Our Projects

Client: EU (Horizon 2020)

Budget:  ~ € 3,3 million EU funding

Coordinator: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: 14 partners from 8 European countries

Goal: Wildfires are a growing problem across the world, as unprecedented wildfires have raged with an intensity and across geographical regions never seen before while climate change further increases the frequency and severity of wildfires. Furthermore, the multitude of stakeholders ranging from forestry and agriculture to infrastructure operators, insurance, civil society, civil protection authorities and first responders constitutes a challenge in designing holistic policies.

In this context, the Firelogue project aims to support and coordinate the consolidation of knowledge from the wildfire risk related Green Deal Innovation Actions and the wider community. It integrates the findings across stakeholder groups and fire management, and promotes the discussion via forums and workshops, leading to the exchange among a large range of stakeholders.

INT Tasks: INT is the project coordinator and responsible for all administrative and managerial aspects. Further, in leading the work package 4 “Dialogue formats for the coordination dimension: WFRM integration of measures and strategies”, INT aims to offer a variety of exchange and dialogue opportunities for the Wildfire Risk Management (WFRM) community and beyond.

Client: EU (Horizon 2020)

Budget: total budget: €5.460.791,25, INT: €594.566,25

Coordinator: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: 20 partners from 9 European countries

RiskPACC focuses on increasing disaster resilience across society by closing the so-called Risk Perception Action Gap (RPAG) that can be understood as the mismatch between how risk is perceived and acted upon, and its actual occurrence. Notably, perceptions of risk and risk management actions taken by civil protection agencies and the public, have been shown to be often misaligned.

In seeking to narrow this RPAG, RiskPACC adopts a co-creation approach to facilitate greater interaction and knowledge exchange between citizens, civil protection agencies, civil society organisations, researchers and developers to collaboratively identify resilience requirements and develop potential procedural and technical solutions to build enhanced resilience to a range of hazards. Based on this understanding, seven dedicated case studies focused on wildfires, floods, earthquakes., CBRN, terrorism, health pandemics, and multi-hazard events will be established. These will jointly design and prototype novel solutions across all risk management/disaster resilience phases (i. e. prevent/mitigate, preparedness, response, and recovery) and will be stress-tested in multiple locations and risk contexts.

Project launch: 01.09.2021

SHAPES (Smart and Health Ageing through People Engaging in Supportive Systems)

Client: EU (Horizon 2020)

Grant agreement no: 857159

Coordinator: ALL (Assisting Living & Learning) Institute, University of Maynooth, Ireland

Consortium: 36 partners from 14 European countries

Term: 48 months starting in November 2019

Budget: ~ € 18,7 million EU funding, ~ total of € 21 million

Project Type: Innovation Action (IA)

Objective:  SHAPES aims at creating an integrated IT platform that will bring together a wide range of digital solutions focused on improving the health, wellbeing, and independence of people as they get older. This interoperable Platform will offer a network of large-scale interconnected digital services and products, that will empower older adults, families and caregivers, to solve real and meaningful problems. These solutions are intended for older adults facing a temporary or permanent reduction of functionality and capabilities, whether physical or psychological, but also to help those who are healthy to maintain their health and well-being for as long as possible.  

IN-PREP (An INtegrated next generation PREParedness programme for improving effective inter-organisational response capacity in complex environments of disasters and causes of crisis)

Client: EU (Horizon 2020)

Grant agreement no: 740627

Coordinator: ICCS (Instiute for Commuincation and Computer Systems)

Consortium: 20 partners from 7 European countries

Term: 3 years, Start: September 2017

Budget: ~ € 8 million EU funding, ~ total of € 9,5 million

Project Type: Innovation Action (IA)

Objective: European countries confront the rising specter of transboundary crises, which cross national borders as well as policy boundaries, with speed and ease, threatening the continuing functioning of critical infrastructures and the well-being of many citizens. Transboundary crises pose a specific set of complex challenges for which Europe is – despite recent policy initiatives – still ill prepared.

IN-PREP has recognized and will address three challenges in the context of transboundary crises:

1.    Member states need to develop shared response planning.

2.    Countries need to share information in real time. This sense-making challenge requires a way to have multiple countries and agencies create a shared picture of an emerging crisis based on multiple sources.

