VALKYRIES Project

UC2 Spread of toxic substances drill between the borders of Italy and Slovakya

The 5^th plenary meeting of the VALKYRIES project, hosted by AREU Lombardia IR&TeC, took place in Milan.
During the event, the project status, objectives, deliverables and KPIs were reviewed.
The iProcureSecurity PCP project and the H2020 RESCUER project joined the meeting to share their progress, including the latest RESCUER pilot results.

The meeting continued with progress reports on different work packages. The next day, different use cases were presented, such as the fire incident between Spain and Portugal in May and the upcoming earthquake, explosion and rescue exercises in Bulgaria-Greece, Italy-Slovakia and Norway-Netherlands-Denmark.

Valkyries poster presentation at the World Maritime Rescue Congress 2023

From June 18^th to 20^th, 2023, the city of Rotterdam hosted the World Maritime Rescue Congress 2023.

During the event, the Valkyries project had the opportunity to present a description of the project on a poster.

UC3 Earthquake drill between the borders of Greece and Bulgaria

Valkyries Use Case 3 took place on the Greek-Bulgarian border from June 13^th to 15^th.

The town of Sandansky hosted the three-day event with the participation of members of rescue teams, universities, firefighters, police and local authorities.
The first simulation was based on the current technology used by the emergency services.
After a complete training on the Valkyries tools, the emergency services had the opportunity to conduct a second exercise using the technology developed by the Valkyries project, with successful results.

Valkyries presented at the 25^th Congress of Balkan Military Medical Committee

From the 28^th to the 31^st, the 25^th Congress of the Balkan Military took place in the resort town of Albena.
Under the title: "Contribution of the Valkyries project to joint military-civil tactical coordinated procedures for First Aid in cross-border multi-victim disasters" Valkyries project was presented to the audience.

5th Valkyries plenary meeting by AREU IR&Tec in Milan

The 5^th plenary meeting of the VALKYRIES project, hosted by AREU Lombardia IR&TeC, took place in Milan.
During the event, the project status, objectives, deliverables and KPIs were reviewed.

The iProcureSecurity PCP project and the H2020 RESCUER project joined the meeting to share their progress, including the latest RESCUER pilot results.
The meeting continued with progress reports on different work packages. The next day, different use cases were presented, such as the fire incident between Spain and Portugal in May and the upcoming earthquake, explosion and rescue exercises in Bulgaria-Greece, Italy-Slovakia and Norway-Netherlands-Denmark.

UC1 Fire drill between the borders of Spain and Portugal

Valkyries Use Case 1, which took place on the Spain-Portugal border on May 3-5, involved a simulated thunderstorm that caused multiple fire outbreaks and triggered the response of first responders.
In addition, smoke from the fires indirectly caused a cross-border traffic accident, adding to the complexity of the scenario. Nearly 400 personnel from various emergency services participated in the exercise, which tested the interoperability of tools developed by the consortium's technology partners.
The integration reference, Sigrun, allowed coordination centers in both countries to synchronize their efforts and make real-time decisions.
The exercise was a success, achieving 100% traceability of all victims and demonstrating the effectiveness of the solutions developed by Valkyries.

3^rd Legal & Ethical Workshop.

The third ethical legal VALKYRIES workshop took place last Friday at the Aula Magna of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa. With the title "Dealing with ethical legal issues in technology development: the current approaches adopted in ongoing projects

3^rd Standardisation Workshop.

Novotec (NOV) organized on Feb 28^th the scheduled workshop for M18 that is the 3rd Standardization WS. The aim of this WS was to bring together main stakeholders of the security and emergency sectors as well as the EABs. The topics of the agenda included an overview about the Harmonization strategy, applied to the prioritization of chosen opportunities and sustainable international/European certification and assessment facilities. For this aim, a previous documentation about each WS prioritized opportunities was sent some days before to the EAB in order to be reviewed previous to the WSs. As well a survey has been sent to the EAB members after the event.

STRATEGY's Interoperability event.

Scuola Sant’Anna presented the VALKYRIES strategy towards interoperability at the Workshop organised by #STRATEGY Project at the Istituto Superiore Antincendi, Rome. Inspiring discussion about pre-standardisation and harmonisation mechanisms for crisis management.

