Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SAYSO (Standardisation of situational Awareness sYstems to Strengthen Operations in civil protection)

Teaser

Coordinating the response to major incidents and cross border threats in civil protection and emergency responses presents major challenges to the stakeholders involved as emergency responders, practitioners and crisis manager. Challenges include for instance the fast...

Summary

Coordinating the response to major incidents and cross border threats in civil protection and emergency responses presents major challenges to the stakeholders involved as emergency responders, practitioners and crisis manager. Challenges include for instance the fast processing and sharing of large amounts of data, or interoperability between responder agencies and decision-making support. Efficient tools and systems are crucial in allowing emergency responders, practitioners and crisis managers involved to address these challenges.
The project’s main objective is to put in place the preparatory work for the development of innovative Situational Awareness Systems that will improve the coordination of civil protection operations and emergency response where multiple organisations are involved, especially in the case of international cooperation.
To achieve this, SAYSO will:
• Collect practitioners\' requirements: SAYSO will ask practitioners and emergency responders across Europe what functionalities they require from Situational Awareness tools.
• Analyse EU projects related to Situational Awareness Systems, carried out within FP7 and H2020, and identify tools potentially useful for practical application in civil protection operations.
• Produce specifications and a reference architecture for the Multi-Stakeholder Situational Awareness System (MSSAS): The requirements and features resulting from the investigations described above will be integrated into MSSAS specifications and associated reference architecture. These specifications will also be validated against reference scenarios, such as floods or terrorist attacks.
• Address standardisation aspects: Standardisation will be a key consideration in the evaluation of the specifications and reference architecture produced. SAYSO will devise a roadmap defining what new standards are needed and what current standards should be addressed.
• Prepare future Procurement actions (PPI/PCP): SAYSO will provide the information and tools that Public Procurement Authorities need to launch Pre-Commercial Procurements (PCP)/ Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI) of SAYSO-compliant Situational Awareness Systems.
• Build an active Network and Community: SAYSO will establish and maintain a sustainable international Network and Community of practitioners, procurers and suppliers of SAYSO‐compliant Situational Awareness Systems for Multiple Stakeholders coming from different types of organisations and cultural backgrounds.

Work performed

To prepare for new Situational Awareness Systems matching practitioners’ needs, emergency responders, practitioners and crisis managers across Europe have been asked during the first months of the project what functionalities they require from Situational Awareness tools. This collection of requirements has been performed via a questionnaire distributed all over Europe, during two technical workshops and the first SAYSO public workshop. The requirements collected as of August/September 2017 were summarised in a report released in October 2017 (Inventory of practitioners’ requirements). Any practitioners’ requirements and data collected after this period will be used to update this report with new information. In addition, on the basis of the requirements already collected, a second version of the SAYSO questionnaire has been prepared in order to refine the results gathered in the first round of the survey. This second SAYSO survey was launched at the beginning of June 2018. Moreover, the upcoming SAYSO meetings and workshops will be used both to gather further requirements and to update and discuss the data already collected.
In parallel, SAYSO performed a review of the State of the Art of existing Situational Awareness Systems and tools provided by industry and research organisations. In this context, results of approximately 30 FP7- and H2020 EU projects have been analysed with regard to their applicability in enhancing Situational Awareness. The project reviewed the shortcomings of the systems currently used and investigated existing and new tools and features. Two more reports were issued by the project in October 2017: a State of the Art analysis providing an inventory of existing Situational Awareness solutions, tools, technologies, standards, procurement processes; and a report on reference scenarios for assessing the future SAYSO specifications. In addition, a report on the gap analysis was issued in December 2017, examining gaps between the practitioners’ requirements collected and the existing technologies available.
Based on the results of the questionnaires, a State of the Art analysis, and the different workshops, SAYSO also released a report on the input and output data formats used by EU crisis response organisations for providing Situational Awareness.
SAYSO ended its first year with the preparatory work for the creation of an EU community crisis web-based management library, which will consist of a dictionary of common crisis management terms, phrases and symbols. Development work was also initiated in year 1 for the creation of the Supply and Demand registry, aiming to link suppliers and procurers of Situational Awareness Systems.
Finally, SAYSO has started to build an active Situational Awareness Innovation Network Europe (SA-IN-EU). In this respect, SAYSO has launched an Online Community Platform where all stakeholders - civil protection practitioners as well as suppliers and public procurers of Situational Awareness Systems - can exchange information and ideas with fellow peers from across Europe and discuss SAYSO results.

Final results

Efficient tools and systems are crucial in allowing emergency responders, practitioners and crisis managers to tackle the challenges met during cross-border and multi stakeholder, civil protection operations. European crisis managers and emergency responders all identified the importance of developing and using new tools to have access to harmonised and holistic shared Situational Awareness information. Improving shared Situational Awareness tools would be of tremendous help to them when responding to major incidents.
By the end of the project, SAYSO will have defined the specifications and the reference architecture for future Situational Awareness Systems for multi-stakeholders on the basis of the requirements of the practitioners.
This information as well as the tools needed to launch pre-commercial procurements (PCP) of SAYSO-compliant Situational Awareness Systems will be provided to Public Procurement Authorities. PCPs are procurement actions that include the funding of the research and development required to bring to maturity, solutions tailored to the needs of the procuring practitioners.
SAYSO will also deliver roadmaps for future Situational Awareness Systems for multi-stakeholders and for standardisation in this area.
The members of the Situational Awareness Innovation Network Europe (SA-IN-EU), and its communities of suppliers of Situational Awareness tools, civil protection practitioners, and public procurement authorities, will be invited to continue communicating via the Online Community Platform after the end of the project, with the aim to continue to further refine and update the results of SAYSO and launch related PCPs for Situational Awareness Systems.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.sayso-project.eu/.