3.    Countries need to coordinate the use of critical resources to ensure a timely response and to avoid waste and misspending.

To accomplishing above principal challenges, IN-PREP will establish and demonstrate a next generation programme by enabling:  1) a reference implementation framework of coordination operations (Handbook of Operations) and 2) a novel multi-disciplinary training platform (Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform) at the service of the entirety of civil protection stakeholders (firefighting units, medical emergency services, police forces, civil protection units, control command centers, assessment experts).

The proposed framework will not only improve preparedness, response planning and scenario building but can be also applied during joint interventions, thus improving the joint capacity to respond. Moreover, the IN-PREP training programme is constructed around a rich set of Exercises and Demonstrations representative of high risk threats, disasters and causes of crisis that the European Civil Protection Community has faced and most importantly still needs to be better prepared on.

INT Tasks: contributes to the identification of User Needs and Ethical, Legal and Human Factors in System Development. It analyses success and failure factors in transboundary crisis response as well as organizational, policy, social, and human factors contributing to efficient crisis management. INT leads the development of a cross-organisational handbook of Transboundary Preparedness and Response Operations and the identification of key performance indicators and critical success factors in transboundary crisis management.

FIRE-IN (Fire and Rescue Innovation Network)

Client: EU (Horizon 2020)

Grant agreement no: 740575

Coordinator: SAFE (Pôle de compétitivité SAFE CLUSTER)

Consortium: 16 partners from 8 European countries

Term: 5 years, Start: April 2017

Budget: ~ € 3,5 million EU funding

Project Type: Coordination and Support Action (CSA)

Objective: The frequency and scope of natural disasters are increasing worldwide. Together with high societal expectations for security and increased concerns for health and safety of responders, this presents new challenges for the Fire & Rescue, Research, Innovation, and Standardisation communities. In this context, the overall objective of the FIRE-IN project is to raise the security level of EU citizens by improving the capabilities of Fire & Rescue services to address various forms of hazards, natural or manmade.

The work in the project is organized in 3 phases:

I. Identification of capability gaps as experienced and expressed by Fire & Rescue practitioners: The gaps are formulated as challenges to be solved by research and industry.

II. Review of ongoing and planned Research & Development (R&D) projects and suggestion of promising solutions addressing the identified gaps.

III. Establishment of an interactive cooperation between end-users, research, and industry and suggestion of new R&D topics to national and EU research funding lines; development of recommendations for the European Strategic Research and Standardisation Agenda on Security.

All three cycles are organised around five thematic working groups (TWGs) of the Fire & Rescue community:

INT Tasks:

Development of the FIRE- IN framework to organise taxonomy, methodology and workflow in the subsequent tasks and Thematic Working Group workshops which will analyse existing capability gaps

Organising the identification of available products, promising Research & Development works and standards to address the identified capability challenges, by

Establishing a screening procedure

Implementing this procedure with the consortium and associated experts

SONNETS – Societal needs analysis and emerging technologies in the public sector

Client: EU – under the 8^th Framework Programme – Horizon 2020

Coordinator: ATOS, Spain

Consortium: 4 partner organisations from 4 different countries

Term: 18 month starting in March 2016

Budget: EU support € 498 000, share Fraunhofer INT € 153 000

Objective: It is a fact that technology in our age is offering countless solutions that could change the way we live and interact and that innovation is lately directly linked with emerging technologies that are applied in various domains. However, despite the investments performed in the last decade the bitter truth is that “we are not there yet” when it comes to fully exploiting the benefits of ICT to help the public sector to meet emerging societal needs.

SONNETS will tackle this issue of empowering the public sector in becoming a core innovation driver by dedicating itself to the following core questions: (a) how to identify, monitor and early identify societal trends that need to be met by specific public sector services? and, (b) how to timely get aware  of emerging technologies and assess their usability for the public sector? To provide convincing answers to these questions SONNETS will deliver an innovative methodological framework to accelerate the transformation of the public sector through the identification and analysis of emerging technologies that hold the potential to transform the public sector into a technology leader and innovation carrier. It also aims to identify innovation actions that could be employed to deal with societal challenges, and address societal and public sector needs. Thus SONNETS has committed itself to the mission to foster collaboration between all relevant stakeholders by breaking down knowledge silos towards building a more productive, responsive and innovation generating public sector.

