Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MEDEA (Mediterranean practitioners’ network capacity building for effective response to emerging securitychallenges) Reporting period: 2019-12-01 to 2021-05-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project The MEDEA network of practitioners (NoP) is a multi-discipline NoP, whose members form four thematic communities of practice (TCPs). These TCPs are focused on: Management of Migration Flows and Asylum seekers; Border management and surveillance; Fight against cross-border crime and terrorism; and, lastly, Natural Hazards and Technological Accidents. The Community-of-Practice model that MEDEA is using, facilitates knowledge as follows: In the vertical direction, the Academic part of the network with a number of planned actions will facilitate the dissemination and awareness of technological/security solutions to practitioners. At the same time, the NoP will promote the practitioners’ demand for capabilities to representatives of the research community using a demand-driven Mediterranean Security Research and Innovation Agenda (MSRIA). In the horizontal direction, the NoP promotes the fruitful exchange of expertise and best practices in problem solving, standardisation needs, and industrialisation of innovative approaches. The second reporting period has proven to be extremely fruitful for MEDEA both in terms of communications, workshops, and webinars held, and of work submitted. All TCPs have achieved considerable progress, as is demonstrated by the deliverables submitted. The project’s partners demonstrated how the described in the Grant Agreement methodologies assisted the consortium in identifying and documenting fifty-five (55) capability gaps resulting in four Open Calls, aimed at linking the knowledge and experience acquired through constant interaction, to innovative solutions provided by the industry. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far This period has proven to be highly productive for the MEDEA consortium both in terms of communications, workshops, and webinars held, and of work/deliverables submitted. All TCPs have achieved considerable progress, which is indicated below as per each TCP.Concerning TCP1 (WP2), a webinar (in October 2020) and a workshop (in March 2021) were organised, in order to pinpoint, refine, assess, and analyse capability gaps’ findings related to the practitioners’ functions. Furthermore, the consortium submitted D2.3 Scenario Elaboration on management of migration flows, as well as D2.4 Open call to TCP-1 stakeholders. It should be noted that all four Open Calls (one per each TCP) invited solution providers, researchers, academics, policy makers and of course experienced practitioners in the corresponding fields to jointly explore proposals, ideas, and innovations so as to advance practitioners’ capabilities in various areas, and to tackle challenging operational gaps. As regards TCP2 (WP3), the partners prepared and submitted D3.3 Scenario Elaboration on joint border surveillance scenario, as well as D3.4 which is the open call to academia and industry.Pertinent to TCP3 (WP4), two distinct workshops were organised in April 2021, regarding drug smuggling, and online radicalisation. Moreover, three deliverables were concluded, namely D4.1 Database of cross-border crime scenarios, D4.2 Scenario Elaboration of TCP3 using the THOR Analysis, and D4.5 which pertains to the TCP3 open call. 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) WP1 produced an interactive map that displays security stakeholders operating in the M&BS region. The map was transfered in arcGIS playtform.WP2 will evaluate the research findings of TCP2 and TCP3 to complement their work and will focus more on the prevention aspects of migration.WP3 will pursue SOTA capabilities to respond to:need for credible border surveillance at the EU external borders in the M&BS Region.WP4 will focus on how to prevent people from turning to terrorism and stop future generations of terrorists from emerging, protect citizens and critical infrastructure and minimise the consequences of a terrorist attack.WP5 will propose resilience concepts, methods and techniques to attain results from practitioners’ best practices and to work towards the implementation of Disaster Resilience EU guidelines that should be implemented M&BS region wide.WP6 created a practitioner-driven strategy to engage with identified stakeholders for validating the MEDEA offerings.WP7 created one introductory video to illustrate the project’s, structure, objectives and methodology to achieve its goals.WP8 is organise workshops to co-define the capability gaps and prioritise them in a collaborative manner with other EU funded projects. THOR Nethodology application for MEDEA practitioner's network
