CYRENE Expert Workshop

CYRENE Expert Workshop

On March 31st, Privanova organised the first CYRENE Expert Workshop together with the project coordinator, our consortium partners and representatives of all three external advisory boards. 

Organised at the end of Month 6 of the project, the CYRENE Expert Workshop successfully kickstarted the collaboration between the project partners and external advisors. 

Workshop Objectives

Besides informing the three advisory board members of the current status of the project and the advancement of its research activities, the CYRENE Expert Workshop aimed at discussing and validating the technical and operational end-user requirements identified by the project partners during the first phases of the project. 

In this context, the project participants obtained feedback and comments concerning current project outcomes and, in particular, on deliverable D2.1 “Supply Chain Analysis and Requirements”. 

Aiming at a more interactive discussion, the CYRENE Expert Workshop included an overview of the online questionnaire for advisory board members and an open discussion where they could provide their ideas on the project status from the stakeholders’ point of view. 

Comprehensive agenda

Conceived as an open platform where international experts from different fields contribute to the project by sharing their experience and know-how, the first CYRENE Expert Workshop achieved its objectives. During the first part of the event, following Mr Farhan Sahito’s (Privanova) introductory note, the project coordinator introduced the project, explained its objectives and methodology and describing the main issues concerning its current research focus. 

The technical approach overview was given by UBI. This part focused on the CYRENE Value Proposition, addressing, in particular, the Conformity Assessment Processes and the way towards their implementation during the piloting phase. Security aspects of supply chain services were explained by SU. Of particular interest to several advisory board members, this presentation addressed the supply chain threat landscape, security context and several threat scenarios. 

Information on the supply chain services as targets for evaluation and certification was given by FP and MAG. Overall requirements for certification of supply chain services including Policy, Legislation and Standardisation aspects was provided. 

Interactive discussion

The second part of the workshop focused specifically on the end-user requirements. Lead by the UNS, this segment revolved around different elicitation user requirements from different areas ranging from technical and security-oriented ones to legal and privacy-related requirements. During this session, participants from the project’s External Advisory Board, Ethics Advisory Board and the User Advisory Board had an opportunity to provide their opinions and ideas during a Q&A session. 

Thanks to its interdisciplinary nature, the CYRENE advisory boards comprise members with different backgrounds including information security, cybercrime, privacy and data protection and international law enforcement (INTERPOL). 

Beyond the workshop

To ensure continuous engagement with relevant stakeholders, Privanova and the CYRENE consortium prepared a series of follow-up activities for the advisory board members. In order to gather requirements from end-users, we have created an anonymous online questionnaire structured to collect information about the responder’s organisation, supply chain services relevant to them and information about Risk and Conformity Assessment Processes implemented within their organisation.

Besides, the workshop findings, minutes and presentations will be shared with our external advisors. Finally, before the next CYRENE Expert Workshop is organised, the members of the advisory boards will be kept informed via project newsletters, the CYRENE website, Twitter (@CYRENE_H2020) and LinkedIn accounts (CYRENE project). 

Privanova’s engagement

From Privanova’s side, particular attention will be given to the Ethics Advisory we lead. Ethics compliance is of particular interest to the project especially since it has received a conditional ethics clearance. 

In addition, we plan to keep the external advisory board appraised of the project’s interaction with the European Commission’s Living-in.eu initiative we introduced to the consortium.