Security Research Event 2019

The 2019 Security Research Event (SRE 2019) was organised by the European Commission and the Ministry of the Interior in Finland as a side event of Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It took place on the 6th and 7th of November at the Helsinki Congress Paasitorni, in Helsinki, Finland.

Building on the outcomes of the previous SRE that took place in Brussels in 2018, the main theme of the 2019 event was "Building Bridges: Promoting Market Uptake by Reinforcing Synergies Between Security Research and Other Funding Instruments ". The SRE 2019 emphasised the need to deepen collaboration between funding schemes to ensure a successful market uptake of the positive outcomes of security research. The event also focussed on the need for security research to keep up to speed with a fast-changing environment to fully exploit the opportunities, and addressed the threats, posed by new technological trends such as Artificial Intelligence.

Agenda

6th of November 2019

7th of November 2019

Exhibition

Terrorist content online

DECOUNT

The project aims to design and disseminate an online campaign including videos and in particular a video game structured along binary decisions. The action focuses on frames, individual roles and decisions in a sophisticated and modular way by de-constructing extremist frames and challenging extremist roles. DECOUNT illustrates the consequences of extremist choices and the possible alternatives; it produces actual alternative frames and solutions to everyday problems.

VOX-POL

VOX-Pol is a partnering, research, training, and dissemination network that has as its core function comprehensive research, analysis, debate, and critique of topics in and issues surrounding violent online political extremism, and responses to it.

Border Security

MESMERISE

MESMERISE provides two complementary technologies for improved and fast detection of smuggled items like drugs, explosives or weapons.Able to work in non-divest condition increases the respect for privacy and intimacy avoiding explicit images.

PROFILE

PROFILE develops and tests modern data analytics tools with a view to improving Customs risk management techniques; while incorporating new and open data sources, including logistics big data, and product values accessible on e-commerce sites.

Artificial Intelligence

ASGARD

ASGARD aims to build an active and sustainable community of practitioners (LEA, industry, research) which goal is to help LEAs increase their technological autonomy by delivering every 6 months and following open source principles new tools.

AVIATOR (ISF)

The AviaTor project develops intelligence tools to reduce the time spent by LEAs on investigating online child sexual abuse material. These tools combine artificial intelligence, to classify imagery, with targeted online research capabilities.

FEATURECLOUD

FeatureCloud is a novel artificial intelligence (AI) platform, based on a ground-breaking new cloud infrastructure to integrate local AI globally without the need for any transfer of primary medical data – totally anonymous by default.

Smart Digital Agency

Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) digitalization program. Key areas of development are automation of business processes (application handling and decision making), intelligent self-service and ingtelligent work management. The automation part aims to have fully automated selected application processes in the future using RPA with the support of AI. Self-service part includes electronic services and chat/voice bots connected to backend systems. Intelligent work management will transform the current application processes to efficient human-machine collaboration processes.

Disaster risk management

ANYWHERE

ANYWHERE is a user-driven innovation action designed to empower exposed responder institutions and citizens to enhance their anticipation and pro-active response capacity in the face of high-impact weather and climate events. The ANYWHERE pan-European Multi-Hazard platform translates meteorological forecasts into impact early warnings and feeds into the A4EU decision support system. The full chain, including self-protection support, is being operationally tested for one year by civil protection authorities in different European countries.

HEIMDALL

HEIMDALL aims to provide an integrated tool for disaster management (primarily involving landslides, floods, and wildfires) by addressing the needs of the involved first responders in terms of interoperability and inter-organisational coordination.

INPREP

INPREP aims to prepare responders better, so more lives can be saved during natural disasters and crises. The principal goal is to improve collaborative response planning. To do so, IN-PREP is trialling a new training platform for CP agencies and first responders. It is an end-to-end, interoperable Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform featuring a multiplicity of modules to support dynamic scenario building, disaster-modelling, multi-agency command & control and sharing of the operational picture. Agencies using IN-PREP will be able to plan, train and collaborate better than even before.

ROCSAFE

ROCSAFE will improve how Chemical, Biological, and Radiation/Nuclear incidents are assessed, and help protect lives of crime scene investigators, by using robotics, sensors, and AI, so humans do not need to enter dangerous scenes to gather evidence.

