European Commission prioritises security and anti-terrorism research

Security has been included in the list of priority research themes in the Commission proposal for the 7th Framework Programme for Research & Development (2007-2013). Security makes a timely entry into the list of research themes to be undertaken swiftly, in order to respond to new security challenges and to enhance the competitiveness of the European security industry. Security research forms part of the EC’s ‘Security and Space’ thematic priority for cooperative research for which a common budget allocation of €500 million per year has been proposed.

Security research will focus particularly on:

* Protection against terrorism and crime: delivering technology solutions for threat (e.g. CBRN) awareness, detection, prevention, identification, protection, neutralisation and containment of effects of terrorist attacks and organised crime.

* Security of infrastructures and utilities: analysing and securing existing and future public and private critical/networked infrastructure (e.g. in transport, energy, ICT), systems and services (including financial and administrative services).

* Border security: focusing on technologies and capabilities to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of all systems, equipment, tools and processes required for improving the security of Europe’s land and coastal borders, including border control and surveillance issues.

* Restoring security in case of crisis: focusing on technologies in support of diverse emergency management operations (such as civil protection, humanitarian and rescue tasks, support to CFSP), and on issues such as inter-organisational co-ordination and communication, distributed architectures and human factors.

The above four horizontal areas will be supported by the following themes of a more cross-cutting nature:

* Security Systems Integration and interoperability: focusing on technologies to enhance the interoperability of systems, equipment, services and processes, including law enforcement information infrastructures, as well as on the reliability, organisational aspects, protection of confidentiality and integrity of information and traceability of all transactions and processing.

* Security and society: mission orientated research which will focus on socio-economic analyses, scenario building and activities related to: the citizen’s perception of security, ethics, protection of privacy and societal foresight. Research will also address technologies that better safeguard privacy and liberties, and will address vulnerabilities and new threats, as well as the management and impact assessment of possible consequences.

* Security Research Co-ordination and structuring: co-ordination of European and international security research efforts and development of synergies between civil, security and defence research, improvement of legal conditions, and encouragement to the optimal use of existing infrastructures.

•Date: 8th April 2005 • Region: W.Europe/UK •Type: Article •Topic: Terrorism
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