CERIS workshop in Brussels Blog

The University of Nottingham (UoN), the University of Galway and Rapiscan from the BORDERLINK consortium had a particularly interesting time at the CERIS workshop in Brussels in April’26. The workshop was part of the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) who hold a series of workshops on different themes. This workshop was focused on “Innovative Approaches to Combating the Trafficking of Goods” and focused on two specific scenarios: wildlife trafficking, and trafficking intangible assets.

Many thanks to Anais Manchon, Giulio Mancini and the wider team CERIS for organising this excellent event at the lovely Bao Conference Centre – which was apparently an old jazz club but whilst we did see a stage and some instruments there was no music to be heard, just lots of people discussing current and future projects. My kind of event really, because I don’t understand jazz and I’m really interested in security technologies.

There were a huge number of Horizon Europe-funded police, security, tech and research attendees at the event and we got to know about lots of projects and where they were up to.

Events like this are an absolute goldmine for finding new contacts, understanding security-related problems, and testing out ideas.

At this workshop the projects we learnt about included:

• Bag-Intel – Intelligent system for improved efficiency and effectiveness of the customs control of passenger baggage from international flight arrivals

• CustomAi – AI technologies for enhancing capabilities, greater efficiency and effectiveness for customs

• PACK – Persistent awareness system facilitating customs checks

• METEOR – Rapid, portable and reliable cargo screener (Ion Mobility Chemical Fingerprint Detector)

• PERIVALLON – Protecting the European territory from organised environmental crime through intelligent threat detection tools

• FAUNOS – Strengthening the prevention, detection, and investigation of organised environmental crime in Europe.

• ECO-SOLVE – Innovative approaches to dismantle environmental crime networks

• MULTISCAN3D – Laser-plasma based source 3D Tomography for cargo inspection

• ENTRANCE – Efficient Risk-based inspection of freight crossing borders without disrupting business

• ARIEN – AI in fighting illicit drugs production and trafficking

• FALCON – Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks

• BORDERLINK – Border Control Agencies for Interlinked and Interoperable Future

• CEASEFIRE – Advanced versatile artificial intelligence technologies and interconnected cross-sectoral fully-operational national focal points for combating illicit firearms trafficking

• CRYPTOACTION – Combating CRYPTO-currency-Facilitated Crime and Terrorism with Interoperable, Trustworthy, AI-Enhanced, Collaborative Tools, Improved Information Sharing, Operations, and Training for LEAS

• CONNECTOR – Customs extended interoperable common information sharing environment

(Their websites are even more awesome than their acronyms acronyms, if you want to know more about these projects search on “<project name> Cordis”, eg “CustomAi Cordis”).

It was really useful to get an update on each project, then have a coffee with the key people involved and ask questions face-to-face. For the BORDERLINK team it was a chance to describe our results so far, network intensely and publicise our mid-project results demonstrations in Dublin in September.

Then in the afternoon there were two parallel discussion sessions, one on wildlife trafficking and the other on the trafficking of intangible assets. Both sessions started with by discussing capabilities, needs and challenges, then they questioned how existing research and innovation could contribute, and finally they finished with by asking:

‘What’s the way forward in R&I for this type of trafficking?’.

I went to the second session which was fantastic, with security and policing practitioners leading the conversations and helping us reality-check our ideas. It’s really astounding how much illegal activity – not just wildlife trafficking but any sort – uses intangible assets like crypto currencies to try and hide the sources and destinations of illegal cash flows. Fortunately, crypto is a key part of past and future EU Horizon projects, so it was good to see companies like blockchain analysis firm Chainalyse there. Tech partners like these and Rapiscan really added to the value of the discussions.