Current – Multimodal Data Fusion and Analytics Group

CARMA

CARMA Collaborative Autonomous Robots for eMergency Assistance CARMA aims to co-create, through a user-centred iterative methodology involving a complementary set of end-users and social sciences and human (SSH) experts, a groundbreaking, modular and intuitive platform offering a complementary set of semi-autonomous and autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) capable of working in symbiosis with humans to support and supplement first responders and assist citizen in a wide range of disaster situations, including those with very low visibility. The project will build on the most advanced research results, including those from the INTREPID project, in the field of disaster robotics making them autonomous thanks to novel 3D radar-based environment mapping and analysis combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) for enhanced path and mission planning as well as victim and threat detection. Symbiotic operations…

TEXTAILES

TEXTAILES TEXTile digitisAtIon tooLs and mEthodS for cultural heritage The TEXTaiLES project aims to redefine the digitisation of Cultural Heritage (CH) textile objects and the development of AI-based processing tools, establishing a standardised protocol seamlessly integrated into the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH). By studying past and present practices in textile digitisation, TEXTaiLES methodically explores their strengths and limitations. The project will develop advanced tools that address the entire digitisation lifecycle of textile objects, focusing on non-destructive methods. Using robotic, cost-effective multi-sensor solutions, TEXTaiLES ensures the preservation of artefacts during digitisation, complemented by reliable data analysis workflows. The project integrates state-of-the-art AI technologies to illuminate the intricate details of textiles. From revealing their weaving patterns and microstructures to identifying degradation factors, the AI-driven toolkit offers in-depth insights. It…

IDEATION

IDEATION InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN IDEATION (InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN) aims to develop a digital twin of inland waters (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, snow, and ice). The project focuses on activities to ensure this digital twin is integrated and interoperable with the Digital Twin Ocean (DTO), creating a unified digital twin of the ocean and waters, thereby addressing the hydrosphere as a whole. IDEATION will rely on cross-border cooperation and the involvement and commitment of stakeholders at the European level by following the Water-oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) approach. Stakeholders will be engaged via Multi-Stakeholder Forums (MSF) using various engagement methodologies, such as focus groups, workshops, interviews, and questionnaires, tailored to the goals of the engagement and the context specificities. A comprehensive review will be…

IDRIVING

IDRIVING Intelligent & Digital Roadway Infrastructure for Vehicles Integrated with Next-Gen Technologies Driving aimsto deliver a TRL 6 prototype based on seven key pillars, all designed to work synergistically to create an interactive, accurate and efficient solution to improve infrastructure safety of urban and secondary rural roads. (i) A Safety Criteria Catalogue (SCC) for all road users for secondary and urban roads. This establishes a benchmark for safety standards and KPIs, forming the foundational blueprint that guides all aspects of the iDriving system. (ii) Common communication solutions, ensuring a seamless and real-time exchange of data across a diverse range of sensors from various vehicles and road infrastructures. (iii) Innovative sensor integration on compact packages. These can be easily deployed and maintained on both vehicles and road infrastructure, particularly on secondary…

DATAWiSE

DATAWiSE Intelligent and Sustainable Building Management powered by Cross-Sectoral Lifecycle The overall objective of DATAWiSE is to develop and test building and building portfolio management tools, leveraging cross-sectoral lifecycle data, on the basis of an open, secure, interoperable, and scalable framework, to maximize both energy efficiency and stakeholder value. Utilizing cutting-edge artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, the methodology integrates data from a variety of sources to provide a holistic understanding of building operations. Besides technological innovation, the project also incorporates a supportive market and policy framework designed to offer evidence-based pathways for widespread adoption and commercialization. DATAWiSE aims to provide a standardized approach for managing and exploiting building-related big data. M4D is the coordinator of DATAWise project. It is also responsible for the scientific and technical management of the project,…

W2W

W2W A Wood-to-Wood Cascade Upcycling Valorisation Approach The W2W project will produce and validate a comprehensive framework for multi-dimensional cascade valorisation of wood from C&D and furniture waste, consisting of four core components: 1) Advanced separation & sorting technologies: Adaptive Separation and Sorting system based on cascade valorisation thresholds, making use of human-robot collaboration and mixed reality technologies 2) Upcycling Processes and Technologies: mechanical, chemical, and bioremediation processes to recover wood or resources from waste and use them in new products which have the same quality as the ones produced by primary resources3) Digital Tools for Improving Circular Flows of Secondary Materials: LCA-based tool to predict and assess the impact of different cascade paths, Supply Chain Management Tool for the optimisation of upcycling of secondary materials, Digital Product Passport, and…

HYPER-AI

HYPER-AI Hyper-Distributed Artificial Intelligence Platform for Network Resources Automation and Management Towards More Efficient Data Processing Applications HYPER-AI overarching objective is the development of the required mid-tier and the necessary cloud-edge connectors that will enable the seamless integration of heterogeneous computing environments and the establishment of new-generation interoperable and adaptive hybrid computing ecosystems exploiting cognitive clouds and edge intelligence beyond today’s limitations. HYPER-AI objectives are listed as follows: Design and implement the HYPER-AI open architecture that will empower swarms of nodes to develop collaboratively collective intelligence, bringing the computation closer to the edge, utilizing decentralized AI/ML-based intelligence. Ensure dynamic cognitive and informative optimized decision-making across all phases of the application lifecycle (design, execution, maintenance) through continuous inference resources. Develop autonomic system entities ensuring autonomous Smart-Nodes and rapid coordination of Smart-Nodes…

TeamUP

TeamUP Holistic Capability and Technology Evaluation and Co-creation Framework for Upskilled First Responders and Enhanced CBRN-E Response Countries worldwide, amid threats and incidents targeting civilians, invest in reinforcing their CBRN-E related capabilities. In Europe and in most cases, the teams responding first are not trained specifically, nor equipped sufficiently to face the kind of hazards, to provide assistance to victims and to follow the decontamination processes that a CBRN-E incident implies. At the same time, resources are limited, exercises and trainings are siloed per organization, lacking of proven procedures, and digital tools. A step-by-step approach needs to include (1) detection of the CBRN-E threat, (2) triage of casualties and (3) on-site decontamination before the provision of medical aid. TeamUP addresses these challenges by developing an innovative toolkit for the detection,…

