Expected Outcome:

Projects’ results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Improved vulnerability assessments by law enforcement and local managers of public spaces by detection of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRN-E) threats in the public spaces and flow of public transport, in order to provide broader situational awareness to practitioners in the field;
• Enhanced planning capabilities of security practitioners and policy-makers due to the access of new data and identification of potential vulnerabilities connected to the design/refurbishment and improvement of different public spaces;
• Recommendations are provided for further improving safety and security-by-design approach to public spaces and mass transportation systems;
• Improved training of Police Authorities in collaboration with different public and private actors (e. g., crisis management and civil protection authorities, fire brigades, regulatory agencies, emergency health services, security managers, private security organisations, civil society groups etc.) to enhance their preparedness to attacks on public spaces; and
• Enhanced modelling capabilities for security practitioners and policy-makers due to the identification of potential new vulnerabilities and data available, and improved support to planning of respective resources and activities.

Scope:

Public spaces such as squares, sport venues, shopping districts, places of worship, and mass transport systems have been the target of terrorist attacks causing significant loss of lives and causing societal insecurity. Means to carry out such attacks range from sophisticated, and well-planned scenarios including several coordinated attackers using explosives and firearms, to low-cost, low-tech attacks making use of common products. Today specific urban furniture like benches, bus shelters, flower boxes, etc. already have double functions controlling access to protected areas, which answers to some of the low-cost attacks. The next logical step seems to expand their functions further and adopt new functionalities to better respond to the terrorist threats, such as for CBRN-E ones. The successful proposal should build on the publicly available achievements and findings of related previous national or EU-funded projects, as well as seek to exploit potential synergies with the successful proposal(s) funded under HORIZON-CL3-2024-BM-01-05: Detection and tracking of illegal and trafficked goods.

In recent years, in some pilot actions some street furniture, including bins and bus shelters have become smart as they have been equipped with environmental sensors, wireless modules, or microcontrollers becoming part of the IoT infrastructure, and one of the components of the future smart cities. Proposals should focus on exploitation and integration of existing sensors within the public space small architectures. Traditional sensors and surveillance platforms like the Automatic Number-Plates Recognition (ANPR), cameras or image analysis systems are not in the scope of this topic unless their integration with new sensors is considered, and the added value of networked systems demonstrated. Proposals should present relevant challenges and opportunities for future applications of CBRN-E detection capacities in small architecture, including prospects of scalability, real-time processing, and cooperation of networked systems.

Proposals funded under this topic are expected to engage with the Europol Innovation Lab during the lifetime of the project, including validating the outcomes, with the aim of facilitating future uptake of innovations for the law enforcement community.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content should be addressed only if relevant in relation to the objectives of the research effort.

Specific Topic Conditions:

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.