Security

Background

The Security Helix was amongst the first tranche of Helix communities launched by Crowdhelix in early 2013, and is currently managed by the Crowdhelix Community Management team. We are, however, seeking expressions of interest from high-profile researchers in the field to take a leadership role for this Helix from 2021 onwards.

Scope

Closely linked with the activities of both the Cybersecurity Helix and the Society Helix, Crowdhelix’s Security Helix provides an Open Innovation community for experts seeking international collaborators to carry out research and innovation in support of the following objectives:

• fighting crime, illegal trafficking and terrorism, including understanding and tackling terrorist ideas and beliefs
• protecting and improving the resilience of critical infrastructures, supply chains, and transport modes
• strengthening security through border management
• improving Europe's resilience to crises and disasters
• ensuring privacy and freedom and enhancing the legal and ethical understanding of all areas of security, risk, and management
• enhancing the standardisation and interoperability of systems, including for emergency purposes
• supporting supranational security policies, including conflict prevention and peace building

Policy

Within the European Union’s Horizon Europe funding programme, several key areas of security research and innovation are detailed within the “Cluster 3” framework. Within this Cluster, civil security research is positioned under the wider umbrella of a capability-based approach to capacity-building in the security sector. Mission-oriented security actions also form part of the Horizon Europe framework, which aim to integrate the demands of many different end-users (citizens, businesses, civil society organisations and administrations, including national and international authorities, civil protection, law enforcement, border guards, etc.) to address the evolution of security threats and privacy protection, and the necessary societal aspects. Crowdhelix intends to support this endeavour by helping to widen participation in security research & innovation actions to communities beyond R&I stakeholders, which will help lead to more citizen-centric and co-developed outcomes, thereby promoting increased societal uptake.

BTL-COP

BTL-COP will carry out European-UK societal and technological capacity building activities with police authorities, prosecutors, judicial actors, training and academic partners to build trust, in-depth tacit knowledge, face-to-face engagement and leadership. The project develops an innovative Trust in Neighbourhood Groups (TING) community-police engagement, deriving from the Viking word for an early form of a parliament.

BTL-COP aims to identify, prevent and investigate major contemporary and emerging criminal activities linked to poverty-fuelled local criminal exploitation and aporophobia in UK/EU neighbourhood communities of practice. The project will demonstrate, test and validate social and technological research solutions, co-creating improved police-community engagement to reduce poverty-related crime, and establish community 'safe spaces'.

Together, partners help develop Police Authorities’ cutting-edge capabilities to identify, prevent and investigate criminal activities, developing early warning knowledge, threat detection methods, tools, training curricula and manuals for police authorities, security, prosecutorial and judiciary agencies, improving effectiveness in crime reporting, evidence-building, and investigating criminal activities.

As an R&I action, BTL-COP builds on best practice in coactive community-oriented policing, participatory research and communities of practice. BTL-COP draws on 90+ collective police authorities' years of effective community-police engagement, plus current and prior Horizon projects, to develop, promote, and disseminate highly successful COP models. The long term impact of BTL-COP is to recommend widescale future development of EU/UK trustworthy safe, sustainable local TING spaces to bring communities and police authorities together to build trust, enhance shared intelligence, leadership and resilience in the face of potential future catastrophes that may become highly vulnerable to g/local criminal exploitation