Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEDEA (Mediterranean practitioners’ network capacity building for effective response to emerging securitychallenges)

Teaser

MEDEA network of practitioners (NoP) is a multi-discipline NoP, whose members formed four thematic communities of practice (TCP). These TCPs are focused on: Management of Migration Flows and Asylum seekers; Border management and surveillance; Fight against cross border crime...

Summary

MEDEA network of practitioners (NoP) is a multi-discipline NoP, whose members formed four thematic communities of practice (TCP). These TCPs are focused on: Management of Migration Flows and Asylum seekers; Border management and surveillance; Fight against cross border crime and terrorism and lastly Natural Hazards and Technological Accidents. The MEDEA project is in the processes of developing active links to policy makers and providers of security innovations focusing on the practitioners desired capabilities.
The Community-of-Practice model MEDEA is using facilitates knowledge as follows: In the vertical direction the Academic part of the network with a number of planned actions will facilitate the dissemination and awareness of technological/security solutions to practitioners. At the same time the NoP will promote the practitioner’s demand for capabilities to representatives of the research community using a demand-driven Mediterranean Security Research and Innovation Agenda (MSRIA). In the horizontal directions, the NoP will promote the exchange of expertise and best practices’ in problem solving, standardisation needs and industrialisation of innovative approaches.
The MEDEA NoP utilises a scenario driven methodology. Members are using structured templates to develop operational scenarios which are then discussed and analysed. From the practitioner’s interactions the user requirements are formulated. The practitioners’ operational needs are benchmarked against available solutions to form the practitioners driven capability gaps. These gaps are then analysed in four dimensions: Technology, Human, Organisational and Regulatory. This analysis will define a number of attributes in each one of the four dimensions for every capability gap. These attributes will be evaluated by the practitioners to indicate their need to acquire certain capabilities for responding to current, emerging and future threats.

Work performed

During the first 18M of the project, the achieved milestones are indicating the MEDEA progress is on schedule. In summary, although there were some differences between the original plan and the progress made in WP6, WP7, and WP9 the planned work has been completed. In WP2 (TCP1) the delay occurred in the WP tasks will be fully addressed in the future amendment. The activities in TCPs No.2 – Border Management and Surveillance, No. 3 – Cross Border organised Crime and Terrorism, and No. 4 - Natural hazards and Technical accidents are ahead of plan, while the objectives of TCP1 – Management of migration and asylum seekers are being re-evaluated with involved practitioners.
The MEDEA consortium after the KoM worked to establish the MEDEA network. The network is made of four TCPs operating in the M&BS countries. This initiative is also supported from practitioners operating in non-M&BS countries (PO, IE, DE) who will convey best practises and links with other NoPs. The entire consortium is also supported by EU experts’ organisations in technology and policy making. The network should assist practitioners to become aware of research initiatives from industry. MEDEA should make aware the industry and research community about capabilities required by the practitioners. The TCPs will facilitate the exchange of best practises and will strive to identify solutions for common threats experienced in the region.
To work in the first work package, dentified all regional practitioners and stakeholders who might be interested to MEDEA activities. There are 260 practitioners who should be interested in TCP1 objectives, 96, 106, and 105 organisations who should be interested in TCP2, TCP3 and TCP4 activities respectively (source D1.4 and https://www.medea-project.eu/interactive-map/). Moreover, the memorandum of the association which documents how the network of practitioners should be evolved and become self-sustainable after the end of the project drafted (D1.2). To facilitate and promote interaction between TCP members a collaboration platform is developed (https://tikiwiki.medea-project.eu/tiki-index.php?page=HomePage and D1.6). The collaboration platform is a closed forum where practitioners are contributing scenarios based on their operational experience which are then discussed between fellow practitioners to identify common and different approaches, co-define capabilities and select and co-developed certain scenarios that will be analysed by THOR to produce the Mediterranean research and Innovation agenda (MSRIA).
The collaboration platform uses scenario templates that were developed in the initial phase of the project. Each TCP uses a standardised template where practitioners they provide scenarios using the following sections: (i) Scenario Specific Information; (ii) Prevention where structural measures and procedures (e.g. technical infrastructure/ safety and security measures) already in place are stated; (iii) Preparedness & Early Warning; (v) Emergency Response; (vi) Recovery; and (vii) Lessons learnt. The structured format will enable the scenario contributors (practitioners) to realised similarities and differences between fellow practitioner organisations. Moreover, certain scenarios under community request are analysed and explained by the contributor in the regular TCPs teleconferences.
Except of the scenario analysis teleconferences (not envisioned in the proposal stage) where the practitioners are interacting and contributing to scenario co-development, there are in addition TCP workshops held to facilitate further the scenario analysis and facilitate the identification of capability gaps and their prioritisation. The workshops are held to assist practitioners and invited subject matter experts to discuss their needed capabilities. In the first 18 months (although there were not planned) 2 workshops held for TCP2, 1 workshop held for TCP3 and 1 workshop for TCP4.
Practitioners become aware of the latest technol

Final results

WP1 produced an interactive map that displays 567 security stakeholders operating in the M&BS region. Organise the MSE2019 event.
WP2 will evaluate the research finding s of TCP2 and TCP3 to complement their work and will focus more on the prevention aspects of migration.
WP3 will pursue SOTA capabilities to respond to:need for credible border surveillance at the EU external borders in the M&BS Region.
WP4will focus on how to prevent people from turning to terrorism and stop future generations of terrorists from emerging, protect citizens and critical infrastructure and minimise the consequences of a terrorist attack.
WP5 will propose resilience concepts, methods and techniques to attain results from practitioners’ best practices and to work towards the implementation of Disaster Resilience EU guidelines that should be implemented M&BS region wide.
WP6 created a practitioner-driven strategy to engage with identified stakeholders for validating the MEDEA offerings.
WP7 created one introductory video to illustrate the project’s, structure, objectives and methodology to achieve its goals.
WP8 is organise workshops to co-define the capability gaps and prioritise them in a collaborative manner with other EU funded projects.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.medea-project.eu/.