Activities

OVERVIEW OF PAST PROJECTS

Recent Activities

HORIZON PROJECTS

ILEAnet – Innovation by Law Enforcement Agencies networking (H2020 project)

The ILEAnet project sets up and develops a sustainable network of Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) practitioner organisations from all over Europe. The mission of this network is to stimulate LEA capabilities to influence, develop and take up research, development and innovation (RDI) that is useful and usable for LEAs, and thereby help them to tackle the major challenges they face. The network is organised around ILEAnet National Contacts (INCs) who is in charge of federating the respective networks of practitioners, policy makers, academics, industrial players and other RDI stakeholders in their respective countries. ILEAnet also operates as a community of people with a common interest in exchanging and collaborating with respect to LEA challenges and needs and LEA-centred RDI. Whilst the organisational ILEAnet Network is focused – “top-down” – on specific challenges, the ILEAnet Community of people contributes “bottom-up” ideas to produce innovative approaches to face newly arising challenges.

Official project webpage: https://www.ileanet.eu/

DAREnet – DAnube river region Resillience Exchange network (H2020 project)

The DAREnet project is to support flood management practitioners across the EU Danube River region and from different disciplines to deepen and broaden their Research, Development and Innovation related collaboration (=RDI). DAREnet builds a multi-disciplinary community of practitioners, operating in a network of civil protection organisations, and supported by a broad range of stakeholders from policy, industry and research. Together they build a trans-national and interdisciplinary ecosystem to foster synergies, innovation and its uptake.

Official project webpage: http://darenetproject.eu/

CBRN CoE PROJECTS

CBRN CoE PROJECT P55 – Strengthening cross-border capacity for control and detection of CBRN substances in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) and the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauretania, Niger).

The overall objectives of the project are to standardize Legislative texts relating to CBRN security according to international standards on a regional way, and create a regional momentum to consider border security in a harmonised way. All with regards to an environment where circulation of goods and people is constantly increasing, and the risk posed by global threats in the CBRN field is growing as well. Security threats in the Sahel/Sahara are regional and cross-border by nature.

CBRN CoE PROJECT P57 – Strengthening crime scene forensics capabilities in investigating CBRN incidents in the South East Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Southern Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia), Moldova and Ukraine.

While countries in the region possess traditional forensics capabilities for investigation and preparation of court cases, it was highlighted that there is an insufficient amount of knowledge and equipment to carry out traditional forensics works in a CBRN environment, namely in the aftermath of an incident involving CBRN materials. The overall objectives of the project are to strengthen the existing traditional forensic capabilities in investigating CBRN incidents among police experts; develop a training system for forensic investigation in CBRN-related cases and foster the establishment of networks of CBRN and forensics-related institutions and networks of forensics experts dealing with CBRN-related investigations at the sub-regional level.

CBRN CoE PROJECT P61 – Sound management of chemicals and their associated wastes in South-East Asia (SEACHEM)

The overall objective of the project is to achieve enhanced chemical safety and security in the region, taking the country-specific baseline situation into account. The purpose of this regional project is to address outstanding chemical safety and security issues in areas of legislation/regulation, prevention, detection, preparedness and response. The project is going to address not only the sound management of chemicals and their wastes, but also take emerging chemical issues as well as whole CBRN threats into account. Target countries are: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.

OTHER PROJECTS

QUINTETO+ exercise

ISEMI together with partners carried out the pilot multi-cross-border counter-CBRN Terrorism exercise which involved several law enforcement agencies from 6 countries and Europol.  It was a combination of field and table top exercise with the aim to test the international and cross-border intelligence exchange and police agencies reaction to highly likely chemical and radiological terrorist threats.

Within this exercise multiple police tactics and interventions were tested and trained (intelligence gathering and analysis, intelligence exchange, following perpetrators, car search and tracking, detecting CR agents, intervening, terrorist arresting, zoning and securing places, CBRNE threat recognition, sampling, Crime Scene Investigation under CBRN conditions, decontaminating in cooperation with civil protection and fire fighters’ agencies, saving victims in cooperation with ambulances, etc.). Other 11 countries were involved as observers (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Netherland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden).

