The largest research programme ever with a total budget of some €80 billion, Horizon 2020 is one of the EU’s flagship initiatives. Efus is associated with four European projects that benefit from H2020 funding.
Paris, France, May 2018 – The European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (H2020) is the largest coordinated research effort ever undertaken with a record budget of €80 billion and a duration of seven years (2014-2020).
With the objective of contributing to Europe’s “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”, H2020 couples research and innovation and focuses on three areas:
“excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenges”. The goal is to ensure that Europe “produces world-class science and technology that drives economic growth.”
Although it is predominantly focused on sciences, H2020 also addresses societal challenges such as health; demographic change; food security; clean and efficient energy; smart and green transport; environment and resource efficiency, and inclusive, innovative and reflective societies.
One area concerns particularly Efus: “Secure societies – protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens”. “Today, keeping citizens safe means fighting crime and terrorism, protecting communities from natural and man-made disasters, thwarting cyber-attacks and guarding against illegal trafficking in people, drugs and counterfeit goods,” says the programme. “EU research and innovation is developing new technologies to protect our societies, while respecting privacy and upholding fundamental rights – two core values at the heart of EU security research. These technologies have a significant potential to stimulate economic activity through new products and services and create jobs.” The amount dedicated to this area in particular is €1.695 billion.
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Efus associated with four H2020-funded projects on urban security
Efus is either a partner or follows three projects on urban security that are funded by H2020: Medi@4sec on social media and security; MINDb4ACT on countering radicalisation in prison, PRACTICIES on countering radicalisation in particular among young people, and CITYCoP on new technologies and community policing.
Here is a brief description of each project:
Efus is a partner in this research project coordinated by the University of Warwick (United Kingdom) that seeks to understand how social media can be used to fight crime and the fear of crime while also preserving civil liberties. As a project partner, Efus wishes to draw attention to the needs and expectations of local authorities on this issue so that they can be the subject of adapted research studies.
This project associating 18 European research organisations and police forces is based on the assumption that violent radicalisation “requires a more comprehensive and holistic approach addressing not only security concerns but also the framing of the problem in social and psychological terms.” The project thus seeks to overcome the limitations of conventional research methodologies by enabling all stakeholders (academia, Law Enforcement Agencies, private sector, governments, municipalities, first-line respondents and other practitioners) to co-design new prevention practices that tackle the security, political, societal and ethical dimensions of violent radicalisation.
Efus follows this project and has been invited to take part in some of its meetings and events.
> PRACTICIES (Partnership Against Violent Radicalisation in Cities)
Efus is a partner in this project developed by the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès with the objective of better understanding the human roots of violent radicalisation and characterising its different processes according to their origins in order to build more effective prevention tools and practices. One of 25 European partners, Efus is in charge of coordinating a working group made up of local authority representatives, helping them to implement pilot projects and disseminating the project’s results.
> CITYCoP
Efus is also associated with CITYCoP, a project on new technologies and community policing. See our article on their final conference here.
Regular updates about each of these projects can be found on Efus Network.