INT Tasks: INT is the leader of the WP4 „Roadmap for emerging research directions“ and also contributes to WP2 „Societal and Public Sector Needs“ and WP3 „Identification of Emerging Technologies and Innovation Identification Framework“

SmartResilience – Smart Resilience Indicators for Smart Critical Infrastructures

Client: EU – under the 8^th Framework Programme – Horizon 2020

Coordinator: European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management (EU-VRi)

Consortium: 20 partners from 12 countries

Term: 36 months, Start: May 2016

Budget: EU support € ~ 5 Mio., share Fraunhofer INT € ~ 307,000

Objective: The society needs a system of resilience management going beyond conventional risk management, in order to address the complexities of large integrated systems and the uncertainty of future threats. In modern society the systems that determine resilience of the society are the critical infrastructures (energy grids, transportation, government, water, etc.)

SmartResilience aims to provide an innovative “holistic” methodology for assessing resilience that is based on resilience indicators. SmartResilience specific objectives are:

INT Tasks: The tasks of INT in the project include:

Analysis of existing approaches on measuring resilience of critical infrastructures

Analysis of legal, political and organizational context factors

Lead the work package on “Challenges and interdependencies of Smart Critical Infrastructures”

Analysis of resilience and possible protection measures against High Power Microwave (HPM) threats. This analysis is conducted within the INT business unit “Electromagnetic Effects and Threats”.

ResiStand – Increasing disaster Resilience through Standardisation

Client: EU – under the 8^th Framework Programme – Horizon 2020

Coordinator: Geowise Oy, Finland

Consortium: 14 partners from 8 countries

Term: 24 months, Start: May 2016

Budget: EU support € ~ 2 Mio., share Fraunhofer INT € ~ 225,000

Objective: ResiStand aims to identify new ways to improve the crisis management and disaster resilience capabilities of the European Union and of individual Member States through standardisation. This goal will be achieved through the creation of the ResiStand Roadmap and ResiStand Process to support stakeholders in the development of standards.

INT Tasks: FhG-INT is leader of the work package on “Identification of standardisation needs and requirements”, and contributes to several other parts in the project, amongst others with knowledge and experience from the implementation and execution of the Programming Mandate M/487 to Establish Security Standards, Phase 2.

CARONTE – Creating an Agenda for Research on Transportation Security (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: Fraunhofer IML

Consortium: 11 partners

Term: 18 months, Start: June 2014

Budget: EU support € 1.3 million, share Fraunhofer INT € 57.000

Objective: Easy, efficient, safe and secure transportation is a core factor for European growth, collaboration and employment, and thus for the Europe 2020 strategy. Land transportation has two main security challenges: to avoid interruptions of transport and to ensure the free flow of freight and passengers which guarantees supply to Europe’s populace, and to avoid that transportation modes become open avenues of attack. CARONTE helps to tackle these challenges by producing a research agenda for security in land transport that focuses on the core relevant gaps caused by existing and emerging risks.

The CARONTE project has achieved its goal of providing input to strategic research planning in the domain of land transport security. Information from more than a hundred experts was collected through various methods, more than 120 ongoing and recently completed research projects were evaluated, and a large number of relevant policy papers and research programmes were analysed. During the last Work Package “Elaboration of a research agenda”, the information thus obtained was sorted and processed in a transparent way in order to obtain research ideas that are highly relevant for current and future strategic research planning. These ideas have been sorted and are presented in a way that allows easy uptake in the strategic research planning processes of the European Commission and other authorities.