REACTION

REACTION REal-time ArtifiCial InTellIgence for BOrders Surveillance via RPAS data aNalytics to support Law Enforcement Agencies During the past decade, Greece and Cyprus, being both part of the external EU borders, have been called to address major challenges associated with the socio-political situation in their surrounding territories and adjacent countries. In particular, irregular migration flows exert significant pressure on the relevant authorities and agencies that operate at respective border territories. Moreover, armed conflicts, changes in climate conditions, and unpredictable factors occurring at the EU external borders, have increased the number of reported transnational crimes including irregular migration. Smuggling, human trafficking, and irregular migration activities are major concerns for South Eastern EU Borders particularly, as monitoring the routes used is hindered by vast sea and mountainous, densely forested areas and rough…

ACTING

ACTING Advanced European platform and network of Cybersecurity training and exercises centres The ACTING project delivers an organized and coordinated approach to proactively improve efficiency of cyber defence training and exercises in the European Union, through effective and efficient multi-sector collaboration. The 28 Partners, from 13 MSs, will execute a 48-month work plan to develop, model, and demonstrate a network of advanced interconnected (federated) domain-oriented cyber ranges for training and exercises, incorporating sophisticated methods and techniques for simulation of users, analysis of the performance of the cyber operators, and scoring cyber security situational awareness, supported by leading-edge scenario development language. The ACTING project integrates study, design, prototyping, and testing activities in the domain of cyber security. In order to justify the capabilities of the proposed approach and resulting tools and…

R3VOLUTION

R3VOLUTION A rEVOLUTIONary approach for maximising process water REuse and REsource REcovery through a smart, circular and integrated solution R3VOLUTION (R3V) project will revolutionize industrial water management in the EU, providing key innovations that can enable economically, environmentally and operationally water reclamation projects (by addressing solutes and energy recovery challenges), and generate significant impact for the EU in the next decade. To pave the way towards sustainable and efficient water and resource consumption, R3V takes on the challenge of developing and demonstrating a resource recovery solution that will enable >90% water reuse across most intensive water industries, applicable upstream and downstream, whilst recovering >45% effluents solutes, >50% waste heat reuse and eliminate 100% of hazardous substances. R3V will investigate, develop and demonstrate tailored membrane-based treatment trains coupled with waste heat,…

ONCODIR

ONCODIR Evidence-based Participatory Decision Making for Cancer Prevention through implementation research Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancer types and its increased occurrence may be attributable to adverse health behaviours, especially in lower socioeconomic status populations. Stemming from the specific risk factors identified with CRC, ONCODIR integrates multidisciplinary research methods from health policy analytics; social and behavioural science; AI-powered multi-omics and retrospective data analytics as well as decision support theories to deliver evidence-based cancer prevention programmes and innovative AI-powered personalised prevention approaches. ONCODIR recognises that the evaluation of the ONCODIR prevention programmes needs to address cost effectiveness, affordability and cost benefit parameters. Thus, it will also investigate cost balancing and demand generating financial schemes that will lead to enhanced CRC prevention programmes. The coherent technological ecosystem that…

ThinkingEarth

ThinkingEarth Copernicus Foundation Models for a Thinking Earth ThinkingEarth views the Earth as a complex unified and interconnected system. To harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), cutting-edge techniques such as deep learning, causality, eXplainable AI, and physics-aware Machine Learning are used. Predictive abilities of Self-Supervised Learning and Graph Neural Networks to develop task-agnostic Copernicus Foundation Models and a Graph representation model of the Earth are leveraged. The potential of these assets are demonstrated through small-scale downstream Spotlight Applications, as well as large-scale use cases that integrate distributed industrial and user non-EO datasets. These use cases address ambitious problems with high socio-environmental impact and new business growth opportunities, such as accelerating Europe’s clean energy transition and independence from volatile fossil fuels, understanding Earth’s processes by modelling causal Earth system teleconnections,…

CYCLOPS

CYCLOPS Automated end-to-end data life cycle management for FAIR data integration, processing and re-use The CYCLOPS project is dedicated to advancing data integration and management across diverse and evolving data sources. It directly aligns with the European Strategy for Data, aiming to cultivate a cohesive data market. CYCLOPS sets its sights on pivotal future EU data spaces: tourism and mobility, the green deal, public procurement, and manufacturing. These four (4) thematic areas form the core of CYCLOPS's mission to establish a groundbreaking framework for the comprehensive governance of the data lifecycle. Through the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Artificial Intelligence Operations (AIOps) and Data Operations (DataOps), augmented by Knowledge Graphs (KGs) and a human-in-the-loop approach, CYCLOPS strives to automate data processing pipelines. This approach is designed to eliminate data…

CVDLINK

CVDLINK A federated paradigm of real-world data sources utilization for the empowerment of diagnosis, prognosis and risk assessment of cardiovascular conditions The CVDLINK project is dedicated to addressing the significant challenge of cardiovascular disease (CVD) within the EU, where over 6 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths are reported annually. Recognizing the urgent need for effective prevention strategies, CVDLINK employs a scientific approach aimed at transforming the management, treatment and research of cardiovascular disease through data-driven innovation. The project aims to tackle challenges related to data availability and management by implementing a privacy-by-design European-wide federated platform-as-a-service (PaaS). The goal is to deliver effective data-driven human-centric interventions and the advancement of research and management in the CVD domain. An essential part of the project is the development and implementation of…

