Commissioner Günter Verheugen announced, on 13 October 2006, that a new EU security forum, composed of a range of public and private stakeholders in the field of security, will be established early 2007, to do overall strategic thinking related to security, beyond the official security research programme in the FP7. The forum will, in part, continue and extend the work conducted so far by the European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB), which recently published its recommendations on the content and implementation of the security research programme in the FP7.
The Commission also announced the selection of the last 15 projects funded under the Preparatory Action for Security Research (PASR). With these projects the total funding for security research technological projects and supporting activities, such as studies addressing a variety of issues to improve civil population security, amounts 45 million euro for 39 projects between 2004 and 2006.
The selected projects address mainly ways to combat terrorism, such as improving the detection of explosives at airports and the protection of the drinking water supply against bio or chemical terrorism. The overall aim of PASR is both to improve the security of EU citizens and to strengthen the European industrial base by creating new market opportunities. This work will be continued with the FP7's security research programme.
