Effective EU support to a large external crisis requires new approaches. In response to this challenge and to identified user and market needs from previous projects, Reaching Out proposes an innovative multi-disciplinary approach that will optimize the efforts, address a wide spectrum of users and maximize market innovation success. This approach results in five main objectives: to 1. Develop a Collaborative Framework, with distributed platforms of functional services, 2. Implement a flexible and open “collaborative innovation” process involving users and SMEs, suppliers, operators and research organisations, 3. Develop, upgrade and integrate 78 new connectable and interoperable tools, 4. Conduct 5 large scale demonstrations on the field: o health disaster in Africa (Epidemics in Guinea, with strong social and cultural issues), o natural disaster in a politically complex region and a desert environment (Earthquake in the Jordan Valley, led jointly by Jordan, Israel and Palestine), o three global change disasters in Asia targeted at large evacuation and humanitarian support in Bangladesh (long lasting floods, huge storms and associated epidemics,), EU citizen support and repatriation in Shanghai (floods & storm surge), radiological and industrial disasters impacting EU assets in Taiwan (flash floods, landslides, storm surge and chemical and radiological disasters), supported and co-funded by local authorities, 5. Provide recommendations and evaluations for future legal and policy innovations. The project will be conducted under the supervision of senior end-users. It will be performed with flexible and proven procedures by a balanced consortium of users, industry, innovative SMEs, RTO and academia in the EU and the demonstration regions. The main expected impact is to improve external disaster and crisis management efficiency and cost-benefit and increase the EU visibility whilst enhancing EU industry competitiveness and enlarging the market.

Ensuring transport safety and security is one of the EU’s main priorities, as spotlighted in WHITE PAPER–Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area, which sets out a strategy leading to reach a safer, more efficient and more sustainable civil road, rail, air and waterborne transport. Drone applications are considered as potentially capable of revolutionizing the world around us. Nevertheless, security issues make impossible to fly drones in most situations, due to drone guidance and control-related technologies have not reached enough readiness level to guarantee safe operations in most of low altitude scenarios. To face these issues, SESAR has created U-SPACE, a new framework designed to integrate safely, securely and efficiently drone operations at low level into EU airspace. Active geofencing is one of the main drone emerging technologies outlined in the U-Space Blueprint. However, although geofencing is a useful technology to avoid drones presence in restricted places, it is not prepared to face the

MOBILITIES FOR EU aims at demonstrating that innovative passenger mobility and freight transport concepts designed and implemented following participative and user-center principles are cost-effective and feasible solutions to contribute significantly to the cities’ transformation towards climate-neutrality, allowing to speed up the process even to reach SCOPE 2 emissions reduction in 2030. Madrid (Spain) and Dresden (Germany) will implement 11 pilots comprising 27 very innovative solutions for mobility of people and freight, exploiting the combined potential of electrification, automation and connectivity, from the design to the implementation and evaluation stages acting as Lead Cities (LC). Both cities also ambition to act as pioneers of this process, taking advantage of multiple already existing initiates of social engagement and empowerment that will be integrated in the idea of Urban Transport Labs (UT-Labs), conceived as Innovation Hubs with the aim of fostering faster upscaling and replicability at EU level, making 5 Replication Cities (Ioaninna–Greece, Trencin–Slovakia, Espoo-Finland, Gdansk-Poland and Sarajevo-Bosnia&Herzegovina) through their own UT-Labs direct participants of the processes and later on main protagonists of their own designs.

The term first responders usually refers to law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical personnel. These responders, however, are not the only assets that may be required in the aftermath of a strike on the homeland. In contrast, the more appropriate term, emergency responders, comprises all personnel within a community that might be needed in the event of a natural or technological (man-made) disaster or terrorist incident. These responders might include hazardous materials response teams, urban search and rescue assets, community emergency response teams, anti-terrorism units, special weapons and tactics teams, bomb squads, emergency management officials, municipal agencies, and private organizations responsible for transportation, communications, medical services, public health, disaster assistance, public works, and construction. In addition, professional responders and volunteers, private nonprofit, nongovernmental groups (NGOs), such as the Red Cross, can also play an important role in emergency response. As a result, the tasks that a national emergency response system would be required to perform are more complex than simply aiding victims at the scene of a disaster, carried out by several kinds of professional users with different roles and expertise. Moreover, emergency preparedness and response lifecycle is a complex process that consists of the preparation, response, and recovery from a disaster, including planning, logistical support, maintenance and diagnostics, training, and management as well as supporting the actual activities at a disaster site and post-recovery after the incident.

MINDb4ACT is a collaborative project participated by 7 LEAs, think-tanks, reserach centres, universities, industry associations and NGO based in 10 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom). The project will align its research priorities with some of the most relevant issues already identified by the European Commission: Priority 1. Systematizing the available knowledge and expertise to support strategic decision-making Priority 2. Enhancing interdisciplinary fieldwork on terrorists' recruiting grounds, socialisation and techniques Priority 3. Using big data in order to analyse the information related to the communication practices of violent radicalisation Priority 4.Improving existing links between academia including non-EU researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders MINDb4ACT will contribute to such priorities for the improvement of current counter-violent extremism policies (CVEs) in the countries represented in the consortium (Austria, Belgium Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy Poland, Spain and United Kingdom) and the generation of new ones connecting through collaboration ecosystems (innovative, open, participatory, user-centred environments) to co-design interventions such as research actions, exchanges, strategic-policy exercises, training courses and pilot projects based on social innovation and civic engagement schemes (a community of practice of 1,500 people). All actions will be developed in 5 specific domains: prisons and judiciary system; migration hotspots and asylum centres, schools, cities (peri-urban contexts) and the Internet and media. A special contribution of the project will be the integration of technology based practical solutions with the contribution of the industry. As mentioned in the call, MINDb4ACT will NOT be “focused on studying the phenomenon of radicalization" but focused on “developing policy recommendations and practical solutions for end-users"