SEISMEC

SEISMEC Supporting European Industry Success Maximization through Empowerment Centred development SEISMEC pioneers a transformative approach to digital and industrial technology development, focusing on empowerment, human-centricity, and ethical principles. Through 17 pilot projects across 19 companies in 14 countries and diverse industrial sectors, SEISMEC aims to drive a paradigm shift. The project aims to demonstrate the concept of human-centricity in diverse industry sectors and contexts. Its objectives include empowering skilled workforces, addressing challenges related to advanced workplace technologies, and fostering innovation through evidence-based recommendations. SEISMEC stands as a landmark effort in reshaping European industry toward empowerment and human-centricity, with a strong emphasis on worker security and satisfaction The project evaluates the benefits of human-centricity across various dimensions such as creativity, collaboration, autonomy, and productivity, using CAPS empowerment factors introducing technical innovations…

MELIORA

MELIORA Multimodal Engagement and sustainable Lifestyle Interventions Optimizing breast cancer Risk reduction supported by Artificial intelligence MELIORA Consortium will jointly work with local actors at different levels for the realisation of eight (8) in total tailor-made lifestyle intervention and behavioural modification studies, including Artificial intelligence and digital tools, to promote sustainable behavioural changes among three target populations: i) healthy women at risk of developing breast cancer, ii) breast cancer patients and iii) breast cancer survivors. The studies will take place across 4 different European countries (Greece, Sweden, Spain and Lithuania) and 6 piloting centres targeting 2000 women in urban and rural areas including participants throughout the socioeconomic spectrum. Primary health care centres, hospitals or patients’/survivors’ organisations will be used as entry points to the community. The goal of the MELIORA…

ARIEN

ARIEN ARtificial IntelligencE in fighting illicit drugs production and traffickiNg ARIEN proposes the execution of a comprehensive workplan that thoroughly addresses the call topic aligned to the 2021-2025 EU Drugs Action Plan achieved through a holistic innovation action that builds a real-time intelligence picture for illegal drug production and trafficking incidence across the EU. This action is bolstered by AI-driven tools to understand, detect, analyse and track the entire drugs trafficking chain, its financial flows and the role of black-markets in the global darknet and their relationships with social media. ARIEN builds on a strong platform of multi-disciplinary research, following a co-creation approach, across the criminological, societal, and legislative landscapes. The designed platform will make recommendations for harmonization and drive an agenda for the development of modular solutions embedding modern…

i-Game

i-Game Building a community for the co-creation of games with high impact on innovation, sustainability, social cohesion and growth The i-Game project aims to create an accessible open-source game development platform that will facilitate the co-creation of games by diverse actors within different ecosystems of cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSI), to enhance innovation and to bring positive impact on social cohesion and sustainability. More specifically, i-Game aspires: 1) To engage video game stakeholders of different abilities, expertise, and disciplines, to contribute, learn, share and tap into new innovative and economic opportunities; 2) To provide a collaborative platform with the tools to co-create mobile and virtual reality games by engaging different users, from different backgrounds and sectors; 3) To develop an ethical-design culture in the video game industry; 4)…

CASSATA

CASSATA Covert and Advanced multi-modal Sensor Systems for tArget acquisiTion and reconnAisance Funded by the EU, the CASSATA project, with a consortium of 27 organizations from 9 countries, including defense groups, academic labs, research organizations, and SMEs, aims to advance covert sensing technologies for defense applications by developing and testing multi-modal sensor systems. The concept of CASSATA relies on exploiting (1) optronics, (2) acoustics/seismic sensing, (3) RF and radar systems, and (4) adaptive and collaborative sensing to enhance European armed forces’ target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities. CASSATA will implement innovative technologies to improve the covertness of optronic sensors as well as their capabilities of detection, tracking, classification and identification. Both acoustic and seismic sensors will provide a wide area surveillance system which ensures the long-range detection and classification of targets…

VANGUARD

VANGUARD adVANced technoloGical solutions coupled with societal-oriented Understanding and AwaReness for Disrupting trafficking in human beings VANGUARD aims to strengthen the fight against trafficking in human beings (THB) at the nexus of advanced technological solutions, understanding, awareness raising, and training to disrupt the trafficking chain at an early stage and address the culture of impunity. It aims to provide an improved intelligence picture of THB, with particular focus on THB for purposes of sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, and forced criminality. This will be achieved through developing a modular and trustworthy suite of tools for detecting, identifying, investigating, and preventing online-facilitated THB activities and THB-related activities at (border) checkpoints based on the analysis of online multimedia content and multimodal streams, by leveraging the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It will…

NANCY

NANCY An Artificial Intelligent Aided Unified Network for Secure Beyond 5G Long Term Evolution The overall aim of NANCY is to introduce a secure and intelligent architecture for the beyond the fifth generation (B5G) wireless network. Leveraging AI and blockchain, NANCY enables secure and intelligent resource management, flexible networking, and orchestration. In this direction, novel architectures, namely point-to-point (P2P) connectivity for device-to-device connectivity, mesh networking, and relay-based communications, as well as protocols for medium access, mobility management, and resource allocation will be designed. These architectures and protocols will make the most by jointly optimizing the midhaul, and fronthaul. This is expected to enable truly distributed intelligence and transform the network to a low-power computer. Likewise, by following a holistic optimization approach and leveraging the developments in blockchain, NANCY aims at…

FALCON

FALCON Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks Current evidence suggests that the global fight against corruption faces serious challenges: policy decisions are not well informed, the corruption landscape is complex and enormous, while measuring corruption is so far mostly based on subjective approaches, and there is lack of appropriate technological tools to support anti-corruption. To address these challenges, FALCON is designed and dedicated to support the composition, update and management of comprehensive corruption intelligence pictures, within domains and jurisdictions of interest. This will be accomplished following a multi-actor, evidence-based, data-driven approach, building upon existing assets and prior work of consortium partners. FALCON will, first, develop and validate objective and actionable indicators of corruption that can be used to inform policy decisions. Second, it will design, implement and integrate…

TESTUDO

TESTUDO Autonomous Swarm of Heterogeneous resources in infrastructure protection via threat prediction and prevention As its surroundings changes radically and climate conditions deteriorates, Europe and its Members adapt to these current challenges. To this end and in order to maximise their usability, the EC established a framework of a common policy (EU Security Market study) by categorizing potential technologies per security domain, including Critical Infrastructure (CI) Protection. This trend is indicative for the importance and significancy that the EC gives to these matters. Any potential disruption, either intentional as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, may risk smooth operations of such structures that may have a severe impact on a local society and its daily activities or well-being. Current advancements in various technologies can be particularly beneficial in CI…