TOXI-TRIAGE

Toxi-Triage project aims at accelerated and improved relief and delivery of situational awareness in an operational environment of CBRNE emergencies and natural hazards. It produces new rapid tools for the detection and traceability of CBRN threats, triage and individual monitoring of victims through the whole casualty journey of patients.
The project’s final field exercise FTX Disperse was carried out with TIC scenario with simulated chlorine in Mikkeli, Finland in May 2019 by the lead of South-Savo Regional Fire Service together with other security authorities and all technology providers of the project. In October 2018 FTX Focus was carried out with CWA scenario with simulated sarin in Athens, Greece with the lead of Hellenic Ministry of Defence together with military personnel and technology providers of the project. All Finnish partners of Toxi-Triage, South-Savo Regional Fire Service (SSAV) with briefing of FTX Disperse, University of Helsinki/Verifin (UH) with ToolBox, University of Jyväskylä (JYU) with Hyperspectral CBRNE detection and Environics (EOY) with ChemPro C- and RanidFly R/N detection methods are present in SRE2019 in Helsinki, Finland.

Hybrid Threat

Hybrid influencing and the city

Helsinki in the era of hybrid threats

Cities are responsible for providing channels for influencing while, also, playing a role in reacting to various hybrid threats. Aware of this, the City of Helsinki commissioned Helsinki in the era of hybrid threats project. The purpose of the produced report is to provide knowledge of hybrid influencing.

INVEST

The Inequalities, Interventions, and New Welfare State (INVEST) aims at increasing wellbeing of Finnish society during childhood, youth and early adulthood and preventing psychosocial risks compromising such development through innovative interventions. Based on cutting-edge research on the conditions and mechanisms involved at different periods of development, INVEST will evaluate and develop various universal and targeted interventions to improve the efficiency of the current welfare state institutions at critical points of the early life course. INVEST aims at providing a new model for the welfare states that is more equal, better targeted to problem groups, more anticipatory as well as economically and socially sustainable. INVEST is a Academy of Finland Flagship.

TUOVI

TUOVI is a multi-disciplinary digital collaboration platform aimed at professionals planning, researching and creating policy for security and safety issues in the Finnish context. It is a combination of social media, knowledge-sharing database and news services.

Speakers

Welcome

Andrea de Candido

DG HOME

Mr Andrea DE CANDIDO works for the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission where he is the Acting Head of the "Innovation and Industry for Security" Unit which deals with Security Research and Industrial Policy.

Among the responsibilities of the Unit is the definition of the Secure Societies part of the European Union Research & Innovation Framework Programme that enables cross border funding of research projects in the security dimension.

Before joining DG HOME Mr De Candido had been briefly working for the Research & Innovation Directorate General of the European Commission and, before that, had spent 25 years in the Italian Army from which he retired in 2013 with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

Laura Yli-Vakkuri

Director General of International Affairs, Finnish Ministry of the Interior

Laura Yli-Vakkuri has been Director General for International Affairs of the Finnish Interior Ministry since 2009. Ms Yli-Vakkuri has dealt with EU and International Affairs in the field of Justice and Home Affairs since 1998 when she joined the Ministry of the Interior, including some key tasks during the first two Finnish EU Presidencies in 1999 and 2006. She started her career in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs where she worked for 10 years. Ms Yli-Vakkuri has also worked as a national expert in the Council Europe in Strasbourg and in the European Commission.

Keynote

Maria Ohisalo

Maria Ohisalo is the Finnish Minister of the Interior. She is the Party Leader of the Green League and a member of the Helsinki City Council and Uusimaa Regional Council. Minister Ohisalo has done her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Eastern Finland and worked as a researcher at the City of Helsinki, the University of Eastern Finland and the Y-Foundation. She has also held several positions of trust, including in the Board of the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, and in the Psychiatric Medicine Board of the Helsinki University Hospital.
Her priorities in politics include integration of social justice and ecological sustainability. She considers that the promotion of preventive measures and fight against inequality should be at the heart of all sectors of politics.
Ohisalo’s physically active lifestyle originates in her keen interest in sport as a child. Her hobbies then included athletics, football and scouting.

