CERIS – Community for European Research and Innovation Security

With CERIS, the EU Commission has established a new community of users in the security domain. The CERIS expert group is entitled to bring together academia, research institutes, public authorities as well as practitioners from industry, to build disaster resilient societies with more effective border management and better measurements to fight crime and terrorism.

CERIS: Streamlining all security research activities under one umbrella

An efficient research and innovation process in the security domain – including fighting crime and terrorism, protection of critical infrastructure, disaster and resilient societies as well as border management – is driven by effective collaboration of all it’s stakeholders: policy makers, security practitioners (law enforcement, border guards, customs, first responders), and societal actors (researchers, academia, industry, civil society) alike.

The commission therefore established the Community of Users for Safe, Secure, and Resilient Societies (CoU) in 2014, however, due to widening its scope in context of the novel Horizon Europe programme between 2021 – 2027, the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) has come into place.

CERIS is integrating all these existing security-related stakeholders and aims to analyse identified capability needs as well as gaps in its corresponding areas. It is dedicated to find available solutions, potential funding as well as standardisation procedures for research – related needs.

About 1,500 registrants are involved in this platform, which regularly holds thematic events to participate in security research. Participants included policy makers, end users, academia, industry, and civil society.

Staff working document: Enhancing security through research and innovation

The overall direction of the EU security policies is being elaborated in the recently released staff working document entitled “Enhancing security through research and innovation”, which provides details on the main objectives and scope of the EU security research and innovation agenda

The document mentions examples of how EU security research promoting innovative technologies and knowledge sharing benefits law enforcement authorities, border guards, and first responders. The program also includes projects ranging from fighting crime and terrorism to managing borders and responding to disasters. In addition, it recommends the movement from a reactive to a proactive approach for addressing civil security.

As a result of this document, EU country authorities and EU agencies will be able to take advantage of optimal implementation of research results.

Call for experts

Currently, CERIS is looking for experts who would provide the European Commission with specialist advice and technical expertise in the thematic areas covered by CERIS (fighting crime and terrorism, including the protection of critical infrastructure; disaster resilient societies; border management and strengthening security research and innovation.

Interested applicants can send their CV and supporting documents by 14 March 2022. Further details may be found in the call for experts.