Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EXERTER (Security of Explosives pan-European Specialists Network)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-12-01 al 2023-05-31
EXERTER, Security of Explosives pan-European Specialists Network, connects 20 practitioners from 13 EU member states into a network of explosives specialists. The project aims at increasing the exchange of information between practitioners, academia, industry, research organisation and other stakeholders.
By lifting the challenges of countering current and emerging terrorist threats, the related operational requirements on methodologies, new tools and technologies, and the status in Research and Innovation, EXERTER aims at bringing all actors, practitioners as well as researchers and manufacturers, togheter to facilitate information sharing and possibilities to identify solutions and recommendations.
The overall objectives of EXERTER:
• To provide solutions to practitioners in the field by extrapolating terrorist threats and attack strategies from recent incidents and matching these with existing and emerging technologies and tools.
• To ensure the practice-relevance of R&D activities by defining end-user requirements and pinpointing existing capability gaps.
• To support practitioners as well as academia, developers and innovators in their search to find potential industrial partners who have the capability to exploit the innovations into products.
• To enhance practitioner’s operability by supporting standardisation and certification bodies as well as regulators with standardisation and certification priorities in order to facilitate comparison of SoE products and procurement.
• To enable a long-term cooperation among explosives specialists in the security area beyond EXERTER
By lifting the challenges of countering current and emerging terrorist threats, the related operational requirements on methodologies, new tools and technologies, and the status in Research and Innovation, EXERTER aims at bringing all actors, practitioners as well as researchers and manufacturers, togheter to facilitate information sharing and possibilities to identify solutions and recommendations.
The overall objectives of EXERTER:
• To provide solutions to practitioners in the field by extrapolating terrorist threats and attack strategies from recent incidents and matching these with existing and emerging technologies and tools.
• To ensure the practice-relevance of R&D activities by defining end-user requirements and pinpointing existing capability gaps.
• To support practitioners as well as academia, developers and innovators in their search to find potential industrial partners who have the capability to exploit the innovations into products.
• To enhance practitioner’s operability by supporting standardisation and certification bodies as well as regulators with standardisation and certification priorities in order to facilitate comparison of SoE products and procurement.
• To enable a long-term cooperation among explosives specialists in the security area beyond EXERTER
Each year, a different scenario or type of scenario is used in EXERTER, in order to focus the discussions. After defining a scenario, important aspects from it are highlighted and used while gathering requirements and gaps from practitioners and other stakeholders. Based on these results, research findings and issues related to certification and standardisation connected to the scenario are identified and brought up for discussion with practitioners.
EXERTER has during the project completed five years. The scenario used in year 1 concerned VBIEDs and HMEs, in year 2 the scenario was based on Explosive attacks in public transportation. In year three EXERTER was working with PBIED scenarios, and the fourth year had the theme Criminal use of explosives. The fifth and last year, focus was on Influences to EU civil security emanating from conflict zones. At practitioner’s requirements workshops each year, EXERTER partners and external stakeholders have discussed around the needs, issues, procedures and possibilities, around the scenarios and different alternations to those (WP2). The first two years, physical international workshop were held (in Rome and Freiburg); however during covid-19 they were replaced by several smaller, national workshops. For the fifth and last year, a physical workshop was again held in Belfast 2022. The thoughts and ideas from these workshops were then used to identify research initiatives, technologies etc. (WP3&WP5) which could be explored within the network. During the project time, a large review of research projects and technologies was compiled, and could be used to support work (WP3). A review of technologies and tools which are being, or have been developed, or are already on the market was made in the first year (WP5), and is now being used for these further contacts. Strong efforts have been made to include manufacturers together with the other groups of stakeholders in the annual conference, virtual workshops and webinars, in order to get a wider connection in that area of the network.
Each year EXERTER also holds an Annual Stakeholder Conference (WP7), in order to share and discuss the outcome from the work in the last year. The conferences are a meeting point for the network, and a chance for research initiatives as well as manufacturers and end users to share their experiences. The first year the conference on VBIED and the Oslo 2011 scenario took place in Oslo, and included many interesting experiences and discussions. The following three Annual Stakeholder Conferences, were held as a virtual conferences (in November 2020, May 2021 and April 2022) due to the covid-19 situation. They have been quite successful, despite the difficulty to network virtually, with more than 100 participants in each conference and a lot of interaction between the attendees and the speakers. For the final year, a physical conference was held in 2023, with focus on both discussions around items connected to the scenario, and outcomes from the whole EXERTER project.
Information on the events, such as the Annual conference, has been sent out to our growing list of contacts and also forwarded by the partners of EXERTER. It is estimated that it reaches around 400 recipients. It is also posted on the EXERTER Linked-in page, on the webpage of EXERTER and included in the EXERTER Newsletter.