SINCERE

SINCERE The second life of modern period architecture: Resilient and adaptive renovation towards net-zero carbon heritage buildings Today, 19th and 20th c. modern period buildings are the trademark of numerous European cities, forming a great part of EU Built Heritage, reflecting and shaping the identity of our local, national and multinational societies. Considering that historic buildings are ineffective in terms of energy consumption for heating and cooling, among the biggest restoration and renovation challenges is to enhance the energy performance of historic buildings. SINCERE aims to elucidate the values of Built Heritage and provide the tools for optimizing the carbon footprint and energy performance of historic buildings, towards the requirements of net-zero-carbon-buildings, by utilizing innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective restoration materials and practices, energy harvesting technologies, ICT tools and socially innovative…

SYNERGISE

SYNERGISE A novel integrated SYstem of Systems streNgthening tEchnical and logistical capacities to ensure better Response to emerGencies by synergIStically addrEssing FRs capability gaps The SYNERGISE project aims at boosting the efficiency and safety of first responders during life-saving missions. The SYNERGISE team will develop a Novel Integrated Toolkit for Collaborative Response and Enhanced Situational Awareness (NIT-CRES). The toolkit shall improve the management of natural and man-made disasters whilst boosting collaboration between first responders to increase mission effectiveness and victim detection at highly challenging and complex incident sites. This will comprise a multitude of tools and services required for: 1) boosting situational awareness and sense-making by offering them the means to autonomously and synergistically perform indoor and outdoor exploration of incident sites towards victim identification whilst receiving at all times…

FUELPHORIA

FUELPHORIA Accelerating the sustainable production of advanced biofuels and RFNBOs – from feedstock to end-use FUELPHORIA will set-up and test value chains for advanced biofuels and renewable non-biological fuels in Europe, establishing sustainable, competitive and secure value chains for advanced biofuels. The project contributes to the objectives of the European Commission’s 2022 REPower EU Plan “to scale-up renewables, achieve electrification, and replace fossil-based heat and fuel in industry, buildings, and the transport sector”. A versatile range of processes including but not limited to chemical, biological, and photo-biological processes will serve as the scaffold to convert different feedstocks into an array of renewable fuels of quality specifications defined by end-users in the transport (e.g. maritime and road) and in the power (e.g. gas or oil-fired thermal plants) production sector. Four demonstrators…

CONNECTOR

CONNECTOR CustOms exteNded iNteroperablE Common informaTiOn shaRing environment CONNECTOR aims to support the European Integrated Border Management (EIBM) and the EU Customs Action Plan by emphasising the importance of collaborative efforts among Customs, Border and Coast Guard Authorities in managing borders, especially under current and future challenging circumstances. This objective can be achieved through Customs participation in the Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) network and Enhanced Common Information Sharing Environment (e-CISE) via the proposed Customs Extended Common Information Sharing Environment (CE-CISE). CONNECTOR proposes an integrated, common, and shared risk assessment approach for all Border Management Authorities. This approach considers pan-EU common risk indicators for each end user group, including Customs, Border and Coast Guards Authorities, as well as FRONTEX. Its aim is to safeguard the external EU border, protect EU…

PRECRISIS

PRECRISIS PRotECting public spaces thRough Integrated Smarter Innovative Security PRECRISIS aims to strengthen the protection of public spaces by preventing terrorist attacks and violent crimes and mitigating their impacts. It will promote integrated smarter innovative security through the empowerment of law enforcement authorities, first responders, local managers of public spaces and related security stakeholders, enhancing public-private cooperation. PRECRISIS will develop, test, and roll out innovative, sustainable, and effective AI-based digital solutions and practical toolkits, in full compliance with ethical standards and related legislation on the protection of personal data, by integrating existing expertise, best practices and privacy-by-design approaches to make public spaces more secure. Technological innovation delivered by the PRECRISIS Platform will provide identification of potential vulnerabilities connected to public spaces and a real-time simulation of plausible scenarios before, during…

EMPOWER

EMPOWER Uptake of new generation AI Powered Investigative tools for LEAs The application of AI methods to Big Data heralds a new era in Law Enforcement, increasing the operational capabilities of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in fighting and predicting crime. Promising tech solutions and tools are being developed within the framework of EU and nationally funded R&I projects reaching TRL 6-7 and applicable to a wide number of investigative fields. Building up from such previous and ongoing R&I projects (AIDA, DANTE, GRACE, STARLIGHT), the overall goal of EMPOWER is to foster the uptake of innovative solutions based upon AI powered tools allowing LEAs to increase their capabilities in such investigative fields. To this end, EMPOWER will pilot test a total of 8 investigative tools in the fields of Image/Video, Voice/Text…

ONCOSCREEN

ONCOSCREEN A European “shield” against colorectal cancer based on novel, more precise and affordable risk-based screening methods and viable policy pathways ONCOSCREEN: A EUROPEAN “SHIELD” AGAINST COLORECTAL CANCER Modern healthcare systems need to offer new non-invasive methods for colorectal cancer screening and to improve its early detection. Such methods need to be affordable, accessible, and applicable to large parts of the population in order to effectively prevent the development of colorectal cancer. ONCOSCREEN project responds to this challenge and plans to develop a ground-breaking set of technologies and methods for colorectal cancer screening. In close cooperation with other Mission Cancer projects, ONCOSCREEN will provide solutions for risk-stratified cancer screening programmes for citizens, an integrated diagnostic decision support tool for clinicians as well as intelligent monitoring tools for policy makers. The…

