Collective projects

Zika virus (ZIKV) disease is a mosquito-borne viral disease, similar to other diseases caused by Flaviviruses (such as dengue, yellow fever, West Nile) but until recently was believed to be more benign. However, the recent rapid spread of the virus in previously unaffected regions like South Pacific islands and Latin America has provided epidemiological evidence for the first time that it may be associated with neurological complications in adults and with a twentyfold increase in severe congenital brain malformations of newborns.

At present, the wide range of sectors, disciplines and actors involved in disaster risk management are not sufficiently interlinked, which prevents efficient response planning and the building of realistic multidisciplinary scenarios. Integrated tools need to be developed to support such actions. Stronger partnerships among research, policy, (research or monitoring) institutes, industry/SMEs communities and practitioners, in particular first responders, are required for better preparedness of societies to cope with complex crisis situations.

A major difficulty for civil protection actors to take proper, coordinated decisions for efficient actions (in relation with prevention, preparedness, surveillance, and in particular: response in times of crisis) results from insufficient situational awareness. This is even truer in the context of the EU Civil Protection mechanism: reinforced cooperation across borders calls for improved cross-border situational awareness.

The ESFRI roadmap, updated periodically, identifies the needs of the European scientific community in terms of research infrastructures. However, inclusion in the ESFRI roadmap does not guarantee that these needed infrastructures will be built.

Europe's SMEs, local public administration and citizens face particular challenges in addressing basic cyber security threats.

On one hand, in the case of SMEs and local public administration, their size and budgetary constraints often precludes them from putting in place highly granular organisational structures, retaining dedicated information security personnel and making significant investments in cybersecurity products or services.

Many cyber security failures in systems and organisations can only be explained and appropriately addressed by examining the problem through not only from the technical point of view but also through a deep societal, institutional and economic analysis.

Moreover, current structures at institutional level (national and international) as well as incentive frameworks (financial or regulatory, positive or negative) don't seem to be able to provide adequate coverage to threats.

Recognising the increasing importance of securing our European Digital Society against cybersecurity threats, a significant increase in related Research and Innovation activities has been observed such as the development of local cybersecurity and privacy innovation clusters, as well as investment driven at regional and national level.In order to maximise thematic synergies between H2020, EU and national efforts in the area of cybersecurity R&I, a better overview of these activities is needed.