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EC funds counter-terrorism tech research

Tom Espiner ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 12 Sep 2007 15:11 BST

The European Commission is to plough €156m (£107m) of funding into research on counter-terrorism technologies.

The funding was granted in response to a call from the EU's Seventh Research Framework Programme, which seeks to develop technologies and knowledge to mitigate threats including terrorism, organised crime and natural disasters.

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The grants will cover 44 research projects, including the development of automatic surveillance systems for water distribution systems. Funding will also be allocated for the development of a European ballistic database, which will analyse and store firearms information and allow sharing of information across European police forces, the Commission said in a statement

Money will also be given to projects studying surveillance of maritime areas, software-defined radio, crisis-management support systems, security checkpoints, video detection of abnormal behaviours in crowds and land border protection. A portion of the funding will also be given to human science topics, such as the perception of security.

The organisations co-ordinating the development of the projects will gain contracts with the Commission. More than 400 companies, universities and public bodies are involved, including organisations from EU member states, the USA, Norway, Turkey and Israel.