Matthias Oel

Matthias Oel is Director for Borders, Interoperability and Innovation in DG Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission. Before assuming this position in May 2017 he was Director for Migration and Security Funds in the same DG from January 2016, Head of Unit for Asylum (as of April 2012) and Special Adviser in the Cabinet of the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy (as of January 2010). Matthias Oel started his career in the German Federal Ministry for Economics and joined the European Commission for the first time in 1995 as Seconded National Expert in the Cabinet of Commissioner Dr. Monika Wulf-Mathies (Regional Policy). In 1997 he moved to the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU where he worked as Counselor for Industry and Regional Policy during the German EU-Presidency 1999. Afterwards he became a Commission official and worked as Parliament and Council coordinator and Assistant to the Director General for Personnel and Administration. From 2004 to 2006 he was Member of the Cabinet of Vice-President Günter Verheugen mainly covering the Industry Policy dossier. In 2006 he was seconded to Berlin where he worked as Head of the Task Force "2007 EUPresidency" and subsequently Director for European Union Affairs in the Federal Ministry of Interior until joining the Cabinet of President Van Rompuy.

High-level panel

Andrea de Candido

Acting Head of Unit, DG HOME B4: Innvoation and Industry for Security

Mr Andrea DE CANDIDO works for the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission where he is the Acting Head of the "Innovation and Industry for Security" Unit which deals with Security Research and Industrial Policy.

Among the responsibilities of the Unit is the definition of the Secure Societies part of the European Union Research & Innovation Framework Programme that enables cross border funding of research projects in the security dimension.

Before joining DG HOME Mr De Candido had been briefly working for the Research & Innovation Directorate General of the European Commission and, before that, had spent 25 years in the Italian Army from which he retired in 2013 with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

Anya Sitaram

Rockhopper Media

Anya Sitaram is a communications consultant, documentary producer and professional conference moderator. A former journalist and BBC and Sky news anchor, Ms Sitaram oversees production at award winning independent production company Rockhopper Media.

She was regional communications lead for NHS England during the Salisbury Novichok poisoning incident, based at Salisbury hospital at the outset of the crisis and later co-ordinating public facing and internal communications for NHS England in tandem with police and other agencies.

Javier Quesada

Head of Research and Innovation in the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontx

Javier Quesada is the head of Research and Innovation in the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex. In support of EU Member States and developing the Agency’s own capabilities, his main goal with Frontex is to foster and implement technology foresight and research for border management and border security through its recently created Border Security Research Observatory. Also, Quesada leads on European innovation insertion for borders, with the performance of pilot projects, trials and competitions where innovative solutions of high TRL related to surveillance, border checks, identification and intelligence analysis, amidst others, are tested in a real operational environment. He chairs conferences, meetings and events where the dialogue with industry, academia and the community of border and security experts/users happens on a frequent basis. His department is actively involved in establishing and harmonising European technical standards applicable, for instance, to the acquisition of border control equipment, owned and used by the Member States or the Agency. These standards also target harmonised technical training and methodologies, such as the assessment of vulnerabilities of installed technical equipment.

Prior to that, also at Frontex he was responsible for intelligence and risk analysis with the operations division. Before joining Frontex in 2006, he developed his career as a criminal and strategic analyst in the Spanish National Police, being frequently engaged as expert in EU Council working groups and committees, and other international fora. In the period 2000-2004 he was EU Twinning Advisor in Bulgaria, supporting the reforms of the Ministry of Interior in the process of EU accession. In 2005-06 he was advisor on migration and borders in the Cabinet of the Spanish Minister of Interior.

He studied Law in Madrid, and Criminal Science in Salamanca.

Jean-Francois Junger

Deputy Head of Unit, Public Services
DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission

After 10 years of work as a robotic engineer at JET (Joint European Torus) a fusion research centre, Jean-Francois Junger joined the Commission. First he worked from 1998 until 2001 in DG Research on the subject of waste water as part of FP5 and on the Endocrine Disruptors. Then he moved to DG INFSO in the software unit for two years where he was in charge of the "Open Source Software" subject. In 2003 he joined the eTEN unit as part of the programme and followed project in many different domain. Since the launch of the CIP ICT-PSP programme in 2007, he has been the prime actor in supporting and promoting the launch of the large scale pilot with Member States and the launch of the "Connecting Europe Facility" telecom programme. Between 2012 and July 2018, as the deputy head of unit in the 'public services' unit, he strongly supported the transformation of the public sector towards an open government vision. He took a very active role in the definition of new eGovernment Action Plan. Since July 2018 he works as Deputy Head of Unit to strength European Cyber security capacity.

