TARGET will deliver a pan-European serious gaming platform featuring new tools, techniques and content for training and assessing skills and competencies of SCA (Security Critical Agents - counterterrorism units, border guards, first responders (police, firefighters, ambulance services civil security agencies, critical infrastructure operators). Mixed-reality experiences will immerse trainees at task, tactical and strategic command levels with scenarios such as tactical firearms events, asset protection, mass demonstrations, cyber-attacks and CBRN incidents. Trainees will use real / training weaponry, radio equipment, command & control software, decision support tools, real command centres, vehicles. Social and ethical content will be pervasive. Unavailable real-source information will be substituted by AVR (Augmented / Virtual Reality - multimedia, synthetic role players). Near-real, all-encompassing and non-linear experiences will enable high degrees of dynamics and variability. The distributed Open TARGET Platform will provide extensible standards driven methods to integrate simulation techniques and AVR technology with existing SCA training equipment and be customisable to local languages, national legal contexts, organisational structures, established standard operational procedures and legacy IT systems. At key training points real-time benchmarking of individuals and teams will be instrumented. TARGET will support inter-agency SCA exercising across the EU and act as a serious gaming repository and brokerage facility for authorised agencies to share training material and maximise reuse and efficiency in delivering complex exercises. TARGET, combining training, content and technology expertise, will be co-led by users and technologists, mainly SMEs. 2 successively developed and trialled versions of the TARGET Solution will support user-technologist dialogue. The TARGET Ecosystem will enable sustainable impact, commercial uptake and synergies at EU level.

Identifying, tracking and investigating online disinformation and other problematic content is an extremely complex problem. Many (European) Police Authorities (PAs) do not have access to any specialised tools or technologies to help them combat disinformation. Some of the better equipped PAs are using unsuitable off-the-shelf products that were designed to enable commercial companies to monitor social media chatter about their brands and products or to track the success of advertising campaigns. Such products are not capable of dealing with the complexities of disinformation nor do they provide advanced analysis tools and technologies tailored to the PAs needs. The VIGILANT project solves this problem. It is an integrated platform of advanced disinformation identification and analysis tools and technologies employing state-of-the-art AI methods which were developed as part of several highly successful FP7 and H2020 projects. They will be tailored to PAs use cases and needs, following an ethical-by-design and user-centric approach. In addition, social and behavioural aspects are also taken into account when designing tools and presenting results. VIGILANT covers disinformation from all major sources (e.g., major social media platforms, fake news websites), in all modalities (text, image, video) and in multiple languages. It is also suitable for investigating hate speech, violent nationalist or separatist movements, radicalisation, extremist groups, incels, loan wolfs, and other counter terrorism threats. The project also provides innovative solutions to leverage the knowledge and experience of other stakeholder organisations and (social) media companies. Finally, the project includes training for PAs in the use of VIGILANT and in conducting disinformation investigations as part of a long term sustainable training network. The interdisciplinary consortium includes expertise from social sciences and humanities, ethics, computer science commercial and four European PAs.

In recent years, social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) have been integrated into crisis management for improved information gathering and collaboration across European communities. The effectiveness of SMCS on European disaster resilience, however, remains unclear owing to the diversity among disaster risk perception and vulnerability LINKS sets out to understand and assess the effects of social media and crowd-sourcing (SMCS) on European disaster resilience. LINKS will develop a framework which can be used to understand, measure and govern SMCS for disasters, taking into account the diversity among disaster risk perception and vulnerability (DRPV), disaster management processes (DMP) and applied disaster community technologies (DCT) across European communities. The LINKS Framework consists of scientific methods, practical tools, and guidelines addressing researchers, practitioners and policy makers. The Framework will be developed and evaluated through five practitioner-driven European cases, representing different disaster scenarios (earthquake, flood, industrial, terror, drought), cutting across disaster management phases and diverse socioeconomic and cultural settings in four countries (Italy, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands). Furthermore, LINKS sets out to create a community of stakeholders, the LINKS Community, which brings together first-responders, public authorities, civil society organizations, business communities, citizens and researchers across Europe dedicated to improving European disaster resilience through the use of SMCS. The execution and success of the project relies on multiple levels of stakeholder engagement and knowledge exchange within the LINKS Community, facilitated online through the LINKS Community Center and in person through the LINKS Community Workshops. Overall, LINKS will provide sustainable, advanced learning on SMCS in disasters, in order to strengthen links between technologies and society for improved European disaster resilience.