Annex I / Security

Objective

To develop the technologies and knowledge for building capabilities needed to ensure the security of citizens from threats such as terrorism, natural disasters, and crime, while respecting fundamental human rights including privacy; to ensure optimal and concerted use of available technologies to the benefit of civil European security, to stimulate the cooperation of providers and users for civil security solutions, improving the competitiveness of the European security industry and delivering mission-oriented research results to reduce security gaps.

Rationale

Security in Europe is a precondition of prosperity and freedom. The EU Security Strategy: "A Secure Europe in a Better World", adopted by the European Council, addresses the need for a comprehensive security strategy encompassing both civil and defence-related security measures.

Security related research is an important building block for realising a high level of security within the area of freedom, security and justice. It will also contribute to developing technologies and capabilities in support of other Community policies in areas such as transport, civil protection, energy, environment and health. Security research needs specific implementation rules to take into account its special nature.

Existing security related research activities in Europe suffer from the fragmentation of efforts, the lack of critical mass of scale and scope and the lack of connections and interoperability. Europe needs to improve the coherence of its efforts by developing efficient institutional arrangements and by instigating the various national and international actors to co-operate and co-ordinate in order to avoid duplication and to explore synergies wherever possible. Security research at Community level will maintain an exclusively civil orientation and focus on activities of clear added value to the national level. As a consequence, civil security research within the Seventh Framework Programme will reinforce the competitiveness of the European security industry. Recognising that there are areas of 'dual-use' technology, close coordination with the activities of European Defence Agency (EDA) will be needed in order to ensure complementarity.

Security research will emphasise the European capabilities regarding surveillance, distribution of information and knowledge of threats and incidents as well as systems for better assessments and situation control through better use of common ICT-systems in the fields of different operations.

The non defence activities set out below will complement and integrate the technology- and systems-oriented research relevant to civil security which is carried out in other themes. They will be mission-oriented, developing the technologies and capabilities as required by the specific security missions. They are by design flexible so as to accommodate as yet unknown future security threats and related policy needs that may arise, stimulating cross-fertilisation and the take-up of existing technologies for the civil security sector, European security research will also encourage the development of multi-purpose technologies in order to maximise the scope for their application.

Activities

• Security of citizens: delivering technology solutions for civil protection, including bio?security and protection against risks arising from crime and terrorist attacks.

• Security of infrastructures and utilities: analysing and securing existing and future public and private critical/networked infrastructure (e.g. in transport, energy, ICT), systems and services (including financial and administrative services).

• Intelligent surveillance and border security: focusing on technologies and capabilities to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of all systems, equipment, tools and processes as well as methods for rapid identification required for improving the security of Europe's land and coastal borders, including border control and surveillance issues.

• Restoring security and safety in case of crisis: focusing on technologies providing an overview of, and support for diverse emergency management operations (such as civil protection, humanitarian and rescue tasks), and on issues such as inter-organisational preparation, co-ordination and communication, distributed architectures and human factors.

The above four areas will be supported by the following themes of a more cross-cutting nature:

• Security systems integration, interconnectivit and interoperability: Intelligence, information gathering and civil security, focusing on technologies to enhance the interoperability of systems, equipment, services and processes, including law enforcement, firefighting, civil defence and medical information infrastructures, as well as on the reliability, organisational aspects, protection of confidentiality and integrity of information and traceability of all transactions and processing.

• Security and society: mission orientated research which will focus on socio-economic analyses, scenario building and activities related to: cultural, social, political and economic dimensions of security, the communication with the society, the role of human values and policy making, psychology social environment of terrorism, citizen's perception of security, ethics, protection of privacy, societal foresight and systemic risk analysis. Research will also address technologies that better safeguard privacy and liberties, and will address vulnerabilities and new threats, as well as the management and impact assessment of possible consequences.

• Security research co-ordination and structuring: co-ordination of European and international security research efforts and development of synergies between civil, security and defence research, improvement of legal conditions, and encouragement to the optimal use of existing infrastructures.