José Cebrian de Barrio

Spanish Ministry of the Interior

José Cebrian de Barrio is currently the Head of R&I and Emergency Communications at the Sub-directorate General for Information Systems and Communications for Security of the Spanish Ministry of Interior.

Paolo Venturoni

European Organisation for Security

Paolo Venturoni is the CEO of the European Organisation for Security (EOS) which represents the European security industry and research community in Brussels. Mr Venturoni has 25 years of international experience in corporate development and European affairs. Based in Brussels since 2002, he has extensive experience of security matters. He is a member of the Board of the Columbia University Alumni Association of Belgium and a member of the Board of the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO). Mr Venturoni obtained his MBA from Columbia University in New York and graduated in Physics from the University of Rome.

Procurement

Bertwin Lussenburg

Ministry of Justice and Security, Innovation Team

Since 1994, Bertwin Lussenburg has been Programme Manager at the Innovation Team of the Ministry of Justice and Security in the Netherlands. He is responsible for enhancing the use of innovative procurement, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, the innovation programme satellite applications for Justice and Security, launching customership and public-private cooperation. Previously he was Project Manager for the European Asylum Support Office (Malta) in Greece, Senior Advisor at the Directorate for European and International Affairs and the Taskforce for the Global Forum on Migration and Development (2007). Furthermore, Mr Lussenburg worked in the domain of asylum and for the Human Rights NGO CENIDH in Nicaragua. He studied Social Sciences and Law.

François Brizard

European Commission - DG Research and Innovation - European Innovation Council Task Force - Innovation Ecosystems

François Brizard is a Policy Officer for the European Commission (DG R&I). He joined in December 2014. He works for the European Innovation Council Task Force Unit in charge of Innovation Ecosystems. He works on the innovation dimension of the relevant EU policies and funding programmes and on the translation of the Innovation Policy agenda into specific actions. His current responsibilities include developing collaboration/co-creation models for innovative procurement.
He has a Masters in European Law - European studies (University of Strasbourg, France and University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg).

Piia Moilanen

Chef advisor, Innovative public procurements, Finnish Competence Centre for Sustainable and Innovative Public Procurement (KEINO)

Piia Moilanen works as product manager on innovative public procurement at Business Finland. Business Finland is the Finnish government organization for innovation funding and trade, travel and investment promotion. At the moment she also works part-time for KEINO, a Competence Centre for Sustainable and Innovative Procurements. Past years focus her work has been in enhancing innovations based on new technologies like AI and adopting platform economy in public sector.

Soraya Artiles Burgos

Guardia Civil (Spanish Ministry of Interior)

Soraya Artiles holds a Masters in Computer Science and Technology. With more than 18 years of experience in security and technology related projects, Soraya is enthusiastically pursuing innovative solutions that will further facilitate the mission of the Civil Guard Units. She has led the first kind of Pre-Commercial Procurement in the EU Research and Innovation programme Secure Societies, (i.e. CLOSEYE), and is participating in other EU innovation procurements (i.e. EWISA, EUCISE, CIVILnEXT, and MARINE-EO). She is currently the head of the Technology Innovation Office in Guardia Civil where she is preparing the Open Market Consultation phase for three national Pre-Commercial Procurements.

Stephan Corvers

Corvers Procurement Services B.V.

Stephan Corvers has over 20 years of experience in the field of European procurement and innovation procurement. He was co-founder and vice-chairman of the NVvA (Dutch Association for procurement and law). He is the founder, owner and managing director of Corvers Procurement Services – a private company operating in the field of European procurement since 2000. Corvers has been involved in a wide range of national, international and pan-European innovation procurement projects relating to new markets, new products or services, new distribution channels and new technologies. Mr Corvers is relationship manager for the European Assistance For Innovation Procurement-initiative, author of numerous publications and a frequent speaker.

Terrorist Content Online

Agne Kaarlep

Policy Officer, Radicalisation Unit DG HOME

Agne Kaarlep works in the European Commission on developing effective policies to counter terrorism and violent extremism online. This includes negotiations with the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament on the regulation to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online and the organisation of the actions under the umbrella of the EU Internet forum which coordinates voluntary cooperation between Member States, Europol, the industry led Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism as well as wider industry partners looking at progress in tackling terrorist content online and responding to new trends.

Prior to joining the Commission as a seconded national expert, Agne worked as a diplomat for the Estonian Ministry of the Interior in Brussels covering a wide range of security and counter terrorism issues.

