Simple fact: innovation is driven by people having ideas. The idea is never enough though with much work being necessary for product development, production, trialling, evaluation and finally exposure to the real-world challenges of a firefighter or rescuer.
Four years ago, a start-up network created by a group of British Fire Officers took over a product of the European Union’s Driver+ project called the Crisis Management Innovation Network Europe (CMINE). Driver+ ran for some seven years starting from the painful experience that neither successful R&D nor strong end-user demand always leads to innovation in fire and rescue domains. But… keeping the right people engaged throughout the entire innovation journey just might help.
DRIVER+ wasn’t about wholesale redesign of technological capabilities. Instead it was about the ability to adapt existing European technologies to future demands as they emerge. Therefore, DRIVER+ focused on augmenting rather than replacing existing capabilities.
As it drew to a close three years ago, one of its products was the CMINE, a professional networking website with well over 2,000 members supporting the interests of firefighters and all involved in Crisis Management and Civil Protection by encouraging innovation in all aspects of emergency prevention and resolution. It sought to do this by providing an environment where practitioners, policy makers, researchers and industry could connect and discuss ideas relating to process and product innovation in all its forms, in an informal and neutral environment.
To make itself accessible to the broadest range of experts functioning within the crisis management arena, the site was organised with a communal area for everyone to engage as well as specific groups and forums to address important niche interests and specialities. As an example, a single research project or theme had its own area as well as a shared area where they could interact with colleagues engaged in related themes. Specific areas were provided for those interested in specific aspects of the innovation journey such as trial design, the register of crisis management tools/products in development (known as the Portfolio of Solutions) and training. Finally, there were forums dedicated to specific professional subjects such as wildfire, flooding, and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive materials (CBRNE).
CMINE needed to help its members stay well informed and relevant by providing other services such as rolling newsfeeds coming out of the main emergency and humanitarian organisations – UNDRR, OCHA and The Union Civil Protection Mechanism amongst others and to grow access to the main European Fire and Rescue networks such as the FEU and CTIF.
It’s fair to say the CMINE is now embedded in the way that European Innovation works operating under a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding endorsed by the European Commission and its Research Executive Agency. It is the host of the European Network of Centres of Expertise, a group of 10 organisations dedicated to encouraging innovation in all matters relating to crisis management and is increasingly supported by formal network developments such as DG HOME’s CERIS (its Community of Users) and the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network provided by the EU’s Emergency and Humanitarian Directorate, DG ECHO.
CMINE increasingly supports Horizon Europe research and innovation programmes with communications, dissemination and engagement activities and currently promotes innovation through for some 50 projects through its Clustering Initiative, which is seen as vital to future innovation.
Some €95bn has been invested in research through the seven-year Horizon Europe programme, which runs until 2027. A large proportion of this is directed towards Secure and Disaster Resilient Societies. In this area, some 15 multi €m projects have been commissioned to enhance the safety and security of first and second responders, especially for fire and rescue. Brining these projects together in an informal, voluntary and free group became a clear intent of CMINE and so was born the Responder Technology Cluster (RTC) of projects.
Not just limited by funding streams, the RTC was established last year as a subset of the DRS community, made-up of projects working on related research areas under the Horizon framework and other programmes such as the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network (UCPKN) and European Defence Fund (EDF).
The Cluster’s purpose is simply to promote good practice in research through collaboration and to recognise opportunities for efficiency wherever appropriate through combined activity such as dissemination events.
Membership was made available to any current project funded by a European Grant Agreement with the Cluster involving around a dozen projects. The cluster also maintains the impact and legacy of recently concluded projects and encourages coordinators to stay engaged after the end of their projects to ensure that their legacy is understood, disseminated and used where possible.
The initial projects engaged in the Cluster were all from the Horizon Europe programme and included:
- NIGHTINGALE (& INGENIOUS) – Next Generation Integrated Toolkit for Collaborative Response, increasing protection and augmenting operational capacity
- RESCUER – First-responder-centred technology toolkits empowering and enhancing the operational capacity of first responders
- MED1stMR – mixed-reality training technology to combine real-world medical simulators with virtual environments
- TeamAware – Assessing new technologies in operations
- PathoCERT – Helping first responders to address waterborne pathogen contamination
- INTREPID – Setting up a methodology for field validation of innovative technologies
- Search & Rescue – Emerging technologies for the early location of entrapped victims under collapsed structures and advanced wearables for risk assessment and first responders’ safety in SAR operations
- RESPOND-A – Providing new interaction between first responders and research centres
- DIREKTION – A networking initiative aimed at joining-up all major responder organisations and their representatives to give information on and access to innovation activities.
Focusing on just one of these projects will give a sense of the range of innovation being worked upon and the sort of partners involved:
TeamAware is one of the Research & Innovation Action type projects. It involves a consortium of 24 private and public organisations from 13 different countries. It seeks to address three major challenges facing all firefighters and rescue technicians:
- Firstly, real-time localisation and real-time monitoring of first-responder team members:
Localisation of first responders is vital for the responder’s safety, especially in Global Navigation Satellite System-denied environments. A continuous indoor/outdoor localisation system will provide the location of first responders outside, in buildings, above and below the ground in real-time. In addition, a body motion analysing system will provide position and orientation of the responders (e.g. standing still, walking or lying on the ground).
- Secondly, detection of surrounding risks and threats:
There is a general lack of sensor systems running efficiently in support of response teams. Responders typically prepare tools and materials for the emergency in the preparedness phase. However, the information setup in this phase is full of gaps, incomplete and sometimes wrong. In addition, the situation in the field can evolve rapidly, generating new hazards that are currently impossible to detect and forecast. As an example, a terrorist attack might only be realised after the first responders arrive in the field, and rapidly evolving chemical risks cannot be detected and forecasted in the preparedness phase. Thus, there is a need for various types of sensor systems to detect, identify and monitor threats for responders to be well prepared against unexpected emergencies.
- Thirdly, information fusion and comprehensible user interfaces:
Simultaneous and intense data flow from heterogeneous sources should be fused to obtain reliable information for first responders. The fused data will be provided to operational centre and responders in the field. Furthermore, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used to detect, identify and classify the threats and anomalies surrounding the first responders to generate a detailed common situational awareness picture. It is important to provide a detailed picture, which is generated by fusing the information gathered by the sensor systems in the field, for the dispatchers in the incident management centre.
Planned outcomes of TeamAware include: a visual scene analysis system, an infrastructure monitoring system, an acoustic event detection system, a personal chemical detection system, a team monitoring system and a citizen involvement and city integration system. To make sure that these systems integrate and present in a manner complementary to the activities of the responder, the project has also innovated new secure and standardised communication networks and a bespoke AI platform software made available to wearers through an augmented reality mobile interface.
TeamAware has been a large undertaking in its own right, but the true power of such research and innovation lies in its ability for lessons to be learned by other projects and for the very best aspects to be taken forward to the next phase of concept and product development.
The policy arena in which technology projects are operating is becoming increasingly complex and the range of programmes funding and supporting research in this area continues to grow. There couldn’t be a better time for individual product designers working within these innovation initiatives to come together to better understand the broader environment of projects running in their chosen fields, to connect with them, learn from them and use this learning to contribute further to the future safety and effectiveness of fire and rescue operations.
Anyone with an interest in developing future responder technology solutions is encouraged to join CMINE and to get involved with current projects, contributing their ideas and knowledge.
For more information, go to www.cmine.eu
About the Author
Jon Hall is Managing Director of the Resilience Advisors Network. A former Chief Fire Officer and the UK lead for National Resilience, Jon brings a uniquely informed perspective to the role of fire and rescue services on an international stage.
