Press Releases
December 16th, 2024
Two EU-funded Horizon Europe projects, SUNRISE and ATLANTIS, have joined forces to release a transformative policy brief addressing the growing challenges of Europe’s Critical Infrastructures (CI). Titled “Enhancing Resilience of Critical Infrastructures in Europe: Insights and Recommendations” the policy brief outlines actionable findings to bolster CI resilience amid the identified emerging risks.
Commenting on the significance of the ATLANTIS-SUNRISE Policy Brief, ATLANTIS project coordinator, Gabriele Giunta, said:
“I’m honoured to be part of this team of motivated experts and professionals who devoted their expertise to create a unified Policy Brief. This is an important contribution towards strengthening CI’s resilience in all sectors and all-across Europe. I really hope our initiative is a driver towards a smooth implementation of EU policy-related actions.”
Critical Infrastructure: The Backbone of a Secure Europe
From pandemics and cyber threats to climate-induced disasters and geopolitical instability, Europe’s CI faces an unprecedented array of challenges. These risks extend beyond urban centres to encompass diverse environments, including underwater regions and outer space, requiring a comprehensive and unified approach. Systemic threats are increasing in both scale and complexity, making timely, adaptive, and collaborative actions critical to improving resilience. The ATLANTIS and SUNRISE Joint Police Brief provides a set of actionable recommendations for the EU to lead in securing a resilient future for its citizens and infrastructures.
Outlining the significance of the ATLANTIS-SUNRISE Policy Brief, SUNRISE project coordinator, Aljosa Pasic, said:
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed significant impacts not only on healthcare systems but also on other European Critical Infrastructures (CIs), driven by workforce shortages, interdependencies, supply chain disruptions, and the need for rapid adaptation. The SUNRISE project tackles these challenges by addressing CI resilience before and during operational disruptions. Its policy task force bridges project outcomes, pilot initiatives, and EU policymaking, exemplified by the joint ATLANTIS-SUNRISE Policy Brief. This ensures that future regulations and initiatives effectively incorporate the project’s key findings.”
Key Findings
The policy brief presents insights from the collaborative efforts of ATLANTIS and SUNRISE, under the following themes:
- Collaboration across boundaries: Building resilience requires coordination across industries, organizations, and governments to mitigate vulnerabilities and enhance response mechanisms.
- Alignment with EU Policies: Adhering to EU frameworks such as the CER (Critical Entities Resilience) and NIS2 (Network and Information Security) Directives is vital to achieving robust preparedness and protection.
- Scenario-Based Planning: Innovative planning based on cascading and interconnected risk scenarios ensures readiness for complex challenges.
- Data-Augmented Decision Support Systems: The integration of real-time data and AI-driven Decision Support Systems strengthens situational awareness and resource optimization for crisis management.
One of the ATLANTIS-SUNRISE Policy Brief’s authors, Jolanda Modic from the Institute for Corporative Security Studies in Slovenia, said:
“This document serves as a critical roadmap for enhancing the resilience of Europe’s CI against an increasingly complex landscape of threats and hazards. By integrating insights from the EU-funded projects SUNRISE and ATLANTIS, it provides actionable recommendations to address vulnerabilities, foster collaboration, and align with EU policies. Strengthening CI resilience is not just about safeguarding services. It is about ensuring societal stability, economic continuity, and a sustainable, secure future for Europe.”
ENDS
For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:
Maria Carolan, Carr Communications Ltd: mcarolan@carrcommunications.ie / +353 879207153
Notes to Editor
The SUNRISE Project
The SUNRISE project consortium is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and is made up of 41 European leaders and experts from the health, security, social science, humanities, information technology, epidemiology, communications and emergency management fields, ensuring that the most modern science and research serve the real-world needs of healthcare, government and society. SUNRISE is being led by Eviden.
The ATLANTIS Project
The mission of ATLANTIS, which involves 38 European partners with complementary roles and skills, is to improve the resilience and the protection capabilities of interconnected ECI exposed to evolving systemic risks due to existing and emerging large-scale, combined, cyber-physical threats and hazards, guarantee the continuity of operations, while minimizing cascading effects in the infrastructure itself, the environment, other CIs, and the involved population, enabling public and private actors to meet current and emerging challenges by adopting sustainable security solutions. ATLANTIS is being led by Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A.
Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies.
SUNRISE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe framework programme under grant agreement no. 101073821.
ATLANTIS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe framework programme under grant agreement No.101073909.
July 2024
The SUNRISE project aims to ensure greater availability, reliability, and continuity of critical infrastructures, to the benefit of all European citizens
- SUNRISE is developing new technologies and strategies to protect human, physical and digital resources during pandemics and other major risks
- One of these technologies, the Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection was piloted with critical infrastructure operators across Spain, Italy and Slovenia this month
July 2024: The EU-funded SUNRISE Project piloted its novel Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection with selected critical infrastructure operators across three European countries between the 18th and 24st of June.