Giacomo Francesco Speretta

LEONARDO, VP Business Development, Project Tensor

Giacomo Francesco Speretta is the Vice-President of Business Development at Leonardo in Genoa, Italy. He is responsible for shaping the new international footprint of Leonardo’s cyber security division world-wide. Previously he was Leonardo’s Vice-President of regional marketing Central Asia.
He has also worked as Russian branches director for Selex Es in Genoa and Moscow, and as a sales manager for Elsag Datamat in Genoa, Italy, developing business in authomation, security, transport and logistics. He holds a MBA in international business engineering and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Genoa.

João Paulo Ventura

Judiciary Police - National CT Unit (PJ - UNCT)

Since 1994, Mr Ventura has represented Portugal in international cooperation fora on Counter Terrorism and Counter Violent Extremism including at the EU’s Police Working Group on Terrorism, Europol, Interpol and Terrorism Working Party. He represented Portugal in the Counter Terrorism Task Force at Europol Headquarters in the Hague, the Netherlands from 2001-2003. Mr Ventura is a trainer on CT and CVE at national and international levels notably at CEPOL. He is the holder of a university degree in Psychology ( September 1989), and Post-Graduate courses in Psychology and Law (1991-1993) and Forensics Medicine (1999). He was the Auditor of National Defence at the National Defence Institute from 1996-1997 and is a guest teacher at several Portuguese universities.

Marie Maurey

Call coordinator under ISF PoliceUnit E4: Union actions and Procurement, DG HOME

Marie Maurey works in the European Commission on programming and implementing calls preventing radicalisation leading to violent extremism under ISF Police. This includes the drafting of the priorities of the calls and the selection of the projects in collaboration with the Prevention of Radicalisation unit. The projects selected are therefore implemented through grant agreements, with the support of one project officer per project. As a call coordinator, Marie has a good overview of the projects and she is regularly in contact with the Unit dealing with H3020 always looking to create more synergies between the 2 funds.

Monica Florea

SIVECO Romania

Dr Monica Florea is the Head of the European Projects Department at SIVECO Romania. She leads SIVECO’s participation in FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020 projects (RED-Alert – project coordinator, EnergyShield, NEWTON, SMILE, EUNOMIA, DeepHealth, etc). She is responsible for the coordination of SIVECO projects co-financed by the European Commission and the collaboration with national and international bodies. She has two degrees from the University Al.I Cuza of Iasi in Computer Science and Finance and Banks, a MSc in Distributed Processing from the University Al.I Cuza, and a PhD in Management from the University Lucian Blaga of Sibiu. She is PMP certified and a Management of Risk Registered Practitioner.

Border Security

Freja De Middeleer

Risk analyst, Belgian Customs and Excise, Risk Management Department

Freja De Middeleer became part of the Belgian Customs Administration (BCA) in 2014. She worked at the Risk Management Department, overseeing common risk analysis for safety and security purposes. After a two-year break working as an academic researcher in illicit drug markets, Ms De Middeleer became one of the coordinators within the Risk Management Department of the BCA, ensuring that all national and international projects involving risk management are aligned. Ms De Middeleer is also participating in the Pan-European Network of Customs Practitioners project (Horizon 2020 funded) on behalf of the BCA.

Luc Hardy

Government Relations EMEA, Smiths Group

Luc Hardy joined Smiths Group’s Government Relations team in 2016, where he works in support of the group and its divisions, including and primarily for the security and defence systems division Smiths Detection. His main fields of operation are in Ports & Borders protection, Urban Security, CBRN defence and aviation security.
In 2018, Luc was appointed a co-chair of the European Organisation for Security’s Integrated Border Security working group to lead the association’s advocacy work in Customs Security.
He held previous positions at strategic advisory firm Brunswick Group in Brussels and at the American Chamber of Commerce in France. Luc holds a Masters degree in European Affairs from Paris-Sorbonne University.

Micha Slegt

Customs administration of the Netherlands

Micha Slegt has a background in Chemistry, his PhD study was completed in 2006 at Leiden University. In 2005 Mr Slegt joined the laboratory unit of the Customs Administration of the Netherlands as a senior scientist. His studies into the use of detection and selection technology and statistical methods for Customs applications started in 2009. In 2013 he was awarded the World Customs Organization Diplôme d’Honneur for his innovative work. Representing his administration, Mr Slegt is a member of the EU Customs Detection Technology Project Group of the European Commission, DG TAXUD.

