PANDEM-2 Team Attends CERIS Event
Last week, Dr Jean-Luc Gala of UC Louvain attended CERIS’ (Community Of European Research And Innovation For Security) Disaster Resilient Societies Cluster conference. This event took a hybrid approach, with both a virtual presence and an in-person event in Brussels taking place. The aim of the event was to present the significant progress and outcomes of various H2020 or HE-projects in the field of security, and the CBRN domain.
Pandemic preparedness is of course highly relevant for building Disaster Resilient Societies, and this is precisely what the PANDEM-2 project is all about.
Points of Discussion
On the day, Dr Jean-Luc Gala presented a global snapshot of the main outcomes of PANDEM-2. Topics discussed included data sources, the PANDEM-2 dashboard, the increasing importance of genomic data in the follow-up of an outbreak, two-way exploitation of social media, exercises to test tools and assess their contribution to better cross-border management, communication and media training, and more. Attendees were left with a comprehensive understanding of the workings of the PANDEM-2 project to date.
Dr Gala also recalled the mandate extension of ECDC which strongly fits with the objective of PANDEM-2 and reminded audiences that ECDC occupies part of the advisory board of the project, helping us to tailor PANDEM-2 efforts to fill identified gaps and weaknesses.
Insights Gained
When asked about the insights gained from attending the event, Dr Jean-Luc Gala highlighted the following topics:
- The increasing contribution of end-users in the development of new solutions.
- The increasing role of Artificial Intelligence in all the projects.
- The increasing networking of all security projects to build a stronger EU in times of crisis.
- The gap between front line researchers, end users and EU policymakers.
Well done to Dr Jean-Luc Gala and the team at UC Louvain for representing PANDEM-2 at this important conference.