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Vigilant Maritime Surveillance of Critical Submarine Infrastructure

Project description

Increasing resilience for Europe’s submarine network infrastructure

The submarine networks in Europe are vital infrastructure for EU Member States, and any damage to them could have significant impacts. Organisations overseeing critical infrastructure face challenges from intentional threats, accidents, natural factors, and climate change. Resilience-enhancing measures are crucial to addressing these challenges effectively. The EU-funded VIGIMARE project aims to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure operators to threats against European submarine networks by developing an innovative solution to improve security and reduce the risks of physical attacks and cyberthreats. The project seeks to identify early warning signals and support analysis by mapping submarine systems, assessing vulnerabilities, and creating real-time awareness both above and under the surface of the submarine infrastructure.

Objective

The European submarine networks are vital critical infrastructure for the EU member states. This submarine cable and pipeline network is crucial for the European society and any failure or damage to it could potentially have an enormous effect on the societies. Due to the rapidly evolving threat and geopolitical landscape, especially with incidents like the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas infrastructure, organizations overseeing critical infrastructure face significant challenges. They must handle intentional threats while also grappling with growing problems caused by accidental and natural factors as well as climate change. These issues can worsen the effects of deliberate actions. To address these challenges effectively, it is crucial for these entities to implement resilience-enhancing measures.

The aim of VIGIMARE is to strengthen the resilience of Critical Infrastructure operators against threats to the European submarine critical infrastructure by developing, testing and evaluating an innovative solution to enhance security and reduce risks of physical and cyber-attacks on submarine cables and pipelines.

This will be accomplished by 1) mapping submarine systems, surveying cables and landing stations, and assessing vulnerabilities in the European submarine critical infrastructure network, 2) develop an automated threat detection approach, creating a real-time shared awareness of the surface above the submarine infrastructure to promptly indicate incidents to both critical infrastructure owners and member states authorities. By integrating a comprehensive resilience ecosystem with real incidents at sea, the project seeks to 3) identify early warning signals, support analysis, and pinpoint potential response activities to address physical, cyber and hybrid threats.

The result will be enhanced resilience for submarine critical infrastructure owners, supporting authorities to enforce the CER and NIS2 directives implementation in the EU member states.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL3-2023-INFRA-01

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Coordinator

LAUREA-AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY
Net EU contribution
€ 492 875,08
Address
RATATIE 22
01300 Vantaa
Finland
Region
Manner-Suomi Helsinki-Uusimaa Helsinki-Uusimaa
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (18)