The EU-funded H2020 project PROACTIVE led by the UIC Security Division held its tenth consortium progress meeting online, on 8 – 9 February 2022.
The 15 consortium partners reported on work completed to date and exchanged on the ongoing tasks and project activities. Two of the project External Ethics Advisors also participated and advised on the work in progress.
The results from recent Civil Society Advisory Board (CSAB) focus groups were shared with the partners. The subject of the focus groups was the project’s public pre-incident information materials on how to act during a CBRNe incident. CSAB members were mainly in agreement with the materials and have requested that the pictograms better represent diversity. Their suggestions will be used to update the materials.
The PROACTIVE consortium partners were then able to beta test the PROACTIVE mobile app during an interactive session. Feedback collected will be used to update the mobile app before the upcoming Dortmund Field Exercise.
This was followed by a long discussion about the preparations for the Dortmund Field Exercise, which are on the right track. This first field exercise held jointly with EU H2020 project eNOTICE will be based on a scenario of a chemical substance release near a train station, leading to decontamination. A unique point of PROACTIVE is that the role-play volunteers for the scenario are not actors nor are they first responders, but rather civilians with little-to-no prior knowledge of such incidents, of which 15% will be from vulnerable groups. PROACTIVE partners have held several successful recruitment meetings with local civil society organisations. Recruitment is now on going and more information can be found at: https://uic.org/events/do22-english
Lastly, the Project Coordinator also shared the good news that the European Commission has accepted the project extension request, and the project will now continue until August 2023.
The next progress meeting will be organised in April 2022, most likely as physical meeting at UIC Headquarters, if the health context will allow it.
PROACTIVE can be followed on Twitter (@PROACTIVE_EU) as well as on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/proactive-eu/) and the project website https://proactive-h2020.eu/.
