Advanced versatile artificiaAdvanced versatile artificial intelligence technologies and interconnected cross-sectoral fully-operational national focal points for combating illicit firearms trafficking

Project Information

Ceasefire

Grant agreement ID: 101073876

DOI

10.3030/101073876

Project closed

EC signature date 20 July 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• Civil Security for Society

Total cost

€ 5 862 598,04

EU contribution

€ 4 999 808,75

Coordinated by

ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Ceasefire (Advanced versatile artificiaAdvanced versatile artificial intelligence technologies and interconnected cross-sectoral fully-operationalnational focal points for combating illicit firearms trafficking)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

CEASEFIRE integrates social science and humanities (SSH) disciplines, which are essential for the successful implementation of the project. More in detail, it integrates some activities into its architecture that are strongly related to SSH, such as law, sociology, international relations, political science, etc. During the first reporting period, the CEASEFIRE research team started working on some of these activities. In particular, in T1.3 it focused on legal, ethical and privacy aspects monitoring, in T1.4 on societal dimension analysis and in WP2 (T2.2 T2.4 and T2.5) on criminological analysis, organisational and operational aspects related to the full establishment of NFFPs, and the trans-border cross-jurisdictional framework harmonisation. All these activities are in progress and they will be completed as per the GA. In all of them, different SSH disciplines have been and will be used in order to reach useful outputs and outcomes.
The SSH disciplines have been also used as a way to inform the technical development of the project’s solutions, as well as the EU’s overall policy-making on firearms trafficking. Through policy, legal and criminological analysis of the state-of-the-art on national and EU policy frameworks and practices, compounded with empirical research, the project gathers social science evidence on the gaps and inconsistencies in investigating firearms trafficking across borders. This entails areas such as data collection and exchange, prosecution, modus operandi and operational challenges, legislative gaps, and the implementation and operation of NFFPs. This policy relevant evidence is crucial both for the project internally, as it informs the technological development of the operational gaps where innovation is most necessary, as well as beyond the scope of the project, as it will instrumentalise the project’s policy recommendations in the aforementioned areas.

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

During the first half of the project (first reporting period) the consortium focused on designing the proposed solutions, by consulting with the involved end-users, to define detailed requirements on how the proposed solutions could assist them in their day to day efforts to combat illegal firearm transactions. After the user requirements were defined, the system (functional and non-functional) ones were exported, as well as the individual and overall architectures (for the applications and the CEASEFIRE platform respectively). In addition, the fundamental methods and algorithms (AI, image and text analysis etc.) were developed by the relevant partners.As the project progressed, the first prototypes of the various applications were developed and showcased initially within the consortium, and later to relevant external stakeholders. Moreover, the pilot demonstrations of the project have been planned and are under way to be performed during the 2nd period, including several training sessions, hackathons and 2 public events, that will further push the outreach of the project.
In addition to the technical work performed, the consortium was active in the communication and dissemination activities, by participating in relevant workshops, webinars and meetings organised either by sister projects (7 of them already identified and connected with), or relevant organisations (e.g. EMPACT firearms). It is worth mentioning that the consortium has established a communication channel with EMPACT firearms, which has proven very useful for the technical developments as well, since the consortium has been able to receive valuable feedback from more end users. Moreover, the work on the establishment of fully functional National Firearms Focal Points (NFFP) is progressing according to the plan (more details provided below in the policy relevant section).Finally the first steps towards exploitation have been performed, with the first market and cost benefit analysis performed.

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)

Ceasefire during the first period has achieved progress beyond the state of the art in technical components, as can be proven by the 10 scientific publications already published or under review in recognised peer-reviewed conferences and journals. This is expected to continue during the 2nd period, as the technical solutions keep being developed and maturing.
With respect to exploitable results and the road to market, the consortium has identified the list of potentially exploitable results and has created an initial exploitation plan. This work will continue and intensify during the 2nd part of the project, as the various tools will mature and move closer to the market (targeting TRL 7 or 8).