Sami Rakshit

Finnish Customs

Sami Rakshit is the Director and Head of the Enforcement Department at Finnish Customs. He has worked in the field of customs since 1999 and has held various customs management functions including Head of Customs Intelligence and Head Investigator for Economic Crime. He has a special interest in modern technology for customs enforcement and intelligence-led law enforcement. Sami holds a Master of Law Degree from Helsinki University and he speaks Finnish, English, Swedish and German.

Wilhelmus van Heeswijk

Wilhelmus van Heeswijk is responsible for security technology developments, customs control equipment and the implementation of smart border and supply chain security measures including research and innovation.

Mr van Heeswijk is the chairperson of the EU customs detection technology project group. Furthermore, he is a customs policy adviser to the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Security Research Programme and the EU representative at the World Customs Organisation Technical Expert Group on Non-Intrusive Inspection equipment.

Artificial Intelligence

Jean-Francois Junger

Deputy Head of Unit, Public Services
DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission

After 10 years of work as a robotic engineer at JET (Joint European Torus) a fusion research centre, Jean-Francois Junger joined the Commission. First he worked from 1998 until 2001 in DG Research on the subject of waste water as part of FP5 and on the Endocrine Disruptors. Then he moved to DG INFSO in the software unit for two years where he was in charge of the "Open Source Software" subject. In 2003 he joined the eTEN unit as part of the programme and followed project in many different domain. Since the launch of the CIP ICT-PSP programme in 2007, he has been the prime actor in supporting and promoting the launch of the large scale pilot with Member States and the launch of the "Connecting Europe Facility" telecom programme. Between 2012 and July 2018, as the deputy head of unit in the 'public services' unit, he strongly supported the transformation of the public sector towards an open government vision. He took a very active role in the definition of new eGovernment Action Plan. Since July 2018 he works as Deputy Head of Unit to strength European Cyber security capacity.

Nada Milisavljevic

European Commission, DG HOME B4: Innovation and Industry for Security

Nada Milisavljevic is a policy officer in the Unit "Innovation and Industry for Security" of DG HOME, where she is the scientific coordinator for the area of AI. Before joining the European Commission, Nada was a researcher at the "Signal and Image processing Centre" of the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, and she is (co)author of around 100 scientific publications in the areas of image processing and data fusion.

Panagiotis Kikiras

European Defence Agency

Panagiotis Kikiras is currently Head of the Technology and Innovation Unit at the European Defence Agency in Brussels. Through its work on innovative research, the Directorate supports EDA Member States in their efforts to cooperate, promote and manage cooperative Research and Technology projects. It identifies dual-use synergies and opportunities with the European Commission and the European Space Agency to enhance civil-military cooperation, interoperability and effective R&T spending.

Seán Gaines

Vicomtech, Director of International Projects at Vicomtech

Seán Gaines has previously he has held the posts of Principal Researcher, Consultant to the Government of Navarre, Principal Software Engineer for Netscape Communications in Dublin, Ireland and Mountain View, California. He has been part of the launch of the Mozilla Foundation and a representative to the ISO 10646 JTC. He has served as an invited professor at the University of the Basque Country and is an invited professor at the University of Ulster, and a member of the Dublin City University Research Advisory Council.

Stéphane Duguin

Europol

As Officer of the French National Police, Mr Stephane Duguin has held positions in several departments: Judicial Police, Public Safety, and the International Cooperation Office. Starting in 2009 in Europol, he led key operational projects, such as the setup of the Europol Operational Centre and the creation of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). After being the EC3 chief of staff, he is currently the head of the European Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) within the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in Europol. As a leader in the digital transformation, he is promoting innovative responses to novel criminal models, focusing on disruptive technologies and building on public/private partnerships.

Vito Morreale

ENGINEERING Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A.

