AutoBorder focuses on developing and implementing innovative solutions for border checks specifically designed for vehicles. The approach leverages cutting-edge technologies, including advanced biometrics and in-car sensors integrated with the car's Infotainment and Control Electronics (ICE) system, to streamline the border-crossing process. By utilizing Digital Travel Credentials (DTCs) and pre-registration systems, the project aims to enhance security while significantly reducing waiting times at land borders. Beyond border checks, the technology enhances passenger security through identity monitoring, real-time alerts for unauthorized access, and predictive analytics for threat detection. This dual-purpose approach improves identity verification and passenger safety during travel, advancing security and connectivity across Europe. Leading actors in several relevant fields actively participate in the project, including biometrics and security experts, car manufacturers and researchers. The project builds on prior EU initiatives (e.g., SMILE, D4FLY, EINSTEIN) and, as a RIA project, targets a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 5–6 for most components, with some at TRL4. Validation and demonstration will occur in relevant environments, not connected to actual border systems. Solutions must comply with GDPR, the AI Act, EU travel regulations, and other legal and ethical standards. A dedicated legal/ethical partner will ensure compliance, while social aspects like acceptance and human rights will be addressed. End-user involvement is critical, providing feedback to align solutions with practical needs and enabling pilot demonstrations and validations. AutoBorder involves several EU and non-EU end-users, and has foreseen pilot studies at 2 external EU BCPs (UK-France and Moldova - Romania)

Local surveillance assemblages can be broken down into three constitutive and interrelated parts: technologies used, stakeholders involved and the data transfer between them. This project uses the notion of the 'surveillant assemblage' proposed by Haggerty & Ericson (2000) and inspired by Deleuze & Guattari (1988) as the starting point to provide a better understanding of how surveillance technologies are governed Surveillance practices threaten the privacy of citizens and visitors of public gatherings, but they also have a social impact and economic cost. The first overarching purpose of the GATHERINGS project consists of three ambitions: - to improve the efficacy of surveillance in order to render public gatherings safer - to increase the fairness and transparency of surveillance by making it more privacy-friendly, - to boost feasibility of surveillance for involved stakeholder by making it more cost-effective, both economically and socially. The second overarching purpose is to identify gaps in terms of awareness among professionals and citizens, and bringing about international harmonisation of good practices and common standards with regard to the privacy-friendly, socially sensitive, cost-effective surveillance of safer public gatherings. In order to respond to the call priorities, the GATHERINGS project will: - develop common standards, to maximise privacy and data protection in surveillance practices - develop an accessible matrix, to be used by surveillance professionals, local administrations and event organisers, to weigh security against privacy, economic cost and social impact - set up an international network of surveillance professionals, administrations, experts, policy makers and citizens - develop an awareness-raising programme for citizens and civil society - develop an awareness-raising programme for surveillance professionals - formulate policy recommendations - search for synergies with other ongoing security research projects

Current European research and innovation (R&I) and security policies aim to address challenges that threaten European societies by deploying security technologies. Security technologies are typically intended to promote public safety, security and increase societal resilience. At the same time, security technologies spur controversies and can have enormous societal, legal, ethical, economic and political impact. Such technologies often infringe human rights, reproduce and reinforce power imbalances and social injustice. Civil society is rarely or restrictively involved during research and development of security technologies, and thus societal concerns might not be well addressed in this process. Security technologies and R&I should not create societal mistrust or missed opportunities to jointly build societal resilience. TRANSCEND aims to improve practices of citizen and societal engagement in security R&I: to enable individuals, and organisations that speak on their behalf, to participate actively and creatively in iterative processes of design and deployment. TRANSCEND will develop a Toolbox of methods to enhance the involvement of civil society in security R&I. The Toolbox will be tested and evaluated in four pilots, in close collaboration with diverse ‘on the ground’ organisations by bringing together transdisciplinary actors from academia, government, industry and society (Quadruple Helix). The TRANSCEND Framework will present guidelines on how to design and structure meaningful civil society and public engagement for societal impact assessment for security research technologies and present domain-specific instructions for the use of the TRANSCEND toolbox. TRANSCEND will contribute to the uptake of effective methods for citizen and societal engagement throughout the EU, so that civil society are given a louder voice, a place at the right tables and security practitioners are motivated and equipped to enhance such participation.

The number and severity of disasters are increasing in Europe, due to climate change, ageing of industrial facilities and infrastructures, geo-political instability, poor knowledge management for critical activities and the vulnerability of the population exposed (density, age, migration…). To face these challenges, firefighters, rescuers, emergency medical responders and civil protection staff, have to implement effective and affordable solutions to support their operations. The DIREKTION project will establish and implement mechanisms and procedures to enhance knowledge sharing by directing the development of innovative technologies answering the needs of practitioners and policymakers. The steering role of international organisations (CTIF, FEU) and end-users will guarantee useful and practical results. The project starts with the deployment of tools assessing the relevance and interoperability of innovative technologies developed by EU Horizon projects. A structured analysis of needs and gaps and the screening of potential solutions will then be undertaken. The procedures will use the outcomes of projects like FIRE-IN, DRIVER+ / CMINE, MEDEA, the pilot for the Network of European Hubs for Civil Protection and Crisis Management and will follow the taxonomy of the EU security market study to ensure a structured use of results. Based on the capability-driven evaluations and a detailed analysis of the opportunities and constraints for the uptake of innovative solutions, DIREKTION will establish priorities for future research programming and capacity building. Moreover, the project will further establish networking and dissemination opportunities of interest for the DRS community in close collaboration with industry, SMEs & start-ups, research organizations and practitioners, at EU and national levels. DIREKTION will strengthen current practice and future research and innovation planning in disaster resilience.

In the EU more than 6 million new cardiovascular disease (CVD) cases are reported yearly, along with 1.8 million related deaths, posing a substantial burden on the national healthcare systems and society in general. Development of effective preventive interventions, adopted for each individual and population, will not only reduce the overall cost of patient management, but will also justify the assertion that CVDs could be ultimately prevented and controlled. The exploration of existing clinical, genetic and real-world data sources can contribute to this direction, however several challenges related to the data availability, management and processing remain open. The 48-month project CVDLINK aims to tackle these challenges by implementing a privacy-by-design European-wide federated platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for the delivery of effective data-driven human-centric interventions and the advancement of research and management in the CVD domain. CVDLINK is based on two major offerings: (1) the seamless and legally compliant linking and integration, secure sharing and automated curation of existing data; and (2) a set of AI and data-enabled precision medicine tools and pipelines, for better diagnosis, risk stratification and treatment. In the context of the project, 7 different cardiovascular conditions will be examined, making use of different retrospective datasets, cohort studies and biobanks from 7 counties, aiming to set a paradigm of the how heterogeneous data sources, can be effectively exploited for building comprehensive AI-driven tools, in order to bring substantial benefits for health systems, patients, industry and EU citizens. The developed tools will be prospectively validated in 5 countries, demonstrating the impact of CVDLINK. Additionally, a set of best practices will be generated, which along with a cost-effectiveness analysis, and systematic raising awareness campaigns will promote its wide adoption in the mid-term.