Deadline: 23-Nov-22
The European Commission (EC) is offering grants to enhance situational awareness and preparedness of first responders and improved capacities to minimise time-to-react in urban areas in the case of CBRN-E-related events.
Addressing first responders’ needs requires innovative actions resulting in technological, institutional and capacity-building solutions that are tailored to the risks, affordable, accepted by citizens, and customised and implemented for the (cross-sectoral) needs of practitioners. Innovative solutions are required to enable first responders to get a faster overview of any disaster situation based on the knowledge of past events and prevention actions. Complementing this, novel technologies and tools are necessary to enhance situational awareness in the case of disaster-prone events or health-related crises, especially in the case of cross-border situations, in order for first responders to be better prepared in emergency operations.
In this context, innovative technologies are required for first responders to rapidly identify hazardous agents and contaminants such as CBRN-E substances in case of an accident, outbreak/pandemics or terrorist attack and act more efficiently and rapidly regarding communication. This requires novel rapid and accurate detection of substances (possibly coupled with unmanned vehicles or drones) and on-line communication systems to support first responders’ operations and to provide the ability to conduct on-scene operations remotely without endangering them. Needs cover a broad range of technologies on top of existing CBRN-E detectors, e.g. samplers, separation systems, dilution or sample pre-concentrators etc., multiplying their capabilities. Advancements should take into consideration power consumption of front-end technology, as well as, transportability, on-line, dynamic sampling, automation, smart samplers, sample preparation, integration with detectors, standardisation.
A focus should be made on experimental or commercial systems that are not optimised in terms of online, continuous measurements, power consumption and hyphenation. Other areas of research closely depending upon enhanced situational awareness and preparedness concern decisions related to the protection of first responders (e.g. advanced protective gear and smart wearable equipment), in particular in case of CBRN-related events (infectious diseases, accidental or linked to terrorism), and ways to minimise their time-to-react in urban areas or to conduct on-scene operations remotely without endangering responders (e.g. ways through traffic, UAVs etc.).
Funding Information
The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
- public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
- cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).
Expected Outcomes
Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some of the following outcomes:
- Development of tools and technologies, including novel multiplatform CBRN-E systems, to enhance situational awareness to prepare for and rapidly react to CBRN-E events both for responders on the ground as well as for dispatch and crisis centres, especially in urban areas.
- Support of first responders’ situational awareness via high level processing solution, e.g. based on dispersion modelling or threat recognition / prediction solution using sensor data fusion and algorithms that combine heterogeneous sensor data in order to reduce the likelihood of false alarms and contribute to an improved decision-making process for the responders.
- Development of fast, reliable and portable devices for responders to perform an in-situ provisional identification of CBRN-E suspicious samples, enabling to decide which personal protective equipment (PPE) is required for first responders, including smart wearable equipment.
- Solutions integrating different commercial and experimental sensors/platforms, which should improve the state-of-the-art products in terms of communication (e.g. by using novel and open communication protocols, pre-processing of data), power consumption (e.g. by offering supplemental power source to the existing sensors), interfacing capability (e.g. by proposing an open interface specification). The proposals should also cover the system transportability, online capability and continuous operation issues.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
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eligible non-EU countries:
- countries associated to Horizon Europe;
- low- and middle-income countries.
For more information, visit European Commission.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3OCSVT9