Karin Rainer’s research while affiliated with Umweltbundesamt, Austria and other places

Climate change and other factors like roll back of living environment of species make outbreak of pandemics more likely. To respond adequately to threats arising from pathogens like emerging arboviruses such as the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus or the West Nile virus, mobile one health laboratories with the highest bio-safety level 4 (BSL4) are becoming increasingly important. For the coordination of several mobile laboratories a decision support system is needed. To identify the optimized location for the operation of these resources, the results on the local incidence of specific pathogens provided by the mobile laboratories needs to be combined with data from different provenience such as modelling of the trend of incidence of pathogens, information provided by international stakeholders such as European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as well as analysis of data coming from sources such as social media. Based on a set of indicators decision makers can be supported in taking time-critical decisions. Within the project MOBILISE such a system including a BSL4 mobile laboratory and a decision support system is developed.

COVID-19 still represents one of the greatest global challenges of the last decades in terms of medical, coordination and management aspects, but also on the societal and economic level. Even after more than two years, the rapidly changing requirements that the emerging variations of the virus call for, show that Austria-as the majority of countries and organizations-is still struggling with a stringent and pertinent management approach. The call for a comprehensive, applicable and

Within this paper requirements and related gaps associated with cross-border pandemic management are analyzed. In order to systematically investigate the potential of solutions to close such gaps, trials can be executed and evaluated. Core elements of such trials are specific scenarios that frame the validation of the applicability of solutions. Stakeholders involved in pandemic 138 management specified a framing for such scenarios such as cross-border common operational picture and resource management, pandemic management during a refugee crisis and sharing of mobile infrastructure to detect pathogens. An insight in these scenarios is given and, finally, solutions having the potential to close at least partially gaps arising in the mentioned scenarios provided from projects such as STAMINA are presented.

The objective of the KIRAS security research project NutriSafe is to develop and evaluate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for enhancing the resilience of value chains in the Food Industry. Different use cases about the application of DLT was dealt with comprehensively. The focus for Austria was identified mainly in the fields of food security: logistic challenges, disruption of transfer, processing or packaging, pandemic animal diseases or crop failure due to climatic change effects. For the German partners, food safety focused on contamination of foodstuff with germs, diseases or foreign particles that require a retrieval action. In this way, new insights and training tools are created in cooperation with international practice partners to improve food security in the course of the upcoming digitalization and to secure the supply in case of emergency. This paper will give an overview 14 of the dynamic work in progress of the project and its challenges by summarizing the findings nearly. Examples will show lessons learned, good practice, but also challenges and open questions or gaps in the wake of complex crisis scenarios and events as the still ongoing COVID pandemic, natural or man-made incidents, or criminal acts represent.

COVID-19 represents one of the greatest global challenges of the last decades in terms of medical, coordination and management aspects, but also on the societal and economic level. The borderline experience of dealing with such a complex, global event has shown that Austria – as the majority of countries and organizations – was inadequately prepared for a crisis of this kind in some areas. The call for a comprehensive, applicable and interoperable solution portfolio including evidence-based analysis of current processes/structures, tools and infrastructures as well as lessons learned from the current pandemic response, is evident. The “ROADS to Health” reflect this approach7, a holistic solution set up aiming at developing a technologically supported, clearly structured pandemic management for the future. Experiences from the current management will be processed and included in risk analyses to describe further, possible future pandemic scenarios in order to derive practical resilience strategies and develop connectable tool modules and a roadmap. "Strengthening strengths, bridging weaknesses" will be the overarching goal, taking into account specific, particularly relevant questions and tasks of the stakeholders as well as of other interested parties involved in management with regard to the actual prevention potential of current, isolated measures. Resilience is thus to be promoted in selected, particularly relevant areas and tools for reducing vulnerability are to be made available to decision-makers through a holistic approach. This keynote paper will draft the frame of this model by presenting the underlying background and basis of the ROADS to Health-solution set and open the floor for a wider range of perspectives of optimization in pandemic and crisis management.

Evaluations in the frame of the EU research projects DRIVER+ and STAMINA revealed that, aside from the multitude of solutions that can be applied to manage a pandemic (restraining measures, protective equipment, tests for epidemiological observations, therapies and vaccines, tools for predictions, resource planning and monitoring, IT solutions for public services), there is also a need for procedures on how to systematically evaluate such solutions. End users, e.g. in medical services have to ensure that new solutions fit to their established pandemic management processes in order to avoid unexpected side effects on the execution of their tasks. In this paper we show a new methodology designed to trial pandemic solutions and provide insights based on the different national trials of STAMINA.

Both organized crime and terrorist networks are major threats for the European Union and its population. On the one hand, the number and value of assets confiscated from organized crime activities are more and more increasing in Europe (Savona/Riccardi 2015), which indicates its rise and its challenging of the legal economy and the tax base of many nation states. On the other hand, Europe is facing an increasing number of individuals, who are recruited as foreign fighters or for terrorist attacks within Europe. In addition to the direct implications and impacts, a more and more overwhelming atmosphere of fear is created. Not to forget the economic direct and indirect costs for prevention and fighting organized crime and terrorism are more and more increasing -- a fact, which is particularly relevant in times of austerity measures. The reduction of integration programmes and the support of marginalized groups is likewise increasing old and creating new boundaries between the milieus. Even in allegedly "egalitarian" societies, the entrenchment within societies is widening and producing classes of "left-behinds" with no chance for an upward social mobility. And it is often young people with no future perspectives, who are at risk of becoming engaged in criminal organizations and activities or in terrorist networks. It is the combination of these threats and the respective preventive policies, which are ultimately challenging social cohesion in Europe.

In 2015 the migration movements reached an unprecedented peak in several European countries such as Austria since the period after World War II. Involved stakeholders such as national authorities or NGOs were overstrained with the number of displaced persons reaching their borders. Limited information exchange and insulated operational pictures turned out to be major challenges of involved authorities, NGOs and grassroots movements. This paper provides relevant basic insight into the development of migration movements since 2010 and analyses the requirements for different types of stakeholders from Austria and Germany expressed in order to improve future management of refugee flows.

Crises and disasters occur all over the world with the highest impact on the most vulnerable in society. Generating a trusted status of information out of a multitude of reliable and relevant data about a critical situation is a priority for effective and coordinated disaster management and relief measures delivered by governmental organizations (GOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Data gathering, processing, information visualization and (internal as well as external) dissemination for decision support and mitigation is performed via a number of different channels. The QuOIMA-project, funded by the Austrian Security Research Program KIRAS, focused on the various possibilities to use publicly available, open source data generated in the sphere of traditional (online distributed) and social media. This interactive gathered, multi-channel data, tapping the wisdom of crowds on the broadest possible level, could be used as vital and relevant input for situation awareness and decision support in disaster management. It could also foster and maintain active, bidirectional, participatory