UP2030

UP2030 Urban Planning and design ready for 2030 UP2030 aims to support cities in driving the socio-technical transitions required to meet their climate neutrality targets by leveraging urban planning and design. Within the project city stakeholders and local authorities will be supported and guided to put neutrality on the map of their communities in day-to-day actions and strategic decisions. An innovative methodology (5UP-approach) will be developed and applied through the co-development and implementation of science-based - yet practical - tools, and methods. Inclusive participation is key throughout the project’s full cycle of activities so that real needs of communities are reflected in the city-specific visions, and co-designed interventions maximise delivery of co-benefits. As such, UP2030 will have a measured positive impact on spatial justice in the pilots and give the…

ALLIES

ALLIES AI-based framework for supporting micro (and small) HSPs on the report and removaL of onLIne tErroriSt content The ALLIES project aims at supporting micro (and small) HSPs in achieving compliance with the new requirements and obligations under the TCO Regulation. To achieve this, ALLIES adopts four main approaches, each targeting skill development and innovation. These four pillars will be respectively focused on (1) learning and awareness raising, (2) technical development and adaptation, (3) training and education, and (4) experience sharing and reporting mechanisms. Both the learning and awareness raising initiatives will further expand the capacity of the TCO Regulation by designing a taxonomy of online terrorist related behaviours. The second pillar will be focused on the development of a specific set of AI-boosted user-friendly tools that will enhance small…

BeOpen

BeOpen BeOpen an Open framework for boosting EU High ValueDatasets from Public Sector In the last decade, open data production related to Public Sector is quickly increased due to different factors, in particular: EU Open Data Directive fostered the openness of specific typology of datasets from the Public Sector (i.e. High Value Datasets); the improvement of the smart city paradigms (e.g. IoT deployments, digital twins) has dramatically improved the production of city-related data accessible by citizens; private companies are more and more contributing to public sector/utilities data availability used by citizens in their everyday life. Anyway, actual data use by third-party services still remains a challenge; a lot of data produced by public authorities, even “officially open”, is still not discoverable or is accessible only by humans, in a heterogeneous…

CESAGRAM

CESAGRAM Towards a Comprehensive European Strategy Against tech-facilitated GRooming And Missing Child sexual abuse online is a growing phenomenon. The British National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) reported a 70% increase in the number of sexual communications with child offences in the last three years. The hotlines for missing children have reported concerns that grooming is an increasing factor in disappearances, particularly in cases of children who run away. In 2020, the second most common reason for children to contact Child Helplines was for reasons of violence of which 3,2% was online sexual abuse. Disappointingly, the COVID pandemic has exacerbated the problem. The COVID-19 crisis pushed 1.2 billion children out of schools, leading to children spending many more hours online. As Europol emphasised in its 2021…

ICARIA

ICARIA Improving ClimAte Resilience of crItical Assets The frequency of natural disasters has steadily increased over the past two decades. It is far from irrational to assume that this trend could be significantly worsened in a short and long-time period according to reported climate change projections. With the help of a multidisciplinary team and a firm foundation, ICARIA aims to advance the use of asset-level modeling to better understand the direct and indirect effects of climate change caused by complex, cascading and compound disasters as well as the related risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable, and affordable adaptation solutions. ICARIA focuses on both critical assets and infrastructures taking into account potential climate changes that can increase unexpected outages and failures, including but not limited to housing, natural, and land areas.…

PERIVALLON

PERIVALLON Protecting the EuRopean terrItory from organised enVironmentAl crime through inteLLigent threat detectiON tools PERIVALLON aims to provide an improved and comprehensive intelligence picture of organised environmental crime and develop effective and efficient tools and solutions for detecting and preventing such types of criminal activities and for assessing their environmental impact based on geospatial intelligence, remote sensing, scanning, online monitoring, analysis, correlation, risk assessment, and predictive analytics technologies, by leveraging the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the fields of computer vision and multimodal analytics. As a result, enhanced investigation processes and methodologies will be derived through the capabilities provided by the developed tools and solutions, and the insights obtained though the proposed Environmental Crime Observatory. The capacity of end users (including Police Authorities and Border Guards) will also…

TeChBioT

TeChBioT Surveillance and Reconnaissance Techniques for Chemical & Biological Threats Threats associated with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) hazards include natural disasters, accidental incidents during the installation or transportation of hazardous materials, as well as intentional incidents, such as terrorist attacks or state-sponsored events. Over the past decade, CBRN threats that originate deliberately have persisted or even increased. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is the event that has generated the most attention regarding the social, political, and economic consequences of CBRN crises in general, as well as biological/ health emergencies and civil protection mechanisms. Important gaps and weaknesses remain in rapid detection, identification, and monitoring of low-volatile chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and non-volatile biological warfare agents (BWAs), mainly in complex natural environments. Gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or…

DYNAMO

DYNAMO Dynamic Resilience Assessment Method including combined Business Continuity Management and Cyber Threat Intelligence solution for Critical Sectors The scope of DYNAMO is to combine the two fields of business continuity management (BCM) and cyber threat intelligence (CTI) to generate a situational awareness picture for decision support across all stages of the resilience cycle (prepare, prevent, protect, response, recover). Professionals of different backgrounds will work together with end-users to develop, refine and combine selected tools into a single platform. In alignment to end-user needs, human factors, high ethical standards and societal impacts, DYNAMO includes the following goals: Resilience assessment as basis for BCM - An assessment with different levels of detail offers with varying existent data a fast or detailed evaluation of the investigated sector and helps to identify critical…

MultiRATE

MultiRATE Holistic framework for the MatUrity evaLuaTIon of ReAdiness level for security TEchnologies In recent years, there are plenty of metrics that try to evaluate the maturity of products/systems/processes when identifying their deployment readiness. Even though a significant effort has been made to integrate such widely used frameworks, methodologies and indicators in products/systems/processes, their usage by EU funded security R&I projects has been limited. As a result, a robust scaling framework is more than of utmost importance. The proposed MultiRATE scaling framework will rely on existing established readiness level approaches and will formally combine them into one acceptable and reliable framework. MultiRATE will be able to evaluate and apply the readiness of all aspects of products/systems/processes. It will make a thorough research on the existing methodologies and will develop a…