INT Tasks: Fraunhofer INT was the leader of WP6 "Elaboration of a Research Agenda - Developing the Research Agenda”

STOA – Science & Technology Options Assessment in Safety & Security for the European Parliament (successfully concluded)

Client: European Parliament

Coordinator: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: six Fraunhofer Institutes

Term: 12 months (extendable to a maximum of four years); Start: April 2014

Budget: max. € 300.000

Objective: To provide scientific and technical expertise in "Security and Safety Technologies"

INT Task: Project coordination and provision of expertise of the departments TASP and NE

ACRIMAS – Aftermath Crisis Management System-of-systems Demonstration Phase I (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: 15 partners from 10 countries

Term: 15 months, Start: April 2011

Budget: € 1.1 million total, EU funding, share Fraunhofer INT € ~ 210.000

Project Type: Demonstration Project, Phase I

Objective: This demonstration activity was put out to tender by the EU to develop new approaches for better coordinated European crisis management skills. The aim of the ACRIMAS Project was to prepare and publicize Phase II, the actual crisis management demonstration activity. For this purpose, a Technology Road Map was developed, as well as a demonstration concept which is now being applied in the DRIVER Project.

INT tasks: INT was in charge of the project and the dissemination work package. In addition, INT contributed to the analysis of the political and legal framework, the capability gap analysis, to current research status and to the road map and the demonstration concept.

ETCETERA – Evaluation of critical and emerging technologies for the elaboration of a security research agenda (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: 14 partners

Budget: € 2 million (total), € 1,5 million (EU funding), € 442.000 (total INT), € 371.000 (EU funding INT)

Term: 25 months, Start: October 2011

Objective: Evaluation of critical and new technologies to create a security research plan.

Requirements:

1. Identifying technologies necessary for security, especially in areas where European industry is dependent on other regions of the world. In addition, looking for alternative technical solutions that make it possible to use and sell European-made security products worldwide.
2. Identifying highly speculative research fields in "Emerging Technologies" (time horizon: 10 to 20 years). This study should include the following elements:

Detailed analyses of various "Emerging Technology" areas

Identification of relevant links with civil security research

Drafting priority recommendations for future research

INT tasks: developing WBAT into "Weighted-bit Assessment Table for Critical Dependencies (WBAT CD)"; "Scanning for Emerging Technologies" and "In-depth Analyses of Emerging Technologies"; Recommendations for an "Emerging Security Technology Research Agenda (ESTRA)"

INNOSEC – Innovation Management Models for Security Organizations (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: TECNALIA

Consortium: 11 partners from 7 countries

Term: 24 months, Start: February 2012

Budget: € ~ 1,65 Mio; share Fraunhofer INT: € ~154.000

Objective: The InnoSec Project will make a strong contribution to developing and helping deploy effective and efficient innovation management systems for security organizations in Europe. InnoSec will produce a unique modular model, together with a road map, for implementing and improving innovation management for public and private security players. It will create new methodologies and build upon best practices in this and other sectors, verified by end-users within and outside the project. The model is unique, there being no similar model devoted to security organizations. It will comprise the four phases of innovation: monitoring, evaluation, adaptation and feedback. The modular approach was chosen to facilitate both adoption and the internal capability to undergo changes. Customary tools such as technology watch, road mapping and forecasting will be adapted to the security sector context. The road map will propose building blocks that combine innovation modules and complementary components dealing with human-centered and motivational aspects - while taking account of the organization’s culture - and will include training materials. Every phase of research, including the final results, is consistently contrasted with the opinions of distinguished experts and end-users from different areas of the security services, maintaining public-private and regional sensibilities, operational-research, and gender balances.

INT Task: Coordinating and implementing interviews with security organizations, as well as their documentation and analysis (WP1.3); Testing the Innosec model and integrating changes in the final model (WP4)

Results (with INT participation):
D1.2: Empirical study of innovation management practices of security sector users
D4.1: Validation of the proposed modular innovation model in user partners
D4.3: A refined version of modular innovation model - the Innosec model

ETTIS – European Security Trends & Threats in Society (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: PRIO, Norway

Consortium: 10 partners from 10 countries

Term: 3 years, Start: January 2012

Budget: € 2.3 million EU support, Fraunhofer share (INT and ISI) € 400,000

Objective: the aim of the ETTIS Project is
- to use a scenario approach to identify, understand and estimate future threats and the future demand for solutions for societal security, i.e. a security approach that includes all dimensions of a democratic society;
- the development and testing of a methodological approach for an iterative process of identifying priorities in security research, thereby involving the social dimension of security research;
- deriving basic principles for future procedures in security research and research priorities, reflecting the needs of end-users.

