SSRI Workshop #5: Evaluation of innovative security technologies: Building credibility as a step towards uptake

Along the road to market of innovative security technologies, building trust and increasing the credibility of R&I outcomes is a must.

Two aspects seem particularly relevant for gaining this trust, notably from the future users and buyers of these technologies, i.e. to demonstrate that the projects are developing the systems right, and to demonstrate that projects are developing the right systems. In the first case, we refer to verifying that the systems actually work and that they indeed fulfil the specified technical design requirements. In the second, we talk about validating that the systems fit their purpose and functions, including by assessing that it is compliant with certain measures of operational effectiveness and providing objective evidence that the services delivered by a system achieves its intended use in its intended operational environment.

While both are integral processes of any system development activity, assessing the operational relevance or the effectiveness of an innovative system in an operational scenario appear as a crucial task in a demand-driven market environment such as civil security.

The mandatory involvement of end-users in EU-funded security R&I projects has brought the offer and the demand side of the security market closer together. Likewise, it has opened a whole range of opportunities for researchers and technology developers to get direct feedback from the potential future buyers and users of their technologies already during the development stage. Much of this feedback can be obtained from validation, evaluation or demonstration exercises, where users have the opportunity to look, feel and experiment with new technologies in the operational environment where they are meant to be used.

With this background, the scope of this workshop is to:

• Discuss the value of evaluating the operational effectiveness of innovative security technologies and its influence in their further uptake;
• Share best practices to evaluate the operational effectiveness of innovative technologies during R&I projects and beyond;
• Describe the value that end-users can bring to the operational evaluation of innovative security technologies;
• Brainstorm on how harmonised tools, techniques and methods, tailored to the security domain, could contribute to increasing the credibility and reliability of innovative technologies and increase the trust of future buyers and users in the outcomes of security R&I projects.