Information management topic 1: Civilian humanitarian mission personnel tracking

Topic description

Scope:

Specific challenge:

Civilian intervention staff in humanitarian missions is quite often at risk due to the instability of the countries of deployment and possibly due to the action of adversary forces still trying to gain the control of the country, the population and offered support. Their security is of a paramount importance.

Scope:

Proposals should address the problem of tracking (from the headquarters) the assets (e.g. Automatic Vehicle Location – AVL – technologies) and the staff of the missions deployed in third countries for instance in the CSDP context. Real-time tracking may help to reduce the exposure to security risks of these missions. The proposed solution should integrate and/or complement seamlessly the communication system in use (either standard or specific) and, if any, the Control and Command system in place (even if abroad). It must integrate features to assure its own security not being usable if in wrong hands. It should also integrate navigation/guidance (in the field) of assets and staff, using European GNSS where appropriate. Cost effectiveness should be considered (both acquisition and operation) as clients are quite often NGOs with limited resources.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between €3m and €5m would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

This project should lead to the development of novel secure communication and tracking solutions/technologies for civilian missions, in particular those of the European External Action Service. Through better tracking of civilian intervention staff it should lead to more efficient and effective humanitarian missions. Ultimately, it should reduce threats to personnel on the ground and contribute to a more efficient implementation of such missions.

Type of action: Research & Innovation Actions

International cooperation