INT Tasks: analysis of the results of previous safety research projects, with respect to future threats and the needs of society and possible security solutions; conducting and analyzing interviews with experts on nuclear material, Cyber and environmental protection, with regard to future threats, the needs of society and possible security solutions

SOURCE – Virtual Centre of Excellence for Research Support & Coordination on Societal Security

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordinator: PRIO, Norway

Consortium: 12 partners from 10 countries

Term: 5 years, Start: January 2014

Budget: € 5 million EU funding, Fraunhofer INT share € 280k

Objective: The main objective of the project is the creation of virtual pan-European "Networks of Excellence" in societal security. Through a comprehensive set of coordinated activities, the center will bring together experts and stakeholders from all levels of the security chain (science, industry, politics, civil society, end users and citizens), in order to analyze and understand the link between security and society. By means of various network activities, meetings, scientific and general publications (film, press and social media), a scientific journal and the establishment of an international association for research and improvements in societal security, SOURCE will achieve the following objectives:   

Increasing the awareness of policy makers and end-users regarding societal security

Increasing the competitive strength of the security industry by closing security gaps

Improving the wellbeing and security of European citizens.

INT Tasks: In Network Building: analysis of exchange between different groups on societal security, recommendations for improvement; in addition, documentation of relevant technological trends

EvoCS – The evolving concept of security (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordination: Fraunhofer INT

Consortium: 9 partners from 7 countries

Budget: € ~ 1 Mio. EU funding, share Fraunhofer INT: € ~220.000

Term: 18 months, Start: June 2014

Objective: The EvoCS Project deals with the evolving concept of security, focusing on the European Union and its close neighbors. The project aims at providing a holistic view of the complex and somewhat diffuse concept of security by evaluating it across four dimensions:

Core values: what aspects of security are taken into account?

Perceptions of Security: from which perspectives is security considered?

Areas of security: how is security perceived in various regions of Europe?

Time: how does the concept of security evolve?

Research will be substantial. It will be performed in four case studies which are expected to be sufficiently different from each other, but taken as a whole will be representative for the European Union:

A) West-Mediterranean EU: a country cluster such as Spain, Italy, and (the south of) France.
B) Eastern EU Border: a country cluster such as Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
C) North-Western EU: a country cluster such as the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, and France.
D) South-Eastern Europe: a country cluster such as Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and the states of former Yugoslavia.

The four case studies are embedded in a set of three conceptual work packages carried out before, concurrent with and after the case studies. The goal is to identify the various concepts of European security which differ according to place and time, and to analyse similarities and differences between them. To achieve this, the EvoCS Project will bring together all relevant European stakeholders to discuss core values, threats to them and measures to be taken to protect them. The results of these discussions and analyses will be used to formulate recommendations for changes in the working parameters of various types of security end-users and will serve as guidelines for policy makers who are responsible for formulating measures that influence an evolving European concept of security.

INT tasks: coordination of the overall project and preparation of the case study for the Southeastern Europe region

D-Box – Demining toolbox for humanitarian clearing of large scale areas from anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions (successfully concluded)

Client: EU – under the 7^th Framework Programme

Coordination: Astrium S.A.S., France

Consortium: 20 partners from 10 countries

Term: 36 months, Start: January 2013

Budget: 9,9 m. € (total), 6,9 m. € (EU funding), ~ 117.000 € (share Fraunhofer INT)

Objectives: Part of the project is to develop an innovative solution offering minesweepers a “toolbox” of the best possible instruments, methods and procedures. This smart toolbox can be applied throughout the demining process, from mission preparation to mine elimination, as well as communication with the public at large and with donors. The toolbox is to be inexpensive, easy to use and adapted to different scenarios and environmental conditions. The project foresees further developments in technologies and methods for the following areas:

- Mapping

- Long-range detection

- Close-range detection

- Neutralization of mines in a civilian context

- Development of protective equipment for end-users and the public and

- Communication of knowledge about the risks of landmines and existing safety rules

The Toolbox essentially comprises an Information Management System (IMS), which fits into the IMAS rules for Humanitarian Demining.

Task INT: Fraunhofer INT has led the task “survey of practices and existing tools” in demining and has also elaborated a report about “general ethical and legal aspects of the use of Genetically Modified Organisms” for detecting landmines.