EU borders are constantly faced with a multiplicity of challenges, from increased waves of illegal migration to human trafficking, document fraud, terrorism, smuggling, and public health threats. In the CRiTERIA project we will develop a novel risk analysis methodology, which is, on the one hand, clearly rooted and builds upon existing methodology such as CIRAM and, on the other hand introduces novel more complex and effective indicators, which overcome important limitations of existing models. Such extended risk and vulnerability analysis methodology has to be backed by effective intelligent analysis technology. Building upon existing text, media, data and network analysis technology, in CRiTERIA, we will develop and evaluate advanced analysis technologies and tools that are tailored to the new comprehensive threat indicators of the CRiTERIA methodology. Special focus will be put to the consideration of the role of narratives, events, attitudes, and to the vulnerability of borders and humans as well as on providing semi-automatic tools and methods for risk-related evidence validation and explanation, for identifying risk propagation and interlinking, thus supporting decision processes in risk analysis in an innovative way. When developing this holistic CRiTERIA risk and vulnerability analysis framework for border agencies ethical, legal and societal aspects will be considered from the very beginning. The methodology will be developed in close collaboration with practitioners from border agencies, which will also validate the developed methods and technologies in piloting activities. For achieving its goals CRiTERIA brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts including researchers in the fields of security and risk analysis, in the field of data and media analysis and in the field of ethics, law and societal aspects, as well as border agencies, NGOs and companies.

Preventing and fighting illicit material and dangerous substances postal and courier services flows in EU areas is of top priority. However, ensuring efficiency, speed and continuity in screening and detection tasks remains yet a challenge. Currently, custom, police and courier authorities involve a range of screening systems in place but there is still much to do in terms of detection efficacy and creation of intelligence towards risk and threat identification. On top of that, criminals or smugglers exploit the multitude of flows and easily spot security gaps that allow parcels or letters to be transported within or across EU with relative ease. To overcome these constraints, iFLOWS proposes a unique approach to assist customs, police and postal/courier services in preventing and detecting such crimes by improving operational readiness, enhancing situation awareness, reducing detection time, providing operational efficiency and achieving superior mission performance. iFLOWS will design, develop, integrate, test and validate a novel multi-tier synergistic Toolkit in enhancing intelligence extraction, screening and detection operations of illicit material and hazardous substances within courier and postal flows moving across and within EU borders. iFLOWS works upon these 3 building blocks to deliver a) a tailored to such operations C4I that boosts preparedness and cooperation be-tween police, customs and courier/postal services, b) enhanced Intelligence in terms of threats, risks and suspicious flows and c) novel detection technologies (i.e. THz Scanning system and UWB Scanner) featuring enhanced detection capabilities over a large span of illicit material and substances, which, coupled with advanced image-based feature extraction in combination to legacy systems (e.g. X-Ray and Raman) optimise the detection process without interrupting the postal/courier flows.

A project to build and maintain an innovation-driven network of LEAs combating cybercrime - accelerating the EU’s ability to counteract growing pressures of cyber threats. Heeding advice from EUROPOL’s EC3 flagship report Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, CYCLOPES create synergies between LEAs from MS and connect industry and academia by stimulating and sustaining dialogue on pressing security matters threatening the stability of Europe and Citizen safety. Dedicated teams will scour markets, identifying solutions and research activities to highlight actions and innovative products to assist LEAs tackle the complexity of cybercrime. Besides technology, the project supports continued development of LEAs, working closely with practitioners to define current capacities and elicit capability gaps and requirements in crucial areas: procedures, training, legal and standardisation. Consequently, other objectives are: identification of priorities for standardisation; recommendations for innovation uptake and implementation; social, ethical and legal reports providing guidance and training suggestions for cybercrime investigators; dissemination of results through workshops, conferences, webinars, publications, policy papers and media. All outcomes will be suitably considered for exploitation - helping to propel the EU in the fight against cybercrime. Practitioners’ workshops are a driving force behind the project and cover three 3 domains: 1) cybercrime affecting people directly, 2) cybercrime affecting systems, 3) digital forensics. The project is to synchronise with other activities conducted by relevant parties EUROPOL, INTERPOL, CEPOL, ECTEG, ENISA; networks: ENLETS, ENFSI, I-LEAD, iLEAnet, EU-HYBNET, covering topics that go beyond efforts of these initiatives and preventing duplication. This also applies to projects where activities align with CYCLOPES (i-ProcureNet, Stairs4Security) and future projects funded by the EC, especially in the area of AI.