The SUNRISE project aims to ensure greater availability, reliability, and continuity of critical infrastructures, to the benefit of all European citizens. Since its inception in October 2022, 41 expert organisations from 15 countries have been developing a suite of new technologies and solutions to safeguard critical infrastructures during pandemics and other major risks.
This month, SUNRISE partners were piloting one of its tools at locations in Spain, Slovenia and Italy working with transport, water and electricity operators across these three countries.
The SUNRISE Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection aims to deliver a solution for continuous, data-driven physical infrastructure inspection using satellite images, drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and machine learning methods for anomaly detection.
Using these technologies, it will help detect any issues and rectify them without the physical presence of workers in the area under inspection, improving safety for the people involved.
The piloting work began on June 18th at a test site in Marbella, Spain with water utility company ACOSOL before moving to Slovenia where partners worked with electricity utility company ELES and Slovenian Railways. The final location was in Italy working with hydroelectricity company Hydro Dolomiti Energia (HDE).
Outlining the importance of the tool and the accompanying piloting work Jakob Klofutar of Slovenian Railways said:
“For us at Slovenian Railways, it is always interesting to try new solutions and approaches when it comes to critical infrastructure inspections – this was a big reason for our organisation becoming involved in the SUNRISE project.
“Currently we are doing inspections of our infrastructure mainly manually, with people on the track. This can have its dangers especially if it is in a remote or treacherous area. With the tool for remote infrastructure inspection, we can assess our locations with a drone and satellite imagery in a much safer manner. Based on what we have seen we can also expect that using the tool for remote infrastructure inspection will take less time to perform regular inspections”
The aim of the SUNRISE piloting phase is to demonstrate, validate and evaluate the progress of the remote physical infrastructure tool in real world settings as the project approaches the end of its second year.
Speaking about the piloting work, SUNRISE project coordinator Aljosa Pasic said:
“Piloting the suite of SUNRISE tools in real world scenarios is a crucial milestone in the project. Getting the opportunity to work with critical infrastructure operators across Europe and taking their feedback and inputs on board is extremely valuable as we continue to develop each technological element – in this case the remote infrastructure inspection tool.
“SUNRISE project partners at XLAB in Slovenia, SKYLD in Cyprus, and Eviden in Spain have been working alongside critical infrastructure operators to ensure the piloting is as effective as possible, showing the benefits of our tool in remote infrastructure inspection and anomaly detection, such as saving cost or optimizing valuable resources.
“We hope that we can take learnings from this round of piloting work into the further development of the remote infrastructure inspection tool while continuing to work with ACOSOL, ELES, Slovenian Railways and Hydro Dolomiti Energia to assist in the continuity and availability of their respective critical infrastructures in the face of future adverse events.”
ENDS
For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:
Oisin McQueirns, Carr Communications Ltd: oisin@carrcommunications.ie / +353 833096037
For more information on the SUNRISE project visit https://sunrise-europe.eu/
Editor’s Notes:
The SUNRISE Team
The SUNRISE project consortium is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and is made up of 41 European leaders and experts from the health, security, social science, humanities, information technology, epidemiology, communications and emergency management fields, ensuring that the most modern science and research serve the real-world needs of healthcare, government and society. SUNRISE is being led by Eviden.
The full suite of SUNRISE Tools
The RIBAC Tool
The RiBAC tool will help reduce the risk involved in physical access to critical infrastructures in a scalable and privacy-preserving way. The novel architecture and software components in the RiBAC tool will address compliance with GDPR, privacy by design and default parameters and guidelines for meeting GDPR requirements. It is a modular solution that is interoperable with existing physical access control systems.
The Demand Prediction and Management (DPM) Tool
The Demand Prediction and Management (DPM) Tool, is based on state-of-the-art technologies regarding demand prediction methods, like AI/ML-based models, and has the general scope to provide accurate demand prediction for specific Critical Infrastructures and furthermore to efficiently facilitate resource management.
Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection
The Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection will deliver a solution for continuous, data-driven physical infrastructure inspection using satellite images, drones, UAVs and ML methods for anomaly detection. Using these technologies, it will help detect the issue and rectify it without the physical presence of people in the area under inspection
Tool for Cyber-Physical Resilience
The tool will improve the security of critical infrastructures by using deep-learning methods to identify the first stages of cyber-attacks and cyber threats (physical and non-physical). Taking key information e.g. computer logs with AI, it has the ability to inform authorities about different security incidents that pose major risks for critical infrastructures. It will be equipped with a dashboard and conduct a real-time risk assessment of the critical infrastructure.
Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies.
SUNRISE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101073821.
November 2022
- Digital leaders ATOS IT Solutions and Services, Iberia in Spain will lead a new major European research and innovation project to improve the resilience of infrastructures affected by major disaster scenarios such as pandemics.
- The SUNRISE Project will develop effective strategies and technologies to ensure the resilience of ‘lifeline’ services in Europe.
- SUNRISE technologies and solutions will improve the planning and management of critical infrastructures such as transport, energy, water, and healthcare.
November 2022: As Europe continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, its citizens and governments are looking ahead to futureproof society’s lifeline structures. The new EU-funded SUNRISE project aims to ensure greater availability, reliability, and continuity of critical infrastructures in Europe including transport, energy, water, and healthcare. Over the next three years, 41 partner organisations will work together to develop a suite of novel technologies and solutions that will improve the resilience of these critical infrastructures against the impact of pandemics and other major risks. Coordinated by the Spanish arm of global cloud and digital service company, ATOS IT Solutions and Services Iberia SL, the SUNRISE project has been awarded €10m in funding by the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
Rodrigo Díaz Rodríguez, head of the Cybersecurity Unit within the R&D group at ATOS IT Solutions:
“We’re delighted to introduce the SUNRISE project and continue the growing research into making Europe’s vital services as resilient as possible. Protecting the health and security of citizens across the EU in response to some of the biggest threats humanity is facing today requires member states and agencies to collaborate for the common good and ensuring that our vital services are durable is a key step to achieving that. The tools and solutions developed in this project will benefit all EU citizens.”
The outputs of SUNRISE will equip critical infrastructure operators to respond to pandemics and other major threats by enabling them to recover quickly from expected and unexpected disruptions.
Speaking at the recent kick-off meeting of SUNRISE in Madrid, Spain, project coordinator Antonio Alvarez Romero from ATOS IT Solutions said:
“Future major risks will test the resilience of our critical infrastructures which are of extreme importance to our societies. However, essential service operators and authorities in Europe are still not adequately equipped to address such risks. The project’s state-of-the-art tools will establish cross-border collaboration and share best practices between critical infrastructure operators. We will identify the different needs they have and develop technical tools to meet those needs. SUNRISE will make our infrastructures more resilient whether it be during pandemics or other problems that we may face as a society.”
Describing the impact of SUNRISE for Europe, Mr. Alvarez further commented:
“There are many things in the SUNRISE project that makes it unique. We are working in the areas of collaboration, technology and data to create new tools and bring them to the market. There is an excellent mix of more than 40 profiles in the project, including organisations from different backgrounds and nationalities. This gives our research insight into the specificities of each EU country and the needs of their critical infrastructures. SUNRISE will create a lasting impact on critical infrastructures in Europe, making them more resilient into the future.”
The SUNRISE project’s research is well underway and partners will soon conduct a series of workshops with critical infrastructure operators in Spain, Italy and Slovenia in November. During these workshops, the partners will gather first-hand knowledge directly from operators that will inform the project’s results.
Follow SUNRISE project developments on Twitter and LinkedIn. The project website will be launched soon.
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Laura Daly, Carr Communications Ltd: ldaly@carrcommunications.ie / +353 87 3171992
Editor’s Notes:
The SUNRISE Team
The SUNRISE project consortium is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and is made up of 41 European leaders and experts from the health, security, social science, humanities, information technology, epidemiology, communications and emergency management fields, ensuring that the most modern science and research serve the real-world needs of healthcare, government and society. SUNRISE is being led by ATOS IT Solutions and Services Iberia SL.
Full list of SUNRISE partners:
SUNRISE Tools
Throughout its lifetime, SUNRISE will develop a suite of technological tools including:
Tool for Risk Based Access Control (RiBAC)
This tool focuses on risk-based access control (RiBAC) and will help ensure reduced risk for access to critical infrastructure in a scalable and privacy-preserving way.
Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection
This tool focuses on the development of a flexible, CI-agnostic tool to manage the changing demand of CI resources (both human and infrastructure) during emergency scenarios.
Tool for Increased Cyber-Physical Resilience
This tool will detect anomalies, raise alarms when incidents are materialized and will provide proper responses, while performing a real-time risk assessment of the critical infrastructure. The tool will also be equipped with a suitable dashboard that will enable decision-making.
Tool for Rescource Demand Prediction and Management
This tool will deliver a solution for continuous, data-driven physical infrastructure inspection by means of satellite images, the use of UAVs with different sensors and the use of ML methods for anomaly detection.
ATOS Solutions
ATOS is a global leader in digital transformation with 112,000 employees across the world. As the European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high-performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to secure and decarbonized digital solutions. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea) and listed on Euronext Paris.
Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies.
SUNRISE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101073821