SPIRIT

The overall aim of the SPIRIT project is to enhance the security of places of worship and religious mass gatherings. This includes the methodological conceptualisation and implementation of vulnerability assessments of places of worship as well as the creation of evidence-based training curricular for security and religious stakeholders. All project results, including a comprehensive toolbox of activities and best practices, will be integrated into an interoperable web-based platform.

The project “SPIRIT – Synergies to protect places of worship and religious gatherings” is funded by the European Commission through the Internal Security Fund (ISF) under the call “Places of worship” (ISF-2022-TF1-AG-PROTECT-01-PoW). It aims to enhance the preparedness and response capabilities of stakeholders engaged in the security and safety of places of worship and religious mass gatherings.

The project hereby focuses on the conceptualisation and implementation of an in-depth vulnerability assessment, tailored to the particular characteristics of places of worship. Based on the so identified vulnerabilities and needs, SPIRIT develops training curricular as well as modern tools and security-by design concepts for security personnel, law enforcement agencies and religious representatives.

These include, the development of a novel crowd simulation module grounded in an empirical analysis of individual and crowed behaviours during specific threat scenarios, in order to evaluate and test the effectiveness and impact of different security procedures or tools. The scenarios and simulations are further enhanced through a virtual reality-based environment and a supportive interoperable and dynamic platform.

In doing so, SPIRIT follows the systematic approach of the REAACT conceptual framework. REAACT hereby stands for Reporting, Engagement, Assessment/Action, Communication and Training and integrates various research and development tasks, which will be carried out within a total of 5 work packages.

Project objectives

Overall, the SPIRIT project aims to

• develop a platform that identifies vulnerabilities and provides mitigation, recommendation and specific threat scenarios,
• create impactful just-in-time communication channels in an inclusive manner that engages public and private actors, religious congregations and communities of citizens,
• develop training curricula and collaboration labs to increase the quality of all project outputs and establish continuous synergies between relevant stakeholders,
• design and implement a security awareness raising campaign as part of a pan European Communication strategy in relation to places of worship.

Project organisation

Starting in May 2023 and ending in April 2025, the SPIRIT project has a duration of 24 months and is carried out by twelve partners from eight European countries, including Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Spain and Austria. The involved partner organisations include representatives of Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious communities, law enforcement agencies, technology providers and security consultancies, who will connect their expertise in areas such as safety and security of public places, crowd behaviour, risk and vulnerability assessments and community policing. SPIRIT is coordinated by the Hellenic Police, the other consortium members are Kentro Meleton Asfaleias, STAM, Ianus Consulting, European Organisation for Security, the Bavarian Police Academy, Europe Islamic Assoociation, Software Imagination & Vision, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Iera Mitropolis Glyfadas Ellinikou Voulas Vouliagmenis Kai Varis, Israilitiki Koinotita Thessalonikis and SYNYO. In total 356 person-months are allocated among all partners.

SYNYO is thereby heavily involved in the development of the vulnerability assessment methodology and implementation, the composition of an inventory of security-by-design recommendations as well as in training, piloting and evaluation activities of the developed scenarios and outputs.

Moreover, SYNYO will integrate gained expertise from its coordination of the EU funded SHIELD project, into the conceptualisation of SPIRIT. The preceding SHIELD project aims for solutions to enhance interfaith protection of places of worship from terrorist danger and is closely related to the SPIRIT project. Accordingly, SYNYO will ensure to establish synergies and encourage meaningful exchange of the two ISF projects and their broader networks and sister projects.

Links

https://spirit-isf.eu/

https://shieldproject.eu/

Keywords

Security-by-design, Places of Worship, Vulnerability Assessment, Crowd Behaviour, Awareness Raising, Community Policing