FaRADAI

FaRADAI Frugal and Robust AI for Defence Advanced Intelligence An important crosscutting need for Artificial Intelligence is to create technologies for trustworthy autonomous and frugal learning, i.e. the ability of a system to adapt and learn from its environment, including from user supervision, for a reasonable cost and without intervention from expert developers nor regression. Such technologies can be highly disruptive and have high impacts for many capabilities, especially when the information to manage is highly variable or unpredictable and high adaptability is needed. These technologies can also alleviate the current need to provide data to the system developers to get improvements depending on such data, which can be critical when the data is confidential, and is thus critical for defence. They can more generally enhance technological independence. Selected actions…

DiMAT

DiMAT Digital Modelling and Simulation for Design, Processing and Manufacturing of Advanced Materials The DiMAT project addresses the sustainability and resilience of processes and systems within the materials manufacturing industry. An important takeaway from crises such as climate change and the pandemic was that sustainable action and resilient processes need to be the standard, not the exception. The digital transformation in the manufacturing industry (Industry 4.0, smart factory, etc.) is weakly coupled with materials science and engineering, a fact most prominent when considering that the share of the materials production cost is about 30-55 %, but the energy cost to produce a component is about 2-8 %. Large companies benefit from the close collaboration of the scientific community and the industry for the development of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME),…

SUN

SUN Social and hUman ceNtered XR The SUN Horizon Europe project aims at investigating and developing extended reality (XR) solutions that integrate the physical and the virtual world in a convincing way, from a human and social perspective. The virtual world will be a means to augment the physical world with new opportunities for social and human interaction. Relevant limitations that will be addressed are: • Lack of solutions to develop scalable and cost-effective new XR applications. • Lack of convincing solutions for mixing of the virtual and physical environment. • Lack of plausible and convincing human interaction interfaces in XR. • Barriers due to resource limitations of end-user devices. The SUN project develops solutions to surpass the aforementioned limitations, including: • Scalable solutions to obtain plausible and convincing virtual…

LAGO

LAGO LESSEN DATA ACCESS AND GOVERNANCE OBSTACLES LAGO will deliver the foundation for a trusted EU FTC Research Data Ecosystem (RDE) to address the so-called “Data Issue” in the FCT research landscape, i.e., the lack of domain-specific data in sufficient quality and quantity to enable appropriate training and testing of the developed methods, platforms and tools. LAGO will be instrumental in identifying common barriers and subsequently providing the structural, governance and technical foundations to foster and innovate data-oriented research collaboration among LEAs, security practitioners, relevant EU agencies, academic and industry researchers, policy makers and regulators. For this purpose,LAGO will develop an evidence-based and validated multi-actor Reference Architecture for the FCT RDE for these actors to deposit, share and co-create data and tools for FCT research purposes based on common rules,…

ENCRYPT

ENCRYPT A scalable and practical privacy-preserving framework The deluge of big data, accompanied by developments in software and hardware technologies leveraging them, has created new opportunities for research and industry. The main challenges, though, faced by researchers and service providers working with personal data, are stemming from the fact that these data need to be processed in a privacy-preserving way, as they contain sensitive information. Although several technologies have been developed to facilitate the processing of data while preserving privacy, they have not made significant inroads into real use cases, due to several reasons. ENCRYPT will develop a scalable, practical, adaptable privacy preserving framework, allowing researchers and developers to process data stored in federated cross-border data spaces in a GDPR compliant way. Within this framework, a recommendation engine for citizens…

WATERVERSE

WATERVERSE Water Data Management Ecosystem for Water Data Spaces The WATERVERSE mission is to develop a Water Data Management Ecosystem (WDME) for making data management practices and resources in the water sector accessible, affordable, secure, fair, and easy to use, improving usability of data and the interoperability of data-intensive processes, thus lowering the entry barrier to data spaces, enhancing the resilience of water utilities and boosting the perceived value of data and therefore the market opportunities behind it. WATERVERSE takes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach in the water domain, blending together complementary competencies of 17 partners located in 10 EU countries, representing the water domain with Research organizations (including social sciences experts), water utilities, water domain technology providers and innovation companies, as well as the technical community that is driving the…

TALON

TALON Autonomous and Self-organized Artificial Intelligent Orchestrator for a Greener Industry 4.0 Next-generation industrial systems promise to deliver unprecedented excellence not only in terms of performance, but also explainability, trustworthiness and transparency. To achieve this new objectives, state-of-the-art concepts of artificial intelligence (AI), edge-to-cloud (E2C) computing, blockchain, and visualisation need to be de-risked and applied. Motivated by this, TALON aims at sculpturing the road towards the next Industrial revolution by developing a fully-automated AI architecture capable of bringing intelligence near the edge in a flexible, adaptable, explainable, energy and data efficient manner. M4D, the participating team from CERTH, contributes in the definition of TALON’s user and system requirements for the various use cases and the overall system, as well as in the definition of the KPIs, requirements, and the technology…

AIDEAS

AIDEAS AI Driven industrial Equipment product life cycle boosting Agility, Sustainability and resilience AIDEAS will develop AI technologies for supporting the entire lifecycle (design, manufacturing, use, and repair/reuse/recycle) of industrial equipment as a strategic instrument to improve sustainability, agility and resilience of the European machinery manufacturing companies. AIDEAS will deploy 4 integrated Suites: 1) Design: AI technologies, integrated with CAD/CAM/CAE systems, for optimising the design of industrial equipment structural components, mechanisms and control components; 2) Manufacturing: AI technologies for industrial equipment purchased components selection and procurement, manufactured parts processes optimisation, operations sequencing, quality control and customisation; 3) Use: AI technologies with added value for the industrial equipment user, providing enhanced support for installation and initial calibration, production, quality assurance and predictive maintenance for working on optimal conditions; 4) Repair-Reuse-Recycle: AI…

