CERIS Disaster Resilience Days: turning research and innovation results into operational capabilities

How can promising research and innovation results translate into operational capabilities that strengthen Europe's resilience to disasters?

For three days, from 30 June to 2 July 2026, the CERIS Disaster Resilience Days provided a space for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, innovators and industry representatives to exchange perspectives, identify capability needs and explore how promising solutions can move closer to operational use.

The event gathered around 280 participants, with 90 more joining online. Representatives from EU institutions, civil protection authorities, first responders, practitioners, researchers, industry, start-ups, SMEs, national stakeholders and Horizon Europe project managers came together to ensure that the development of innovative solutions responds to real operational needs, can be tested and validated with users, and ultimately reaches the organisations that can deploy them.

The CERIS Disaster Resilience Days also provided the opportunity to celebrate promising innovations. The DIREKTION Knowledge Network held the second DIREKTION Awards, showcasing ten innovative solutions with strong potential to meet real disaster resilience needs. An AI-powered platform supporting wildfire prediction, prevention and emergency response in wildland-urban interface areas; an all-terrain robotic inspection system supporting remote visual and radiological operations in hazardous environments; an indoor and underground positioning solution enabling real-time firefighter tracking in GPS-denied environments - these were a few innovations among the award-winning EU-funded solutions presented.

The central message emerging from the event is that Europe has a strong and dynamic disaster resilience research and innovation community. Now we need to ensure that promising project results do not remain confined to research and demonstration activities, but are translated into concrete operational capabilities and adopted by the practitioners who need them.

To this end, capability-based approaches to disaster resilience begin with the operational challenges and capability gaps faced by practitioners, rather than technology alone. Using foresight to anticipate how future risks and needs may evolve, this approach can help guide future research and innovation investments towards areas where European action can deliver the greatest operational value.

The event also demonstrated the importance of structured and continuous engagement with end users throughout the innovation cycle. Discussions between practitioners and innovators, direct exchanges with civil protection respondents and strategic discussions on future needs all contributed to connecting technology development more closely with operational reality.

By facilitating exchanges across stakeholder communities, CERIS contributes to identifying emerging capability needs, generating policy feedback and increasing the visibility and potential uptake of promising solutions. The outcomes and exchanges will contribute to ongoing reflections on future EU action in disaster resilience, including under Horizon Europe and CERIS, while also supporting the wider European preparedness and civil security agenda.