With the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2016/1624
establishing the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex was entrusted
with increased responsibilities, including those related to research and
innovation. Frontex was tasked to monitor and contribute to research and
innovation activities relevant for European integrated border management,
including the use of advanced surveillance technology. It also assists the
Member States and the Commission in identifying key research themes.
The Technology Foresight is one of the tools
used by the Agency to regularly assess the future of technology and science.
The overarching goal is the identification of technologies that may, in a
medium or long-term perspective, impact the EU borders and the Border and Coast
Guard community the most. It is aimed at the idea of capacity building, not simply
forecasting.
In this spirit, Frontex is organizing a dialogue
session with industry representatives who will present foresight methodologies/procedures
they have developed and/or follow. In addition, invited industry
representatives are expected to also briefly present areas of research or
future technological concepts that have been identified through technology
foresight as potentially having a significant impact on border security in the
medium to long-term (5 – 20 years). It is important to note that only technological
solutions at TRL 4 (technology validated in a lab environment) or below shall
be presented or discussed during this future-oriented event because they are within
the scope of our technology foresight.
This dialogue session will be an important
step towards setting up a technology foresight component in support of the
European Border and Coast Guard community.
Accordingly,
the Frontex Research and Innovation Unit is inviting industry to send their
applications for this specific event to tech.foresight@frontex.europa.eu by 07
April 2019.
In your application, please include a short
description of:
- the
experience of your company in Technology Foresight;
-
existing
products/services (reports, studies, technical solutions, etc.) your company
has already delivered based on Technology Foresight;
-
background/experience
of the experts who would participate in this dialogue session.
We kindly ask you to express your interest as
soon as possible so we can expedite the assessment of the received applications.
The closing date (and time) for delivering the interest to participate is 7 April 2019 at 18:00, Warsaw
local time. The received applications will be evaluated based on their
relevance to the theme of this dialogue session. Depending on the outcome of
the evaluation of the submitted applications, which will be announced by 14
April 2019, and the interest of potential contributors, the event is envisaged
to take place on 16 May 2019, in Warsaw,
Poland (Frontex HQ). During the event, the selected entities will be
allocated 30 minutes for their presentations. Based on the outcome of this
first dialogue meeting we foresee the possibility of hosting a second Industry dialogue
on Technology Foresight, depending on the level of interest from both the EBCG
community and Industry.