Find out what Multi-Stakeholders Situational Awareness Systems (MSSAS) are with Prof. Friedrich Steinhäusler from the International Security Competence Centre and SAYSO Technical Director. 

What is the current situation concerning Situational Awareness (SA) in Crisis Management?

Although there are well-defined roles and procedures for creating common operational pictures (COP), there is a perceived lack of interoperability with tools and services for a more efficient sharing of Situational Awareness (SA) information.

Interoperability between multi-stakeholders is acknowledged as a key objective and thus the need for a well-defined environment for cross-organisational information exchange is generally recognized. However, this aspect is missing in many technical solutions.

At present, modern State-of-the-Art SA-related tools are used only infrequently, if at all, by many EU crisis managers. Thus, SA can lack essential information for optimal decision making.

What is the SAYSO approach for MSSAS:

The MSSAS concept is based on Reference Architecture, Functionalities and Tools (detailed in three SAYSO reports: a State-of-the-Art analysis, a gap analysis between the State-of-the-art (SOTA) and the requirements of civil protection practitioners, D3.1), together with results of TRL-analysis of EU funded FP7- and H2020 projects.

1. MSSAS Structure consists of a common base and special modules for the different stakeholders involved in crisis management, such as law enforcement, fire fighters, paramedic and technical relief organisations.
2. MSSAS Base incorporates the results of: (a) analysis of end user-requirements, (b) SOTA Situational Awareness tools, (c) analysis of TRL of EU project results, (d) EU Community Crisis Management Library (CCM), and (e) ethical/legal issues as addressed in GDPR.

• 1. MSSAS Modules contain only tools needed specifically by a certain type of first responders involved in crisis management.