ReSilence

ReSilence Retune the Soundscape of future cities through art and science collaboration The main objective of the ReSilence project is to support the development of art-driven technologies for designing the soundscape of future cities through the collaboration of artists, architects, urban designers, scientists, engineers and researchers, and targeting AI and XR tools addressing primarily challenges from the Urbanism/Mobility sector while exploring the borders between music and noise, and user experience measurements assessing a soundspace. The project ReSilence builds on the novel and prima facie paradoxical observation that elements of city life tend to become more silent, allowing us to question which sounds are necessary for safety and environmental awareness, and which sounds can be made more pleasant. Nowadays city planners, architects, engineers, and other scientific experts are urgently studying the…

RAISE

RAISE Research Analysis Identifier SystEm The EU-funded RAISE project aims to address the challenge of an open, fair and reliable Research Community, where every researcher will be accredited for its work and all research data will be equally accessible for processing without violating data protection regulations. RAISE vision is to provide the infrastructure for a distributed crowdsourced data processing system, moving from open data to open access data for processing. RAISE will produce the mechanism for sending the algorithm to the dataset instead of sending the data to the algorithm. The success of such an application will provide to users a transparent way of processing and sharing data, enabling the research community to publish their outcomes with evidence-based authenticity of the data-analysis performed, ensuring at the same time the accreditation…

XRECO

XRECO XR mEdia eCOsystem While media organisations increasingly support non-linear experiences for the consumer, those are still limited to single channels and media domains. Although several media organisations have recently succeeded in breaking data silos, data sharing is mostly limited to the organisation. Thus, there are challenges for producing content feeding multiple channels with different granularities and structures, mainly related to data discovery, management and (re-)use. XRECO will create a new data-driven ecosystem for the media industry, focusing on facilitating data sharing, search and discovery and supporting creation of news and entertainment content, in particular, the creation and (re-)use of location-related 2D and 3D assets and the creation of XR experiences. The ecosystem core, represented by a Neural Media Repository (NMR), will foster inter-organisation content sharing and provide increased access…

SILVANUS

SILVANUS Integrated Technological and Information Platform for wildfire Management SILVANUS envisages to deliver an environmentally sustainable and climate resilient forest management platform through innovative capabilities to prevent and combat against the ignition and spread of forest fires. The platform will cater to the demands of efficient resource utilisation and provide protection against threats of wildfires encountered globally. The project will establish synergies between (i) environmental; (ii) technology and (iii) social science experts for enhancing the ability of regional and national authorities to monitor forest resources, evaluate biodiversity, generate more accurate fire risk indicators and promote safety regulations among citizens through awareness campaigns. The novelty of SILVANUS lies in the development and integration of advanced semantic technologies to systematically formalise the knowledge of forest administration and resource utilisation. Additionally, the platform…

CTC

CTC Cut The Cord With the nature of terror incidents undergoing a technology-aided transformation (e.g. use of cryptocurrencies to enhance anonymity), the monitoring and analysis of financial transactions play a pivotal role in the effort to timely prevent actions and funding of global terrorism. Financial crime exploits every aspect of digital transformation and identifies non-traditional products for financing and supporting terrorist organisations, such as social media, cryptocurrencies, and other Financial Technologies. The prevention and disruption of terrorism financing requires international cooperation and advanced investigative techniques based on new technologies. The CTC project (Cut The Cord) aims to enhance the public-private cooperation through the establishment of a wide stakeholder community, with the vision to sustain it beyond the end of the project. Joint training exercises (theoretical and hands-on) will be organised…

TREEADS

TREEADS A Holistic Fire Management Ecosystem for Prevention, Detection and Restoration of Environmental Disasters TREEADS aims to build upon state-of-the-art products and unite them in a holistic Fire Management platform that optimizes and reuses the available socio-technological resources in all three main phases of wildfire management. For the Prevention and Preparedness phases, TREEADS proposes the use of a real-time risk evaluation tool that receives multiple classification inputs and works with a newly proposed neural network-powered risk factor indicator. To create a model of Fire Adapted Communities (FAC), in parallel to insurance incentives, TREEADS will use Alkali-Activated Materials (AAM), integrating Post-wildfire Wood Ashes (PWA) for fire-resilient buildings and infrastructure. TREEADS also uses a variety of technological solutions such as the Copernicus infrastructure, and a swarm of small drones customized for accurate…

STARLIGHT

STARLIGHT STARLIGHT – Sustainable Autonomy and Resilience for LEAs using AI against High priority Threats STARLIGHT aims to empower LEAs with automated, operational, and cyber-resilient investigation, intelligence, surveillance and control capabilities to tackle traditional and emergent criminal activities, terrorism, cybercrime, and cyber-attacks, within and at the borders of the EU. STARLIGHT also aims at contributing to the establishment of a strong EU AI-based security ecosystem, thus enhancing the EU’s strategic autonomy in the field of AI for LEAs. The ecosystem will be built around an AI framework for reliable, accountable, responsible and transparent LEA AI solutions that will enable the involvement and transfer of knowledge between LEAs, Researchers, Industry, SMEs, and Policy makers. Overall, STARLIGHT will ensure that European LEAs lead the way in AI innovation, autonomy and resilience, addressing…

ODYSSEUS

ODYSSEUS Preventing, Countering and Investigation Terrorist Attacks Through Prognostic, Detection and Forensic Mechanisms for Explosive Precursors ODYSSEUS aims to increase the knowledge on homemade explosives (HMEs) and explosive precursors, including precursors not previously studied, and develop effective and efficient prognostic, detection, and forensic tools to improve the capabilities of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) towards the prevention, countering, and investigation of terrorist incidents involving HMEs. ODYSSEUS will build upon relevant previous projects mainly HOMER, through the involvement of HOMER’s core partners in this consortium, and will thus continue the work already performed in HOMER on some precursors and also further extend it to not previously studied precursors. To discover potentially hitherto unknown information, online HMEs recipes will be collected and their content will be analysed in order to extract knowledge about…

