First call for proposals under the Preparatory Action for European security research

Brussels, 31 Mar 2004

The European Commission has published the first call for proposals for projects and supporting activities in the scope of the Preparatory Action on 'The enhancement of the European industrial potential in the field of security research'.

The activities to be funded under this call are defined as collaborative multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder projects that will strive for a broad, strategic perspective in considering the topic areas addressed, but give tangible outcomes that will provide the basis for the future Security Research Programme.

The projects specified in the call for proposals are as follows:

- Improving situation awareness: identify the main threats that could affect Europe, particularly land and sea borders and assets of global interest, by appropriate information gathering, interpretation, integration and dissemination leading to the sharing of intelligence. Concepts and technologies for improved situation awareness at the appropriate levels could be developed and demonstrated.

- Optimising security and protection of networked systems: analyse established and future networked systems, such as communications systems, utility systems, transportation facilities, or networks for (cyber) commerce and business, with regard to the security of use, vulnerabilities, and identification of interdependencies to show how to implement protective security measures against both electronic and physical threats.

- Protecting against terrorism (including bio-terrorism and incidents with biological, chemical and other substances): identify and prioritise the material and information requirements of governments, agencies and public authorities in combating and protecting against terrorism and to deliver technology solutions for threat detection, identification, protection and neutralisation as well as containment and disposal of threatening substances including biological, chemical and nuclear ones and weapons of mass destruction.

- Enhancing crisis management (including evacuation, search and rescue operations, active agents control and remediation): address the operational and technological issues that need to be considered from three perspectives: crisis prevention, operational preparedness and management of declared crisis.

- Achieving interoperability and integrated systems for information and communication: develop and demonstrate interoperability concepts for (legacy) information systems in the domain of security, enabling the linking of existing and new assets in clusters to offer improved performance and enhanced adaptive functionality. To support interoperability, system providers need to involve end-users and standardisation.

In addition to these projects, a small number of supporting activities are foreseen on topics selected with a focus on RTD roadmaps, standardisation or requirement analyses, dissemination, networking and coordinating activities, relevant to the need to improve the security of the European citizen and society.

The total indicative budget for this call is 13 million euro for six to eight projects and some supporting activities.

For further information, please contact:
European Commission
The Preparatory Action in the field of Security Research Information Desk
Directorate-General Research
JII-79 0/01
B-1049 Brussels
E-mail: rtd-pasr@cec.eu.int

To see the call text, please visit:
http://www.cordis.lu/security/calls.htm
Remarks: The deadline for submitting proposal documents is 23.6.2004.

Before contacting the Commission, proposers are strongly advised to consult the original call text in the Official Journal of the European Union at the reference below.

CORDIS RTD-NEWS / © European Communities
Item source: http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?C ALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN= EN_RCN_ID:21825