CATO project meeting in Portsmouth 2013

Assessment With the continued reduction of systems capability including for medium-sized enterprises in the armaments sector, the competence for core and stand-by capabilities is also dwindling. Above all this means losing the possibility of reinvesting saved budgetary resources and of taking up production again when there is a future need, while incorporating technological improvements.

Security and defence In both sectors – security and defence – and in most countries, both governments and companies are insufficiently aware of the new roles that are developing for industry. In the defence sector there are considerable differences between the European partner countries. But in the area of private military services a range of additional tasks is developing, for example in the fields of logistics, energy and communications. For the purpose of international cooperation at industry level appropriate cooperation at government level could have a structuring effect. Both sides must be open to broader cooperation in more informal structures, as has been the case for many years – to great effect – with the Defense Science Board (DSB) in the United States. Moreover, with respect to the development of PPP, industry does not take sufficient account of the fact that more than 80% of the critical infrastructure for IC and energy supply is privately owned, which means that enterprises are increasingly themselves becoming security providers.

Technological potential and new options Technological developments are considered to be drivers. But there is a vital difference between technologies that target the effects of products and those contributing systematically to the development of capabilities, thereby opening up new political and strategic options. Technological developments aimed at optimising product effects can generate savings (manpower, logistics, etc.) and to that extent are relevant for capability/armaments planning. But only the latter technological developments are drivers. Technologies need to be considered as possible drivers for new protective functions, for new environments (e.g. urbanisation), for strategically relevant interactions or for competing parallel developments. The evaluation process must not be confined to assessing their potential for optimising available operational assets.

CATO project meets in Portsmouth

CATO Conference 2013 in Portsmouth photo: © Simon Winson

The 2 nd

User Advisory Group (UAG) meeting organised by the

CATO project took place in Portsmouth, United Kingdom, on 12–13 March 2013.

CATO – which stands for CBRN crisis management: Architecture, Technologies and Operational procedures – is an R&D project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7). The project is now in its 2nd year. CATO is developing a holistic open toolbox for dealing with CBRN crises caused by terrorist attacks using non-conventional weapons or on facilities with CBRN material. It addresses the issue of how to overcome the fragmentation in CBRN preparedness and response in particular.

The interaction between users and technology developers is at the core of CATO’s strategy. The CATO consortium includes practitioners from key user categories such as policy and decision makers, incident commanders, first responders and health responders, cooperating with CBRN experts, ethicists, public communication specialists and technologists. To complement this expertise and as part of its strategy to develop an international CBRN CATO Community the CATO consortium regularly interacts with external advisors to collect their feedback on project results.

During the Portsmouth meeting the invited advisors saw an early demonstration of the first CATO Decision Support System functionalities. The Portsmouth invitees were highly animated about the tool, discussed key features and suggested future improvements, notably on the system look and feel.

The 1 st

CATO Laboratory release, featuring a broad range of CATO

tools, will be launched in June 2013. The CATO solution will then be improved until the project end through continued interaction with an increasingly large user and expert community.

> Learn more about the CATO project: http://www.cato-project.eu/