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Counterterrorism gets $200m tech backing from EU
Grants for 44 projects…

By Tom Espiner

Published: Thursday 13 September 2007

The European Commission will commit $212.16m to research on counterterrorism technologies.

The funding was granted in response to a call from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme, a research programme that seeks to develop technologies and knowledge to mitigate threats including terrorism, organised crime and natural disasters.

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 among 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 behaviors 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 coordinating the development of the projects will acquire contracts with the Commission. More than 400 companies, universities and public bodies are involved, including organisations from European Union member states, the US, Norway, Turkey and Israel.

Tom Espiner writes for ZDNet UK.