In addition to the Annual conferences, EXERTER has since 2020 held several webinars and virtual workshops. Newsletters have also been published regularly during the period (WP8). The network has been extended greatly since the start, mainly by contacts with other projects, through the webinars and virtual conference, and through participating in other project’s events and conferences.
The results from the work carried out have been summarised and analysed in summarising deliverables (WP6). The outcomes of each year have also been summarised in shorter versions, each containing the most important output from that scenario, as a way to reach a wider audience with our outcomes. These summaries have beed distributed widely.
EXERTER has during the project completed five years. The scenario used in year 1 concerned VBIEDs and HMEs, in year 2 the scenario was based on Explosive attacks in public transportation. In year three EXERTER was working with PBIED scenarios, and the fourth year had the theme Criminal use of explosives. The fifth and last year, focus was on Influences to EU civil security emanating from conflict zones. At practitioner’s requirements workshops each year, EXERTER partners and external stakeholders have discussed around the needs, issues, procedures and possibilities, around the scenarios and different alternations to those (WP2). The first two years, physical international workshop were held (in Rome and Freiburg); however during covid-19 they were replaced by several smaller, national workshops. For the fifth and last year, a physical workshop was again held in Belfast 2022. The thoughts and ideas from these workshops were then used to identify research initiatives, technologies etc. (WP3&WP5) which could be explored within the network. During the project time, a large review of research projects and technologies was compiled, and could be used to support work (WP3). A review of technologies and tools which are being, or have been developed, or are already on the market was made in the first year (WP5), and is now being used for these further contacts. Strong efforts have been made to include manufacturers together with the other groups of stakeholders in the annual conference, virtual workshops and webinars, in order to get a wider connection in that area of the network.
Each year EXERTER also holds an Annual Stakeholder Conference (WP7), in order to share and discuss the outcome from the work in the last year. The conferences are a meeting point for the network, and a chance for research initiatives as well as manufacturers and end users to share their experiences. The first year the conference on VBIED and the Oslo 2011 scenario took place in Oslo, and included many interesting experiences and discussions. The following three Annual Stakeholder Conferences, were held as a virtual conferences (in November 2020, May 2021 and April 2022) due to the covid-19 situation. They have been quite successful, despite the difficulty to network virtually, with more than 100 participants in each conference and a lot of interaction between the attendees and the speakers. For the final year, a physical conference was held in 2023, with focus on both discussions around items connected to the scenario, and outcomes from the whole EXERTER project.
Information on the events, such as the Annual conference, has been sent out to our growing list of contacts and also forwarded by the partners of EXERTER. It is estimated that it reaches around 400 recipients. It is also posted on the EXERTER Linked-in page, on the webpage of EXERTER and included in the EXERTER Newsletter.
In addition to the Annual conferences, EXERTER has since 2020 held several webinars and virtual workshops. Newsletters have also been published regularly during the period (WP8). The network has been extended greatly since the start, mainly by contacts with other projects, through the webinars and virtual conference, and through participating in other project’s events and conferences.
The results from the work carried out have been summarised and analysed in summarising deliverables (WP6). The outcomes of each year have also been summarised in shorter versions, each containing the most important output from that scenario, as a way to reach a wider audience with our outcomes. These summaries have beed distributed widely.
EXERTER is a network project, which do not focus on developing any technologies or tools. The focus has been to within the network discuss and highlight needs and ideas from practitioners and other stakeholders. By bringing many different actors together from research, manufacturing and practitioners, the challenges and recommendations could be discussed also in terms of possible and ongoing research and future product development.
In the project many requirements and recommendations have been lifted by the practitioners, manufacturers and other stakeholders. These include for example:
*The need for collaboration on different levels, and between different groups and member states, in order to share information on upcoming threats and good practices;
*Research topics needed, both technically and on behaviour analysis and testing, for example further development of detection equipment for scanning large masses, AI tools in support of behaviour analysis, and performance of pyrotechnics components when used in improvised ways.;
*Information campaings needed on different types of threats to the public, to regulators and others. A European harmonised approach on regulation.
In the project many requirements and recommendations have been lifted by the practitioners, manufacturers and other stakeholders. These include for example:
*The need for collaboration on different levels, and between different groups and member states, in order to share information on upcoming threats and good practices;
*Research topics needed, both technically and on behaviour analysis and testing, for example further development of detection equipment for scanning large masses, AI tools in support of behaviour analysis, and performance of pyrotechnics components when used in improvised ways.;
*Information campaings needed on different types of threats to the public, to regulators and others. A European harmonised approach on regulation.