CERIS NEWSLETTER

CERIS is the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security. Our quarterly newsletter aims to update you on all CERIS-related activities.

On 23 March 2023, the European Commission organised a workshop on the current and future use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for security purposes. This workshop was carried out in the framework of the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS), with the active involvement of the EU agencies Europol and eu-LISA. The 90 participants included security practitioners, policy makers and researchers as well as representatives from industry and civil society.

The meeting was a response to the security research community's interest in practical aspects of Europol’s amended Regulation and its new engagement rules in Horizon Europe activities. Some 40 ongoing Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects represented by researchers, engineers, police officers and industry dived into discussions on just opened cooperation paths, but also the prospect of result validation and possible deployment to front lines, especially via Europol Innovation Lab’s products and services.

On 9 March 2023, close to 70 policy makers, security practitioners and representatives from research and technology organisations, industry and different EU agencies (e.g. eu-LISA, Frontex) met to discuss different methods and best practices for testing and validation of innovative solutions in the field of border management, customs control and maritime surveillance. During this CERIS workshop, the participants shared with each other their lessons learned and came up with recommendations.

On 21 February 2023, the European Commission held a CERIS workshop under the general theme of Fighting Crime and Terrorism (FCT), in Brussels, to discuss the priorities, roadmaps, and best practices of EU-funded security research projects focusing on the fight against Child Sexual Abuse (CSA).

On 14 October 2022, the 65 members of the Commission expert group on the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) met each other for the first time in Brussels. DG HOME explained the policy context and the objectives of the expert group. The group took note of the Terms of Reference, agreed on the Rules of Procedure, and discussed its mandate.

On 7 February 2023, the European Commissioner for HOME Affairs Ylva Johansson visited the Port of Antwerp, where she went to see a demonstration by BorderSens, an EU-funded security research project. BorderSens works on detection of illicit drugs and precursors by highly accurate electrosensors.

A cluster of Disaster-Resilient Societies (DRS) projects will disseminate new findings and practical information of direct relevance to municipal authorities and first responders in the framework of the European Forum on Governance of Major Risk & Societal Resilience organised in the framework of CERIS to facilitate this dissemination and interactions among the scientific community and city’s representatives.

Researchers, practitioners and decision-makers discuss the methodological challenges and applications to critical infrastructures, focusing on successes and/or failures to stimulate new ideas and identify future needs in resilience research.