4th VALKYRIES Plenary Meeting (31th January - 2nd February)

The 4^th plenary meeting was held in Athens, Greece. The project coordinator went through a focused evaluation of the project covering the overall performance, contractual matters, and open topics to be addressed in the short-term. Each WP leader had the opportunity to describe the status of their work package with a special emphasis on the methodology applied for opportunities selection. During the plenary session, a detailed Demo of the SIGRUN "platform" and of the testing and harmonization tools identified were also presented. Three projects with which VALKYRIES has initiated a liaison, such as CURSOR, STRATEGY and RESCUER, were invited to participate to describe the progress of their respective projects.

Rescuer Pilot - Tassica (Liaision RESCUER)

The VALKYRIES project was invited to the 2^nd pilot of RESCUER which took place from 23 to 26 January 2023 in the natural environment of Navacerrada (Madrid, Spain). During this event, several expert researchers of the project (belonging to SUMMA 112 of Madrid and TASSICA) were integrated as experts in the evaluation and piloting of the different tools in the established scenarios. RESCUER is a Horizon 2020 project that aims to design and develop a First-Responder-centered technology toolkit that will empower the next generation of FR. The experience was very satisfactory, exchanging valuable information and assessments between the experts of both projects and building bridges for future collaborations in this line.

1^st Workshop on Martime Computer Vision (MaCVi) WACV 2023

Researchers the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), member of the VALKYRIES consortium, attended the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV 2023) that took place in Waikoloa, Hawaii (3-7 January).
WACV is the premier internacional event comprising several co-located workshops and tutorials, representing an exceptional value for students, academics and industry researchers, an for those interested in computer vision applications in both maritime and freshwater domains: Search and rescue (SaR), detection of illegal fishing, airbone water surface and reconnaissance, offshore wind farm or oil inspection.

3rd VALKYRIES Preparation Workshop. UC1 Join cross-frontier first aid response against major fire disaster.

Last Wednesday, 14^th December, VALKYRIES project coordinator Juan-Román Martínez Arranz presented the progress made in VALKYRIES at Hospital Zendal, Madrid. 

The meeting was coordinated by Navid Behzadi from SUMMA, as UC1 coordinator. Presentation took place in the context of the biennial event hosted by 112 Extremadura and Autoridade Nacional de Emergencia and Proteçao Civil. Both INEM from Portugal and UME from Spain have the possibility of being part of the UC1 final demonstration, along with the Consortium.

Preparation of VALKYRIES Use Case (UC) 3 Greek - Bulgarian exercise

From 7 to 9 December the team of the Bulgarian Defence Institute Professor Tsvetan Lazarov organized and hosted the first coordination meeting on the preparation of VALKYRIES Use Case 3 Bulgarian - Greek exercise to be held in June 2023 in the municipality of Sandanski. Representatives of ARATOS.
Net, PARTICLE and TASSICA made succesful presentations. The partners from AREU attended the workshop virtually.

Intenet of things (IoT) for adversarial environments - MILCOM 2022

Marco Manso from our partnet Particle (Portugal) attended Military Communication Conference MILCOM 2022 - IoT Workshop on Friday 2nd December (10:00-10:30) to present work done in VALKYRIES. Results will be exposed through NATO invited paper ''Connecting the Battlespace: C2 and IoT Technical Interoperability in Tactical Federaed Environments''.

Joint-Network Event "From Early Warning to Action" (DAREnet,MEDEA & IFRAFRI)

Prof. Dr. Sc. Yantsislav Yankiev from the Bulgarian Defence Institute (BDI) joined a Joint-Network Event (hybrid format) on Thurday 1st December (16:45). Coorganised by the EU funded Horizon 2020 projects DAREnet and MEDEA, and IFRAFRI, the event aims to create synergies regarding innovation uptake, (cross-border) cooperation and capability gap analysis through a combination of activities. During this event, professor Yanakiev introduced VALKYRIES project identified Gaps and Harmonisation Opportunities for Training and Collaboration in First Aid Responses.

VALKYRIES project in Nicosia Risk Forum 2022

On 15-16^th November Pr. Dr. Sc, Yantsislav Yanakiev from the Bulgarian Defence Institute presented VALKYRIES project during Nicosia Risk Forum 2022.
The event organised by CERIDES that was a total success. Our colleague had a very pleasant and insighful meeting with more than 100 participants from Europe, the United States and Mexico. There were also diplomats, media representatives and first responders from Cyprus and Greece.

