This Basic Course was organized by ICI Bucharest under the aegis of the European Union External Action’s (EEAS) European Security and Defence College and with the support of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The course gathered civilian and military personnel from EU Member States, EU institutions/agencies, experts from Critical Infrastructure Operators.

This course focused on the general concepts and principles underpinning Critical Infrastructure Protection, the various cross-sectoral issues as well as the instruments which facilitate CIP activities.

The general objectives were:

• Give an overview of the evolving nature of Critical Infrastructure Protection efforts;
• Enable a strategic foresight in the CIP and resilience planning activities at the level of the various competent regulatory or coordinating authorities or owners/operators of Critical Infrastructures;
• Present the latest research in the CIP field and have a clear view of the systemic transformations underway from National to European and Global levels, leading to new risks, vulnerabilities and threats;
• Present the basics of integration of technologies such as AI, Blockchain and the achievement of new scales in data acquisition or processing;
• Introduce the developments in the toolbox available to CIP practitioners and policymakers for understanding and addressing CIP risks.

In cooperation with the JRC, a tabletop exercise was also organized, based on POSEIDON (Platform-based Operational System Events and Injects Distribution Online) web-platform, to reinforce the knowledge gained and create familiarity with the tool, designed to support the execution of complex exercises with the participation of multiple stakeholders covering multiple areas of responsibility and fields of interest/expertise (i.e. cross-sectoral exercises).

The aim of the course was to provide participants with a significant grounding in the framework of Critical Infrastructure Protection which will facilitate a systemic view of the world and the underlying risks, vulnerabilities and threats affecting CI in the near future.