NOTIONES is a Latin lemma meaning “notions, ideas, investigations, cognisance” and therefore refers to “being informed”. The Call requires (a) to build a network of practitioners from security and intelligence services of EU MS & AC that has the objective (b) to support the needs of the security and intelligence services of the MS & AC for future security research programming. To address these requirements, NOTIONES consortium includes: (a) 15 practitioners from military, civil, financial, judiciary, local, national and international polices, coming from 9 EU MS and 6 AC. These practitioners, together with the other consortium members, grant a complete coverage of the 4 EU main areas: West Europe (PT, ES, UK, FR, IT, DE, AT), North Europe (FI, DK, SE, EE, LV), Middle Europe (PO, SK, UK), Middle East (IL, TR, GE, BG, BA, MK) for a total of 21 countries; (b) experts in security research programming. The NOTIONES’ S&T Coordinator is one of the 50 members of ESRAB and of the 64 members of ESRIF, the two Committees charged by the EC to outline its funding policy related to security research programming. In addition to that, the NOTIONES’ consortium includes 5 partners of PYTHIA and SOLOMON (Z&P, EXPSYS, ICSA, BDI, LESO), the two projects outlining the EDA/EC future defence research programming. The monitoring of technologies and the definition of requirements and recommendations for their industrialization will provide a great advantage to practitioners in the fields of intelligence and security. Through an iterative cycle, the output recommendations will be synthesized into specifications that can be provided to industry and academy across Europe, providing tangible benefits to those organisations engaged in intelligence and security. The results of the NOTIONES project, which has a lifetime of five years, will be presented to the broad intelligence community in workshops and conferences and will contribute to the definition of further security and intelligence research

The increasing complexity of security challenges combined with the accumulation of significant amounts of digital data calls for better and more widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities for law enforcement agencies (LEAs). AI can provide benefits to LEAs at all levels given the right understanding, tools, data and protection while increased awareness of criminal misuse is providing an immediate and concerning threat that must be tackled rapidly. Furthermore, a community that brings together LEAs, researchers, industry, security practitioners and other actors in the security ecosystem under a coordinated and strategic effort is essential for the realisation of these efforts into operational practices. STARLIGHT presents an inclusive and sustainable vision for increasing the awareness, capability, adoption and long-term impact of AI in Europe for LEAs. Five strategic goals underpin STARLIGHT’s approach: (1) Improve the widespread UNDERSTANDing of AI across LEAs to reinforce their investigative and cybersecurity operations and the need to uphold legal, ethical and societal values; (2) Provide opportunities to LEAs to EXPLOIT AI tools and solutions in their operational work that are trustworthy, transparent and human-centric; (3) Ensure that LEAs can PROTECT their own AI systems through privacy- and security-by-design approaches, better cybersecurity tools and knowledge; (4) Raise LEAs’ expertise and capacity to COMBAT the misuse of AI-supported crime and terrorism; and (5) BOOST AI for LEAs in Europe through high-quality datasets, an interoperable and standardised framework for long term sustainability of solutions, and the creation of an AI hub for LEAs that supports a strong AI security industry and enhances the EU’s strategic autonomy in AI. STARLIGHT will ensure European LEAs lead the way in AI innovation, autonomy and resilience, addressing the challenges of now and the future, prioritising the safety and security of Europe for all.