Vito Morreale is the Director of the Industry and Security Technologies, Research and Innovation (IS3) laboratory at ENGINEERING Ingegneria Informatica. He coordinates more than 70 researchers (based on Palermo, Trento, Rome, Lecce, Naples, Siena, Milan) plus several dozens of software developers and functional analysts, involved in more than 35 running European and National research projects. Among such projects implemented by the IS3 lab within European consortia, DANTE, ASGARD, SURVANT, ANITA, and TRILLION address the AI for security topic or develop AI-based technologies and solutions. In the security domain, the IS3 Lab also addresses the topics of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Disaster Resilience, Border and External Security and Digital Security, as well as Defense. Since 2002, he has been coordinating several complex research projects. His scientific background, expertise and experiences include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Agent-Oriented Computing (AOC), Software Engineering, Service-Oriented Computing (SOC), Big Data. He is the author of more than 30 scientific papers.

Disaster Risk Management

Anna-Mari Heikkilä

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd

Anna-Mari Heikkilä, DSc (Tech), is an expert in safety and security risks and their analysis. She currently works as a Senior Scientist at VTT, where her responsibilities include strategic planning and leading research projects both on a national and international level. Currently, Anna-Mari Heikkilä is leading the Resilient Society opportunity area within VTT’s strategy. She has extensive experience as a project manager and a partner in national and EU projects, for example FP7-project CRISMA and in H3020 projects Resistant and Cyber-MAR. In addition to being involved in many national and international networks, she is currently VTT’s representative at EARTO in the Security and Defence Research Group, and at ECSO Standardisation and Certification Working Group.

Daniel Sempere-Torres

Daniel Sempere-Torres is PhD Professor of Environmental Engineering at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya(UPC), and Director of the Center of Applied Research in Hydrometeorology( CRAHI). He has 25 years of experience in hydrometeorological modelling, Flood Early Warning Systems and climate emergencies risk management. Currently, he is coordinator of the Horizon 2020 innovation action ANYWHERE.

Ivonne Herrera

Senior Scientist, SINTEF, Associate Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, President of the Resilience Engineering Association

Dr. Ivonne A. Herrera is a Senior Scientist at SINTEF and Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway. Currently, Ivonne is President of the Resilience Engineering Association a global Community of Practice involving those who are leading research and developing practical applications to enhance resilience across diverse domains and leads the Norwegian Gemini Centre for resilient critical infrastructures and societies. She has degrees in electrical engineering (Colombia), Masters in Aeronautical maintenance and Production (France) and PhD in Safety Management and Resilience Engineering (Norway). She has more than 20 years' experience within the industry and research for aviation, petroleum and recently healthcare domains. Since 2006, she performs research in the area of resilience exploring how to implement resilience in practice. Other research areas include safety management, risk governance, societal safety and innovation management. She has been vice-chair of the Scientific Committee of Clean Sky Joint Undertaking. Ivonne currently co-leads STERNA project cooperation Norway – Brazil, high-level education on resilience. She was Project Coordinator of H3020 project DARWIN Expect the unexpected and know how to respond addressing operationalization of resilience for crisis management.

Jelena Milos

European Commission, DG ECHO

Jelena is a policy officer working on disaster risk reduction policies at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations. Previously she was working on climate action policies. She is a chemical engineer with a masters in environmental policy and regulation.

Sebastien Penzini

Risk Knowledge and Analysis
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia

Sebastien works as the UNISDR focal point for disaster risk knowledge in the European Region. He is in charge of supporting programmes in liaison with risk assessment, disaster loss databases and knowledge sharing. Sebastien joined UNISDR in 2011 for the preparations of the Third Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. Between 2012 and 2017, Sebastien worked on the organisation of the UNISDR global conferences including the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. His work with UNISDR also included the development of an innovative public private partnership focused on disaster risk education and disaster resilience of small and mid-size businesses. The project reached a large audience of students, individuals and business owners through activities led in collaboration with partners like the Economist Intelligence Unit, The Florida International University and the City of New Orleans. Sebastien holds a Masters Degree in International Relations and Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies (Sc-Po), France. Sebastien speaks French, English and some Spanish.

Hybrid Threat

Aurel Sari

Aurel Sari is an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Exeter. He is the Director of the Exeter Centre for International Law, a Fellow of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and a Fellow of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. Dr Sari is an expert in public international law. His scholarship focuses primarily on international conflict and security law and the law relating to military operations. He has published widely on the law of armed conflict, the status of forces agreements, peace support operations, international human rights law, the legal framework of European security and defence policy and the legal dimension of hybrid threats.