An important part of the exercise was carried out as a real live game. The majority of police officers (police patrol, regional police first line officers, etc.) have not been given any advance warning of the exercise; they were deployed from their normal duties without any planning or preparation and they made a realistic intervention as if they were dealing with a real terrorist attack. Their decision making and acting (searching for suspect car, contacting special units, intervening, etc.) was monitored by national exercise police teams from a distance. The objective was to find the gaps within the internal communication and inter-agency communication and to test the police officers’ capacities and their reaction time to any CBRN terrorist event.

Another important part of the exercise was played as real simulation in which all players (special CBRN, SWAT, EOD, RIOT/Public order, CSI police units) were notified about the exercise rules and main tasks, but were not informed about all details related to the raid, house search, crime scene investigation, booby traps, etc. They faced many unexpected situations and used their skills and tactics to fulfil the mission. The objective was to test the police teams´ cooperation and reaction on unexpected situations during the car and house search, CSI, raid, etc. In some countries, civil protection responders and fire fighters will also be involved.

Only some parts of the exercise were prescribed, where all the steps were known to players from the beginning. Their objective was to enhance their skills is specific techniques and tactics related to intervention on the contaminated crime scene or scene with a danger coming from a solid radioactive source or chemical substances.

The table top part of the exercise was played through the newly developed IT communication platform called “SIENA X” by the International Security and Emergency Management Institute in cooperation with the European Commission (DG HOME).

This platform was adapted to be used in the field via any mobile phone, tablets or iPad. This platform was tested for the first time in order to be available for any future combination of EU police table top and field exercise, where different messages, reactions or injects including annexes can be sent to players and observers. At the same time many developed documents from Crime Scene Investigation, intelligence reports or fictitious videos from social media were also shared. As a part of this pilot IT platform for combined exercises (field + table top), the on-line stream from some parts of the exercise were also tested. This allowed on-line observers to follow the exercise from day Zero until the end by watching some on-line video streams depending on the location of the field exercise.

Main organising and participating institutions and law enforcement agencies: DG HOME – European Commission, ISEMI, MoI – DCI, EUROPOL, Polish Police – Anti-Terrorist Unit (BOA including its CBRN team), Slovak Police – CBRN and Environmental Crime Police Unit, Czech Police – Counter-Terrorism CBRN Unit, German Police – BKA, Belgium Police – DSU (SWAT Team), French National Gendarmerie – (C2CBRN, IRCGN, GIGN, etc.). Additional important police units and other partners like Chemical laboratories, Fire fighters, Civil protection, Ambulance, etc. were involved to some scenario sequences.

Technical and support services in the field of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive Security (Framework Service Contract No.: HOME/2014/ISFP/PR/CBRN/0025 – Lot 1)

Main objectives of the contract is to provide technical and support consultancy services to the DG HOME ~ European Commission on the CBRN–E related security matters, thereby directly supporting the development and implementation of the EC’s CBRN-E agenda and related polices and activities under the EU new approach to the detection and mitigation of CBRN-E risks.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the development of key EU policies by analysing the nature and evolution of CBRN-E issues, gather and aggregate relevant information on CBRN-E security matters. Furthermore, the aim is to support the EC in organizing events with focus on CBRN-E security, as well as to establish and implement comprehensive dissemination of information to the two stakeholders and the wide EU public.

Already implemented or ongoing tasks: Request 1 – Brief contents: ammonium nitrate below 16%; Request 2 – Work (surveys and related works) related to the implementation of Regulation 98/2013; Request 3 – Brief overview of security of radioactive sources in medical facilities in the European Union; Request 6 – Soft target attack exercise and a brief instruction including basic guidance materials and recommendations on soft target protection; Request 7 – Gap analysis of detection of CBRN terrorist threats, and organization of cross-border exercise; Request 9 – Mapping C-UAV capabilities now and in the future – a prospective view on mitigating the UAV threat.

Currently being implemented: Req. 14: Brief on Member States legislation in relation to security of radioactive sources in the medical facilities in the European Union.

