On 12th February 2024, a Grant Agreement was signed between the European Funds Unit of the Ministry of Interior, as the Managing Authority of the Home Affairs Funds, and the European University Cyprus, as the Beneficiary, for the funding of the Special Action project titled "Protection Of Public spaces by means of an Advanced secuRity plaΤform - POP-ART". The project is pertinent to a joint venture with the following parties: Etra Investigación Y Desarrollo S.A (Spain), the Spanish National Police (Spain) and the Criminal Investigation Police of Portugal (Policia Judiciária - Portugal, Associated).

The POP-ART project aims to strengthen security for European Union citizens in public places and mass gatherings, following the EU Security Union Strategy for the 2020-2025 period and the EU counter-terrorism agenda. It combines three approaches - the technical, regulatory and social one - to generate the tools which mitigate and effectively prevent security threats and violation attacks.

The project is pertinent to the development of a platform to process and securely share data in real time, thus enabling the identification of violence or suspicious activity in events. The platform will be integrated in the existing systems of the Spanish National Police and possibly the Portuguese Policia Judiciária. Moreover, the CERIDES centre of the European University Cyprus will develop the required training framework and the methodology of the POP-ART platform, by developing and implementing the training programme of the project. The training programme will be tried and validated during three practical training sessions which will be pertinent to law enforcement services in Spain and Cyprus. Both the platform and the training programme of the project aim to reduce the time required for the collection and assessment of relevant data, thus improving the quality of decisions and actions taken by the Competent Authorities in relation to security.

The project is implemented within the framework of the Internal Security Fund (ISF), and it is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus, with a total budget of €97,249.60.
Project implementation period: 01/06/2023 - 31/05/2025.