Effective EU support to a large external crisis requires new approaches. In response to this challenge and to identified user and market needs from previous projects, Reaching Out proposes an innovative multi-disciplinary approach that will optimize the efforts, address a wide spectrum of users and maximize market innovation success. This approach results in five main objectives: to 1. Develop a Collaborative Framework, with distributed platforms of functional services, 2. Implement a flexible and open “collaborative innovation” process involving users and SMEs, suppliers, operators and research organisations, 3. Develop, upgrade and integrate 78 new connectable and interoperable tools, 4. Conduct 5 large scale demonstrations on the field: o health disaster in Africa (Epidemics in Guinea, with strong social and cultural issues), o natural disaster in a politically complex region and a desert environment (Earthquake in the Jordan Valley, led jointly by Jordan, Israel and Palestine), o three global change disasters in Asia targeted at large evacuation and humanitarian support in Bangladesh (long lasting floods, huge storms and associated epidemics,), EU citizen support and repatriation in Shanghai (floods & storm surge), radiological and industrial disasters impacting EU assets in Taiwan (flash floods, landslides, storm surge and chemical and radiological disasters), supported and co-funded by local authorities, 5. Provide recommendations and evaluations for future legal and policy innovations. The project will be conducted under the supervision of senior end-users. It will be performed with flexible and proven procedures by a balanced consortium of users, industry, innovative SMEs, RTO and academia in the EU and the demonstration regions. The main expected impact is to improve external disaster and crisis management efficiency and cost-benefit and increase the EU visibility whilst enhancing EU industry competitiveness and enlarging the market.

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.

InfraStress addresses cyber-physical (C/P) security of Sensitive Industrial Plants and Sites (SIPS) Critical Infrastructures (CI) and improves resilience and protection capabilities of SIPS exposed to large scale, combined, C/P threats and hazards, and guarantee continuity of operations, while minimizing cascading effects in the infrastructure itself, the environment, other CIs, and citizens in vicinity, at reasonable cost. In fact, InfraStress will develop TRL4+ solutions from preceding research and innovation towards TRL7 level producing maximum adoption of the proposed methods and solutions. Addressing the current fragmentation of available security solutions and technology, InfraStress will provide an integrated framework including cyber and physical threat detection, integrated C/P Situational Awareness, Threat Intelligence, and an innovative methodology for resilience assessment – all tailored to each site. InfraStress adopts a user-driven approach carried out through: a) delivery of usable and user-friendly Services and Applications for C/P protection and resilience; b) technical activities driven by and receiving active input from end users, i.e. SIPS and relevant stakeholders; c) a comprehensive set of 5 real-world Pilots and Evaluation activities to be carried out by User partners. InfraStress matches key impacts not only in response to the Work Programme Call but also at Strategic, Socio-economic and Market levels. In fact InfraStress was conceived since the beginning with a strong business vision in mind and will carry out effective exploitation actions ensureing successful go-to-market. Tailored activities are also planned to rise a a culture of participatory security to involve all stakeholders including companies, workers, public authorities, citizens and civil society. InfraStress involves 27 partners of excellence from 11 countries with very cross-cutting and complementary competences and excellent track records, including 5 SIPS operators.