Technologies for first responders and standardisation - CERIS Cluster Conference

On 10^th November our project coordinator Juan-Román Martínez Arranz talked about VALKYRIES during the Standadisation Session of the CMINE - CERIS Conference. He emphasized the importance of increasing EU resilience and effectiveness in cross-border disasters with multiple victims. The Standardidation panel was part of the CERIS - Disaster Resilient Societies Cluster Conference and was held in Brussels at the BAO Congress Centre as well as through remote connection, across the 7-10 November.

XXV Municipal Days on Catastrophes

Last October 28^th some partners presented results from the VALKYRIES project during the XXV Municipal Days on Catastrophes in Madrid, Spain.
A conference on “A proposal of a testbed for USAR operations analysis” was presented by Rumen Daton from Indra, where ome modules where highlighted under the main structure as Issues, Tasks and Risk and Impact calculations modules, as well as the Cohesion, communication and GIS modules and other important building blocks regarding the operational data management.
Two posters were defended by Teresa Martin de Rosales from SUMMA112 on “VALKYRIES: footprint of a European project in SUMMA112” where she explained how the outcomes of the project will boost the operations of SUMMA112 in cross-border Multi-Casualty Incidents (MCI) allowing the creation of a clearer roadmap for the future of the Spanish first aid response organization and Rafael Caballero on “Minimum Data Set in MCI” where he highlighted the importance of establishing a minimum data set in terms of patient information using well-documented and well-known methods in the medical community such as UTSTSEIN or Delphi as a basis.
Finally, the SME Tassica raised a stand where the presence of the project for dissemination purposes.

Second VALKYRIES workshops

Last October 24^th and 25^th, the Second VALKYRIES, Demonstration, Ethical-Legal and Standardization workshops took place in virtual format.
Partners and members of the External Advisory Board participated and the analyzed gaps and opportunities were discussed, as well as the advances in the four final demonstration scenarios.

VALKYRIES presence in STRATEGY project CELULEX exercise

In October 11^th, Center for Security Studies (KEMEA) presented the VALKYRIES project during the plenary meeting of our sister project STRATEGY Project, having presence as well during the CELULEX exercise of the Portuguese Army.
During this actual operational exercise of the Army, the two exercises of STRATEGY for chemical and biological events took place.

Third VALKYRIES plenary meeting

The third plenary meeting of the VALKYRIES project was hosted by the University of South-Eastern Norway in October 4-6^th.
During these days the consortium reviewed the work done so far, the latest results from the analysis of gaps and opportunities and some ways to increase the impact of the analysis carried out during the last year were identified.
The next actions for identifying the most relevant opportunities and developing the implementation roadmaps were established with the aim of making the greatest impact in the operations of our European emergency services.
The coordinators of the demo scenarios presented the progress made in the definition of the drills but especially the selection of first responders that will be involved during the exercises as well as the technologies to be integrated.
The consortium had also the privilege of visiting the RS Noatun facilities where workers and volunteers work jointly and in a coordinated manner to provide response services to maritime incidents and two operational rescue boats.

III Workshop on Recent Advances in Cyber Situational Awareness on Military Operations within ARES Conference

Prof. Yantsislav Yanakiev from Bulgarian Defence Institute gave a conference in the III Workshop on Recent Advances in Cyber Situational Awareness on Military Operations (CSA) as part of the 17 ^th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES).
The Congress was hosted by the University of Vienna, Austria, and attended by experts in cyber defense and situational awareness.

Projects to Policy Seminar (PPS)

On June 30^th - July 1^st, the Projects to Policy Seminar (PPS) took place in Brussels. The event was co-hosted by DG HOME and REA from the European Commission and VALKYRIES was invited to participate and disseminate the project among other initiatives financed by the EU.

I National Emergency Congress in Spain

On June 9^th, the 1^st National Emergency Congress took place in Spain, where First Responders from various sectors, large companies, SMEs, etc. met at the National School of Civil Protection in Madrid to carry out a series of conferences and demonstrations where the need for public-private collaboration in emergency environments and the need to integrate new disruptive technologies were highlighted.

