demonstRation of EU effective lArge sCale tHreat and crIsis maNaGement OUTside the EU

Project Information

Reaching out

Grant agreement ID: 700151

DOI

10.3030/700151

Project terminated on 13 November 2019

EC signature date 8 June 2016

Start date 1 October 2016

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

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

Total cost

€ 21 101 721,25

EU contribution

€ 18 811 558,38

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Reaching out (demonstRation of EU effective lArge sCale tHreat and crIsis maNaGement OUTside the EU)

Reporting period: 2018-10-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

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 six 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.

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

The Consortium partners contributed to the development of the Collaborative framework through interaction among WP2 beneficiaries. In particular work towards the attainment of the objective was carried out through the construction and enlargement of the End User Platform, identification of gaps and needs of end users in order to identify key issues. This activitiy entailed strong interaction with stakeholders through meetings (virtual and face-to-face) and documental research. The planning of the ROSE Platform activities and the better definition, in the light of the progress of the Project, of the outputs to be expected from this activity was conducted.
A fruitful and collaborative environment involving different stakeholders was initiated through contacts between the beneficiaries and the different actors (end users, policymakers, SMEs and industry etc.). The work was conceived for interaction and outputs to be in continuous evolution throughout all the phases of the project. A set of first results took shape already in the first phase of the Project.
Development of the new tools to be included in the platform was under way at the time of suspension, as well as work on the identification of existing tools which might fruitfully be included for interaction with the system.
Research on public standards and interoperability protocols was initiated and under way at the time of suspension.
Organizational work and scenario development were made in the framework of WPs 6, 7 and 8 in particular by the demo leaders. Demo organizers engaged in work with third parties. UNS in particular entered contractual agreements with third parties identified for the Asian Demo described in WP8 for the climate extremes and disaster demo in Asia and held high level contacts with public bodies in those countries. MDA setup the regional platform with the regional partners, agreed on the objectives of the pilot and work distribution, contacted the respective Civil Protection authorities to obtain their support together with other external partners (UN OCHA, EU Embassies). The administrative framework needed for the transfer of funding to the regional partners was set up. The general concept of the pilot as developed by the task leader was discussed with the regional partners and respective authorities.
The UCL team involved in the WP6 Ebola crisis demonstration, planned in Guinea (Conakry), kept in touch with the local actors, primarily the Ministry of Health and was already collaborating with stakeholders for practical demo arrangements (e.g. local Guinean authorities for support, logistics, and ethics) as well as with the European stakeholders who expressed interest in the demonstration (i.e. DG DEVCO, DG ECHO, and EEAS).
A meeting was organized to present and explain the relevance of the project Reaching Out to a representative of DG ECHO in order to ease the mutual understanding of complementarities and connections between the objectives of the demonstrations outside the EU and the mechanism of response to crisis developed by DG ECHO (e.g. European union Civil Protection Mechanisms; European Emergency Response Capacity including the European Medical Corps and voluntary pool). One of the goals was to assess the potential implication of DG ECHO in the demonstrations abroad.
International cooperation was developed in the framework of the relapse of the demo outcomes on EU policy (in particular with DG ECHO) and with local authorities in the demo countries.
These elements are included in the implementation of the project. At the time of suspension no elements were yet available for benchmarking.
The framework of the project at large promoted a strong focus on citizens and society through the engagement of stakeholders representing a wide range of sectors (end users, policymakers, NGOs, local authorities and groups) enhancing also the potential of international cooperation.
Initial activity was undertaken through interaction with DG ECHO and with relevant stakeholders.
The consortium, at the time of suspension, was planning to widen the access to the Catalogue to external parties for the scope of enhancing European presence on the market.
At the time of suspension, the state of this objective was too early for actual implementation.

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)

Not applicable. The Project was suspended and then terminated beforethe progress of the state of the art and impacts were measurable.