Georgios Giannopoulos

Dr Georgios Giannopoulos holds a degree in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, a PhD in Engineering from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Royal Military Academy of Belgium and a Management degree from Solvay Brussels School in Economics and Management. He is currently carrying out research for supporting EU Policies in the domain of critical infrastructure risk and resilience assessment, interdependencies and economic impact of critical infrastructure disruption, as well as on standardization and certification in CBRNE and CIP domains (including cyber). He has been involved in several training activities in various European Countries in order to support their efforts on improving the protection of their technological systems and critical infrastructures. He is currently leading a research team for developing a conceptual framework for Hybrid Threats.

Hanna Smith

Director of Strategic Planning and Response at the Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats and visiting professor for academic year 2019-2020 at the College of Europe, Brugge

Dr Smith is an expert on hybrid threats, Russia and Eurasia and Great Power identity with research interests including security studies, international relations and institutions as well as regional and Nordic cooperation. Her latest publication is “Strategic Culture in Russian Neighbourhood” (Lexington 2019) with Katalin Miklossy (eds.). She has published numerous articles in books, academic journals and newspapers, and has taught courses at the University of Helsinki and the University of Eastern Finland. She comments on hybrid threats, Russia and international affairs in both the Finnish and the international media.

Ilkka Salmi

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Finland

Ilkka Salmi has served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, which is the ministry for internal security and migration, since 1 July 2018. He is a member of the Committee for EU Affairs, the Arctic Advisory Board dealing with Finland’s Strategy for the Arctic Region, the National Emergency Supply Council and the Council of the Finnish Red Cross. Ilkka Salmi also serves as Chair of the Advisory Board on Gambling and the steering and monitoring group for the Internal Security Strategy and as Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board for National Defence Education.
He worked as Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service in 2007–2011, and before joining the Ministry of the Interior, he served as Director of the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre and at the Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security of the European Commission.
Ilkka Salmi holds a Master of Laws degree and is trained on the bench. He is married and has three sons.

Jonna Turunen

Helsinki Police Department

Jonna Turunen is the Head of Criminal Investigation at the Helsinki Police Department. She has 20 years' experience in law enforcement as a detective, a head investigator and a head of unit. Before being appointed to her current position she worked as the Head of Serious Violent Crime investigation unit. She holds a Masters degree in Law from the University of Helsinki.

Tiina Ferm

Hybrid Threats coordinator, Ministry of the Interior, Finland

At the moment Tiina Anneli Ferm is working in the Policing Steering Unit. Her core duties are ministerial–level issues related to strategic planning and steering of policing. There are about 9,800 man-years in the police force. The work includes preparation and follow-up of Government strategy and policy documents and other programming issues, providing guidance to yearly performance plan and legislative drafting. As Hybrid Threats are priority in the Finland’s EU-Presidency, she is appointed also a Head of Countering Hybrid Threats in the internal security branch. In that role she conducts threat assessments and improves coordination in countering Hybrid Threats both nationally and internationally.

Prevention of Cyber Crime in the strategic level is also one of her duties. Developing the preparedness to Cyber Threats and legal advice in Cyber norms are the key tasks in this area.

Closing Plenary

Andrea de Candido

DG HOME

Mr Andrea DE CANDIDO works for the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission where he is the Acting Head of the "Innovation and Industry for Security" Unit which deals with Security Research and Industrial Policy.

Among the responsibilities of the Unit is the definition of the Secure Societies part of the European Union Research & Innovation Framework Programme that enables cross border funding of research projects in the security dimension.

Before joining DG HOME Mr De Candido had been briefly working for the Research & Innovation Directorate General of the European Commission and, before that, had spent 25 years in the Italian Army from which he retired in 2013 with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

Ilkka Salmi

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Finland

Ilkka Salmi has served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, which is the ministry for internal security and migration, since 1 July 2018. He is a member of the Committee for EU Affairs, the Arctic Advisory Board dealing with Finland’s Strategy for the Arctic Region, the National Emergency Supply Council and the Council of the Finnish Red Cross. Ilkka Salmi also serves as Chair of the Advisory Board on Gambling and the steering and monitoring group for the Internal Security Strategy and as Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board for National Defence Education.
He worked as Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service in 2007–2011, and before joining the Ministry of the Interior, he served as Director of the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre and at the Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security of the European Commission.
Ilkka Salmi holds a Master of Laws degree and is trained on the bench. He is married and has three sons.

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Security Research Event Project Showcase

Security Research Event 2019 Post-Event round up

Summary

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