SECANT

SECANT SECurity And privacy protectioN in Internet of Things devices SECANT aims to contribute decisively towards improving the readiness and resilience of organisations against the crippling modern cyber-threats, by increasing the privacy, data protection, and accountability across the entire interconnected ICT ecosystem, and by reducing the costs for security training in the European market. To this end, the SECANT platform will enhance the capabilities of organisations’ stakeholders, by implementing (a) collaborative threat intelligence collection, analysis, and sharing; (b) innovative risk analysis specifically designed for interconnected nodes of an industrial ecosystem; (c) cutting-edge trust and accountability mechanisms for data protection, and (d) security awareness training for more informed security choices. The effectiveness and versatility of the proposed solution will be validated in four realistic pilot use case scenarios applied in the…

Nightingale

Nightingale Novel InteGrated toolkit for enhanced pre-Hospital life support and Triage IN challenGing And Large Emergencies Major emergencies, crisis and disasters have become more frequent the last decades. However, nowadays, emergency medical services and non-medical civil protection practitioners in a mass casualty incident scene are often striving to save lives but they are relying on complicated or outdated procedures and technology of the past. Additionally, disasters might differ in nature, geographic extent and other parameters, leading, in such a way, in a multitude of challenges. Therefore, it is uppermost affected people to feel safe and to get top-level healthcare that modern technology and current civil protection systems can offer. Nightingale is aimed at upgrading pre-hospital life support and Triage by delivering enhanced Operational Capacity to respond to mass casualty incidents…

VITALISE

VITALISE VIrtual healTh And weLlbeing Living Lab InftraStructurE The EU-funded VITALISE aims to establish new Living Labs in order to support the research community in the Health and Wellbeing domain. It also invests in learning about methodologies of user engagement and co-creation, such as design thinking, focus groups and ideation. VITALISE will design and develop ICT tools for shared access of similar devices and applications used across Living Labs, as well as for collecting, storing and sharing datasets. It will enhance closer interaction between multidisciplinary researchers among and beyond the consortium partners through the Joint Research Activities, Transnational Physical and Virtual Access. Physical access refers to access in the infrastructure by physical presence (17 Living Lab research infrastructures across Europe) while Virtual refers to remote access using digital tools. VITALISE…

LAW-GAME

LAW-GAME An Interactive, Collaborative Digital Gamification Approach to Effective Experiential Training and Prediction of Criminal Actions Criminal incidents play an important role as a disturbance of European Unions’ welfare. Police forces face daily acts of crime, such as intentional homicide and assault, drug trafficking, human and illegal firearm trafficking, as well as other forms of illegal activities, associated with the presence of organized crime groups(OCGs) in the EU. It is very crucial to have trained security personnel with an orientation in detail and critical thinking. Skillful law enforcement officers are demanded to tackle effectively this type of incidents, who in most cases are not easily available. The improvement of law enforcement officers will increase both LEAs capabilities and effectiveness in the fight against crime and terrorism and protection of European…

i4Q

i4Q Industrial Data Services for Quality Control in Smart Manufacturing i4Q Project will create a framework consisting of sustainable IoT-based Reliable Industrial Data Services (RIDS), that will provide solutions for factories in handling large amounts of data. The management and analysis of data derived from the work flows of factories will assist in the prediction and optimization of manufacturing processes that subsequently leads to improved process and product quality. Cost-effective, smart and small size interconnected factory devices will be used for online monitoring and control of manufacturing and will extract huge amounts of relevant data. i4Q Solutions will employ state-of-the-art communication protocols, ensuring data accuracy, precision and integrity through distributed ledger technology. The main objectives of i4q project are: 1) to develop, design and build the i4q framework, 2) to…

ASHVIN

ASHVIN aims at enabling the European construction industry to significantly improve its productivity, while reducing cost and ensuring absolutely safe work conditions. Towards this objective, ASHVIN will provide a European wide digital twin standard, an open source digital twin platform integrating IoT and image technologies, and a set of tools and demonstrated procedures to apply the platform and the standard proven to guarantee productivity, cost, and safety improvements. The envisioned platform will provide a digital representation of the construction product at hand and will allow to collect real-time data before, during, and after production of the product to continuously monitor changes in the environment and within the production process. Based on the platform, ASHVIN will develop and demonstrate applications that use the digital twin data. These applications will allow it…

ISOLA

ISOLA A system platform that enhances the situational awareness and support Ship’s Security Stakeholders to the execution of their duties referring to the Ship's Security Plan Maritime transport enables trade and contacts between all EU nations and has always been a catalyst for economic development and prosperity of the Union. One of the major concerns of EU policy is to protect the citizens and economies from the consequences of unlawful intentional acts against shipping and port operations. ISOLA will develop, integrate, test, deploy, demonstrate and validate a systematic and fully automated security approach by incorporating innovative technologies for sensing, monitoring, data fusion, alarming and reporting real-time during illegal incidents. This will ensure high level of security among all passengers of the ship and augmentation of the Ship Security Plan. The…

SAFERS

SAFERS Enhancing our society's resilience against wildfires Forest fires are exacerbated by extreme weather conditions, which are increasing both in frequency and in magnitude due to climate change effects. This points to the need for improving the effectiveness of emergency management solutions aimed to help society in becoming more resilient to emergencies arising before, during and after forest fire events. Therefore, it is proposed to realize a comprehensive Emergency Management System (EMS) that we name SAFERS: Structured Approaches for Forest fire Emergencies in Resilient Societies. SAFERS will act along the key phases of the emergency management cycle, coupling information from EO data and services offered by Copernicus and GEOSS, crowdsourced data from social media and from specific applications that can be used by both citizens as well as from in-field…

PathoCERT

PathoCERT Pathogen Contamination Emergency Response Technologies Pathogens are a determining factor in emergency response due to their life-threatening nature, both for the public as well as for the safety of first responders. In many cases, pathogen contaminations are difficult to detect, and require specialized technologies, tools and procedures to handle them. Waterborne pathogen contamination events can occur anywhere, and may be caused by various natural events or they can be the result of human activity, either accidental or malicious. During these emergencies, first responders may need to operate within a certain pre-defined incident area, and are likely to be exposed to contaminated water originating from various sources, such as surface water, wastewater or drinking water. This can pose a significant risk of illness, disease or even death, through skin contact,…