‘Augmented reality’ equipment – itself designed in consultation with Government experts – was showcased at a recent London gathering to which Baroness Neville-Jones was invited, the new technology solutions themselves designed to mimic current counter-terrorism challenges.
At the event, the security minister commended the efforts of Government and industry alike in working together to counter the terrorist threat.
“We face a range of complex and interdependent security challenges that go beyond terrorism,” said the minister.
“Government alone cannot maintain national security. It’s a collective effort in which we all – Government, industry and communities – need to play our part.”
Importantly, Baroness Neville-Jones added: “We must ensure our response is a joint effort underpinned by a closer relationship between Government and industry.”
INSTINCT: what’s it all about?
The Technology Demonstrator showcases are funded as part of a cross-Government programme run under the INSTINCT (Innovation in Science and Technology in Counter Terrorism) banner.
INSTINCT was set up in April 2009 to improve Government’s ability to work with academics and members of the private sector.
Last year alone, INSTINCT sponsored approximately GB pound 2.7 million of work.
Essentially, INSTINCT’s aim is to enable Government to make the most of innovative projects and ideas in counter-terrorism by fostering a greater understanding of the innovation community, smarter influence over external innovation and better co-ordination of investments in new ideas and solutions.
This involves funding projects with perhaps a higher technical risk than would normally be accepted in an effort to rapidly identify productive lines of work, in turn improving Government’s ability to move at pace and intelligently manage risk.
INSTINCT is led by a cross-Government team anchored within the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. Team members come from many different Government departments and agencies, some of whom have contributed from their own research budgets to supplement the core Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism funding.
The Technology Demonstrators
The inaugural INSTINCT Technology Demonstrator in 2009 allowed the demonstration and evaluation of “novel tools and technologies” to model and predict crowd behaviour in both a physical and a virtual environment.
Crowded places are obvious targets for terrorists and securing these locations presents significant challenges: crowded places are often noisy and chaotic, with many ways in and out.
The security services need to make it more difficult for terrorists to attack crowded places while at the same time allowing the public to go about their everyday lives.
INSTINCT engaged Detica/BAE Systems as a prime contractor to rapidly implement a programme that would evaluate innovative technologies that may be used to counter terrorism.
There was also a desire to assess whether The Technology Demonstrator event approach is a successful way to engage industry and trial technologies, allow technology suppliers to engage with Government stakeholders and potential buyers within industry and provide an assessment of the value of synthetic environments in predicting crowd behaviour.
Detica engaged with the innovation community, focusing in particular on universities and SMEs via trusted partners Orbis IP, Secure Futures and the Global Security Challenge.
Those organisations who were selected by an expert panel to take part in the event showcased the wide range of technical approaches and achievements in this area, and gave an idea of the current state-of-the-art and future trends in this domain.
Through activities like The Technology Demonstrator, INSTINCT has engaged widely and successfully across Government, industry and academia, and sponsored a range of research to explore some challenging technical issues in the overarching CONTEST domain.
Engagement with the innovation community
Back in June 2009, INSTINCT held an industry engagement event that focused on ‘Intent in Crowded Places’. This was held in collaboration with the MoD’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) in Harwell, Oxfordshire.
The CDE is the first point of contact for anyone with a disruptive technology, new process or innovation that has a potential defence application.
This event was the first time the CDE had been used to address a non-MoD counter-terrorism challenge.
Attendance was high, with 82 organisations registering. Briefings were given by representatives of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office and the British Transport Police.
Following the event, a call for proposals was promoted through the CDE in collaboration with the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) and using the CDE web portal.
The call yielded 55 bids from across industry and academia (of which 66% had an SME component, 30% a major company component, 38% an academic component and 23% were from consortia).
Six proposals were funded after assessment by a cross-Government panel.