As part of the event, the VALKYRIES’ C&D Manager Marta Irene García Cid participated in a round table together with representatives of the CDTI, Civil Protection and the School of Rescue and Detection with Dogs.
The link to the recording of the talks is available on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/rtd8wCvxybc

XXXII National Congress SEMES

Our partner Tassica exhibited a Poster about VALKYRIES at the XXXII SEMES National Congress that took place from June 8^th to 10^th in Vigo, Spain.
The poster presents the main objectives and expected results of the project, as well as the work methodology that the consortium is using.
The content of the poster is available on page 380 of the communications book published by the congress:
Communications book

I Research and Innovation Symposium for European Security and Defence (RISE-SD)

From May 31^st to June 2^nd, 2022, the International Fair Plovdiv took place in Bulgaria.
As part of the event, Rumen Daton was invited to present VALKYRIES at the I Research and Innovation Symposium for European Security and Defence” (RISE-SD) organized by the Bulgarian Defence Institute, AFCEA Sofia Chapter and Information Technologies Institute, as part of the XVth International Defence Equipment Exhibition “HEMUS 2022 – Defence, Antiterrorism & Security”.

In this forum, several EU-funded projects within the security and defence area were shared, which gave them visibility and underlined the importance of cooperation between industry, research centres and security and defence practitioners.
The event had the support of organizations as notable as NATO, the European Commission or the European Defence Agency,   among others.

First Legal and Ethical Workshops and CPDP Conference

On May 25^th, part of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna's and Indra's representatives participated in the Computer Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conferences in conjunction with the 1st Legal and Ethical Workshop of the project.
Denise Amram and Andrea Parziale moderated the panel and Pedro Ramón y Cajal Ramo   presented the VALKYRIES project.
Some of the main contributions and challenges to improve interoperability and the need for standardisation were detailed. Details were also given on some technical aspects aimed at improving and protecting communications, data security and compatibility, among others.

VALKYRIES Second Plenary Meeting

On May 18-20^th, the second plenary of the project took place in Pisa.
Throughout these three days, a review of the progress of the project was carried out in detail and especially relevant topics were discussed, such as the design of the architecture of the SIGRUN reference integration, the results obtained from the analysis carried out on the minimum data sets and the next steps to define the harmonization actions to respond to the gaps detected in each of the work streams. In addition, the consortium had the opportunity to meet in person for the first time and speak directly about numerous topics related to the project.

VALKYRIES and FASTER Projects Liaison

The H2020 FASTER project developed its final field exercise on April 4-5^th.
FASTER addresses the challenges associated with the protection of first responders in hazardous environments, while at the same time enhancing their capabilities in terms of situational awareness and communication. Due to its synergies with VALKYRIES a liaison activity presenting the project as sister H2020 programs.

First VALKYRIES, Demonstration and Standardization Workshops

The 1^st VALKYRIES, Demonstration and Standardization workshops were held on 30-31^th of March in a full virtual format.
The events were carried out by Indra and Novotec and were attended by several members of the EAB who provided their views on the status of the project and the work methodology used.
The progress made in the first 6 months of the project was presented in terms of the project requirements gathered, definition of the demonstration scenarios and strategy used in the standardization tasks.
The next steps defined for the coming months were shared.

Coffee Chat with U.S. Embassy

The VALKYRIES project was invited to be part of a round table addressed to U.S. organizations on March, the presentation was carried out by Juan-Román Martínez Arranz as Coordinator of the project together with the Spanish delegate and national expert - Maite Boyero Egido - and the Chief Inspector of the Spanish National Police - José Francisco López. The event was hosted by Angel Turrin and Cameron Werker, representatives of the U.S. Commercial Service.

First VALKYRIES plenary meeting

The first plenary meeting of the project took place on January in a 100% virtual format due to the COVID-19 situation. The event was attended by all the members of the consortium.

FEINDEF 2021

On November 5^th 2021, the Project coordinator, Juan-Román Martínez Arranz, will present the VALKYRIES project at the round table “Horizon Europe and civil security for society” that will take place at the International Defense Fair (FEINDEF) in Spain.

ENISE 2021

On October 2021, the 15^th ENISE was held, an event organized by the Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) and was attended by the VALKYRIES coordinator and the communication and dissemination manager.

VALKYRIES Kick off meeting

On October 2021, the VALKYRIES project officially began with a two-days meeting in which the partners of the consortium attended semi-face-to-face.
This is the starting signal for a major initiative that aims to add the greatest value to European civil security.