Euromed Police IV (ENI/2015/262-126)

The overall objective of the Euromed Police IV project is to increase citizens’ security across the Euro-Mediterranean area through the strengthening of cooperation on security issues between the Southern Mediterranean partner countries, as well as between these countries and the EU Member States. It builds on the achievements of the previous phase of the project Euromed Police III. ISEM Institute as a member of the consortium implements the project EUROMED POLICE IV. The leader of the project is CIVI.POL (France). Other main members of the consortium are DCI (France), GIZ (Germany), FIIAPP (Spain), and Italian Ministry of Interior. The Euromed Police project is one of the two components of a broader programme that also encompasses cooperation in the justice area with the South Partnership countries; the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the Arab Republic of Egypt, Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Kingdom of Morocco, the Palestinian Authority and the Republic of Tunisia.

BULLSEYE – Harmonised procedures and awareness of all agencies involved in the response of a chemical or a biological terrorist attack: education- training and train the trainer. (Programme: ISFP)

The general objective of the project is to further improve the knowledge and skills of police and forensic officers as well as fire, medical and civil protection services in all EU member states on how to PREVENT terrorist attacks using CBRN agents and explosives by improving detection capabilities as well as on how to properly MITIGATE & RESPOND in case of an emerging CBRN attack. The knowledge and experience of the military services will be used to enforce the ‘civil’ procedures.

In this project, the choice is made to focus on the Chemical (C) and Biological (B) threat.

Nowadays the first responders of the EU countries use different procedures. Aim is to harmonize the different procedures on C and B through a gap analysis concerning the existing procedures and equipment. Next step will be the organization of expert meetings where the first responders exchange knowledge and procedures with well-chosen CBRNe experts. These harmonized procedures and other useful tools will be trained per group based on different procedures to be implemented during the terrorist attack or immediately after the attack (first responders – SWAT units, EOD teams, CBRN police teams, fire fighters, civil protection, DVI and forensics) and will be finally tested and evaluated in 1 cross -sectoral exercise. Taken the lessons-learnt into account of these trainings and exercise, the procedures and tools will be fine-tuned, adapted and validated. Finally, a train the trainer course is developed that can be used for all first responders, DVI and forensic officers of the EU countries.

CO3DIL – Collaboration for Dismantling Drugs Distribution and Illicit Laboratories (Programme: ISFP)

Objectives: Dismantling storage and production facilities for illicit drugs, Development of methodological, notably statistical, tools and methods and common indicators, Enhance the collaborative EU and third country law enforcement capacity to target drug trafficking.

Activities: A particular focus is on the investigators’ cooperation, experts networking and data processing by experts, and realization of field actions for destroying of illicit manufacturing of methamphetamine drugs.

Beneficiaries: law enforcement units from EU MS, third countries, international organizations: 300 DEA officers contributing to the development of tools for mapping trends in illicit meth labs.

Outputs/Deliverables: twelve operational meetings, seizing six illegal meth drug labs, ten field actions against meth labs in the EU MS, five coordination meetings of 25 EU anti-drug labs experts, delivered common tools for dismantling of meth labs, introduced a networking cooperation method for investigation and destroying of illicit production including supply and demand sides.

Long-term benefits: sound impact on the crime-scene investigation methods and intelligence related to the destruction of meth labs, improving investigation techniques. Strengthening of public awareness on the environmental damages caused by labs also will affect the use of drugs and witnessing of suspicious manufacturing.

MELODY – A harmonised CBRN training curriculum for first responders and medical staff  (Programme: ISFP)

The main objective of this project proposal is to define, develop and deploy a harmonized CBRN training curriculum for first responders and medical staff, by medical staff it is meant ambulance drivers, paramedics and emergency room (ER) personnel.

The objectives set out for the project will be achieved through 7 logically designed work packages (WPs), which cover the consultation with existing training facilities in the consortium, leading to a draft document, which will then through consultation with end-users/practitioners will determine how far we are from the actual training needs.

Additional effort will be spent in correcting the departures from the existing training material with respect to the actual practitioner’s needs. The improved CBRN training curriculum will be assessed and evaluated through a number of dedicated exercises and training activities which will lead to a new set of improvements.

A WP has been devoted to demonstration and dissemination activities. The former will deal with showcasing the final product through a set of full-scale exercises, whereas the latter will be a continuous effort in raising awareness on the project and its activities at all levels: from practitioner to policy makers.

It is expected that, a fully fit-for-purpose CBRN training curriculum for EU first responders and medical staff, properly quality assured and controlled will be delivered three years after the initiation of the project.