Stakeholder Message Mapping and Communication Training

Building resilience requires effective communication with the public before, during and after any major emergency – and when things go wrong bad communications practices are often part of the problem.

That’s why DRIVER has a dedicated work package on communication as part of its work on civil society resilience. The work is being undertaken by a unique multi-national partnership between public sector communications specialists (Q4PR), researchers (University of Stuttgart and TNO) and a civil protection NGO (Austrian Red Cross).

The work package runs throughout DRIVER and is currently carrying out research in two practical areas; framing effective messages for stakeholder groups and implementing training for end users on the key principles of communication for public resilience.

More information on this topic is available here:

http://www.driver-project.eu/content/how-talk-public%E2%80%93-and-what-say

The second 2016 PSCE Conference has taken place in Athens!

• Date: 22 November 2016 (side event), 23-24 November 2016 (conference)
• Location: Athens, Greece
• Preliminary programme: Border security – control & surveillance; Natural disasters; Security by Telecommunications in transport

The list of all PSCE conferences is available here.

Population density and distribution is a key variable in designing strategies or assessing the impacts of existing environmental or social policies. Normally, decision makers obtain this data from national institutes for statistics or other local authorities. However, this data is often inaccurate and out-of-date, and therefore also unreliable.

In an attempt to discover a better way to gather data on population density, the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), in collaboration with researchers from AIT, realized that mobile network data could be a better source for such data, as it could be obtained almost immediately and would be more accurate and up-to-date. Accessing this data, though, is complicated by the existing legislation on commercial confidentiality and personal privacy.

In a new report prepared by the JRC and AIT, researchers present and analyse a methodology that could enable mobile network operators to process and integrate different types of network data, which is already in their possession, in order to estimate population density. The methodology has been designed to be flexible and scalable, taking into consideration commercial sensitivity and the need to protect personal privacy and confidentiality. The report also presents the findings discovered when testing the methodology on a sample of artificially generated data.

The JRC and AIT will now seek to gather feedback from interested parties on the proposed methodology, which will then be tested with partner mobile network operators. Subsequently, a dialogue with all willing operators around Europe will be initiated.

In July, the EU’s law enforcement agency EUROPOL published the latest edition of the TE-SAT (European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend) report. The report has been prepared by EUROPOL, based on contributions from EU Member States and several EUROPOL partners.

The report presents a comprehensive overview of the completed and failed terrorist attacks against EU Member States and outlines the main trends related to terrorism. Five different kinds of terrorism are differentiated in the report – religious terrorism; ethno-nationalist terrorism; left-wing and anarchist terrorism; right-wing terrorism; and single-issue terrorism.

According to the report, the overall threat to EU security is likely to continue to increase in the future. Given the persisting situations in Syria and Iraq, EUROPOL speculates that a number of EU Member States will remain prone to harassment, hate-filled rhetoric and unprovoked, opportunistic attacks towards Muslims and Muslim institutions by right-wing extremists.

The report highlights that the Islamic State and al-Qaeda affiliated groups possess the capability and resources to carry out attacks against EU Member States. As increasingly more European individuals become affiliated with these groups, networks are created, which make pragmatic cooperation more likely. The objective of pursuing a “global jihad”, inspired by the actions of international terrorist groups, is likely to remain.