission in terms of End Users and Operators’ needs in the field of urban security. Below is a summation of this brainstorming work.
• Holistic approach: urban security requires a holistic approach that takes into account the different city infrastructures, the citizens and organisation (agencies, police, fire brigade, governance) and city services and procedure• System integration: on the field device level, ethical and legal based demand and add hoc administration with trustful SOP reactions (technology acceptance)
• System integration: technological and social based on the expectations off the citizens to be involved into urban security issues
• Resilience management: must become part of public city administration in the sense off a rod with the competency to develop crosscutting security issues like security missions, concepts, measures and manage and monitor their implementation and compliance to improve the “territorial resilience” (with out that, system integrations are willing fail their usage)
• Risk management: research on vertical and horizontal city infrastructures, to identify innovation approaches
• Standardisation: research in urban security fields which are not covered by standardisation to claim them and use them for marketing reasons with an EU-labelling (development phase standardization)
• Platform: for better networking and involvement off EU&O seniors and experts in innovation, exercises and trainings to develop and train SOP, procedures and joined doctrine
Following this event, the final conference was held in early December, at which there was a presentation of its results in terms of innovation management for End-Users and Operators and its Recommendations to improve the involvement of End-Users and Operators into the EU research process and promote the uptake of results.
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ARCHIMEDES overall recommendations’
As the members highlighted, the main actions should address improvements in holistic approaches in EU-funded Security Research and in EU legislations promotion, in adaptation to the development of new technologies, collaboration and harmonisation at local, regional, European an international level, Raising awareness and acceptance of security issues with an increasing of the society resilience, awareness and knowledge with education, to make security R&D funding more attractive, accessible and easy to use with actions to structure the security market and higher involvement of the private sector in public/private cooperation. ARCHIMEDES recommendations also highlight to Promote optimisation of EU Security Research Funds with a Civil-military coordination in the security research domain, to Improve uptake, scaling-up and use of project results with a continuous dialogue between the stakeholders in civil security research in order to get exploitable results ; to Promote standardisation, validation and certification of methods and
solutions, to make use of existing knowledge and information, to Improve strategic guidance and preparedness and Create a clear common view of operational needs at the EU level, through the creation of a clear structure that would create a dialogue between the key stakeholders in the security market. Finally, members highlighted new specific thematic research topics for H2020 as Thematic areas of R&D for collaboration between defence and security, Building of official networks (forum or workshop) where end-users and representatives from companies can present their needs or capabilities, Focusing public funding on research in strategic areas based on the needs of enterprises (including technological foresight) ; Surveillance capacity of ports and waterways and Improving individual equipment for security forces (civilian police), ensuring the protection of temporary events, including biometric control, having new video protection capabilities, protect vital points against aggressions of all kinds.
The final conference was also the occasion to present the Archimedes consortium initiative with the creation of a structured link between national organisations of different European countries dealing with security issues, with the Alliance for European Growth and Innovation on Security, AEGIS.
“ One ARCHIMEDES’ key objectives is to establish a lasting dialogue and cooperation between MS organisations coordinating the national security demand and supply side better supporting implementation of the activities foreseen by the European Security Industrial Policy. Within this objective, we investigate the possibility to provide a structured support to such dialogue and cooperation with the creation of a European Network of National Organisations for Security – called “AEGIS” (Alliance for European Growth and Innovation and Security) – including End-Users, Operators, Industry, Research Institutes, Public Administrations, etc. AEGIS would create a structured link between national organisations of different European countries dealing with security issues and representing different sectors, in order to defend the needs of national and local, public and private, users, operators and suppliers, not only on R&D issues but for all the steps of the life of security solutions and services, as well as facilitating the creation and growth of such national organisations in countries where they are not existing or sufficiently organised.” explains ARCHIMEDES representative.
This initiative already has the support of the European Commission, but will need to obtain the confirmed support of the Member States in order to be further pursued. The answer is expected in 2015…