S&R Newsletter #6

The “Advances in Search and Rescue Operations” event, organized by UKEMED GLOBAL LTD (UGL), was held on April 20th, 2023, at the Hilton Nicosia hotel in Cyprus. The event was really successful in bringing together end users, experts and practitioners from various fields to discuss and showcase the latest advancements in search and rescue operations, which will undoubtedly contribute to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of these critical services. Also, the feedback from the representatives of the Ministries and relevant agencies was very positive and individual follow-up appointments have been arranged for further discussions.

The workshop aimed to raise awareness of the benefit of standardization within research projects and presented how some projects (SnR, STRATEGY) have integrated these activities into their work. In light of the recently adopted Code of Practice for standardization in the European research area, the workshop presented outcomes from different projects. It offered the opportunity to discuss with key stakeholders and learn how to best valorize project results. The workshop focused on recent standardization development in the area of crisis management and search and rescue more specifically, namely presenting in detail three Cen Workshop Agreements (CWAs) on key topics related to search and rescue operations.

This webinar addressed societal considerations in SAR operations and how to use local communities to enhance crisis response and make society more resilient. Societal considerations are a key topic in the Search and Rescue project which has identified two specific challenges that were the central topics of the webinar.

• The management and optimization of Volunteers
• communication with local communities and how to better leverage local knowledge

We were happy to count on a presentation from the European Commission (DG ECHO) who presented the European Union’s Disaster Resilience Goals as well as the participation of the ENGAGE and RESILOC projects.