iNteracting netwOrk of inTelligence and securIty practitiOners with iNdustry and acadEmia actorS

Project Information

NOTIONES

Grant agreement ID: 101021853

DOI

10.3030/101021853

EC signature date 8 July 2021

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 31 August 2026

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 3 471 861,25

EU contribution

€ 3 471 861,25

Coordinated by

FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - NOTIONES (iNteracting netwOrk of inTelligence and securIty practitiOners with iNdustry and acadEmia actorS)

Reporting period: 2024-03-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

NOTIONES is a Latin lemma meaning “notions, concepts, ideas, investigations, examinations, cognisance, becoming acquainted” and therefore refers to “being informed”. The NOTIONES project brings this concept to the security and law enforcement domain, aiming at improving the knowledge of security professionals and intelligence practitioners with the latest innovation and technology assets available.
The NOTIONES project (https://www.notiones.eu/) is a five years’ duration Coordination and Support Action project funded by the European Union. The NOTIONES Network main objective is to bring together experts in the fields of security and intelligence to identify the challenges and needs associated with contemporary intelligence processes and the role of technology in their operations. The NOTIONES Network of practitioners come from security and intelligence services of EU Member States and Associated Countries. The Network includes technology experts, experts in security research programming and practitioners (14 organisations) from military, civil, financial, judiciary, local, national and international polices, coming from 16 EU Members States, 4 Associated Countries and 1 Other Countries.
The output recommendations arising from the studies and discussions among the experts in the NOTIONES Network will be synthesized into specifications that can be provided to industry and academy across Europe, providing tangible benefits to those organisations and individuals engaged in intelligence, security and related work.
After an intensive initial phase of state-of-the-art review to identify challenges and gaps around research and technology assets, the project work is organised in an iterative cycle that will be ongoing for the whole duration of the project, with a total of five rounds of innovation monitoring and discussions, and new focus areas identified periodically.
Therefore, the NOTIONES project will continuously work in the monitoring of technologies and the definition of requirements and recommendations for their industrialization for intelligence and security applications will provide a great advantage to practitioners as well as themes for future EC-funded research projects in the fields of intelligence and security.
As the matching between technologies and intelligence needs or terrorist threats will be carried out, the most promising areas of innovation will be selected as focus of the working groups and will be subject to an in-depth monitoring based on horizon scanning techniques and investigation of research projects addressing them. This will allow to identify professionals, companies and academy representatives that will be involved in the interaction activities of NOTIONES, especially in conferences organised by the project.
Furthermore, the results of the NOTIONES project will be presented to the broad intelligence community in workshops towards the end of each year of the project and will contribute to the definition of further security and intelligence research.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In its third period, the NOTIONES project has fulfilled all its goals as planned for the period and it has continued with the already achieved good results from the first period, among which we can outline the following:

The project has strengthened further the collaboration of the whole network of NOTIONES practitioners, fostering open discussions on technology, ethics, and legal matters related to the challenges and requirements of law enforcement in their everyday duties.

NOTIONES third round of collaborative meetings and discussions has been completed and the fourth round is also ongoing, including:
• NOTIONES third round of WGs have run for 9 months: WG5 - Privacy-Enhancing Intelligence Cycle Processing Improvement Group, and WG6 - Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in intelligence.
• NOTIONES fourth round of WGs started on November 2024: WG7: Misuse of AI by criminals involving CBRNE and WG8: Emerging technologies and fighting organised crime
• The NOTIONES third Conference was held in person in Barcelona with a total of 83 participants.
• The NOTIONES fourth workshop was held online gathering 25 participants.


The Network of NOTIONES supported projects has grown, currently including 29 collaborating projects.
NOTIONES partners have attended several relevant events representing the project, more than 55 events attended in these 45 months of the project.

The partners have also made a big effort to disseminate the project findings creating various publications, including white papers and scientific publications. In M30 we have 2 scientific publications published as well as another 2 accepted and being published in the coming months.
Until M30, the project has written 12 publications and has delivered 11 presentations of NOTIONES project.



In addition, the project has consistently kept an eye on research progress and technological advancements in the realm of intelligence and security. It has been sharing these insights with the community. Concurrently, it has been formulating technology and research prerequisites, necessities, and strategic plans to lay the groundwork for enhancing the application of technological solutions by professionals. This is achieved through dialogues conducted in various project activities like Working Groups (WGs), workshops, and conferences.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Being a CSA, NOTIONES supports other stakeholders, scientists and projects, and the work focuses on identification, analysis and reporting of existing technologies that are expected to improve the intelligence work of the law enforcement practitioners.
NOTIONES project plan does not include the design, development of any technology for intelligence at all. Furthermore, it does not carry out any intelligence activity at all where the studied technologies may be used, but the project only supports collaboration and discussions on technology advancements among project partners and other stakeholders around law enforcement research. Therefore, no outcomes or activities of NOTIONES may pose ethics and societal risks to European citizens nor any other citizens, so no damage is expected from the project in these aspects.

In its first 45 months, the project has reviewed the state of the art of technologies supporting intelligence and counter terrorism and also 4 rounds of collaborative meetings among the experts have been held to discuss different aspects of the applicability of such technologies and other potential technologies that have been identified through the periodic monitoring and horizon scanning of the technology innovations supporting law enforcement activity.

First NOTIONES Conference, 15 June 2022, Brussels.

Fourth NOTIONES conference 12 June 2025

Second NOTIONES Conference 12 May 2023, Paris