About

August 1st 2019 marked the start of the 5-year (60 months) European INCLUDING project, which is bringing together infrastructure, equipment and experts coming from Medical Organizations, Fire Corps, Government Department, Municipalities, Law Enforcement Agencies, Ministries, Governmental and Civilian Research Institutes and Industries operating in the field of radiological and nuclear emergencies from across the EU. The INCLUDING (Innovative Cluster for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies) Project pursues to develop a Federation in which individual Members will cooperate to provide a common framework to standardize access to their respective facilities, enhance interoperability and to allow a more intensive use of expensive equipment. 

INCLUDING is a project funded by the European Commission in the framework of H2020 programme. It is part of the Secure Societies Challenge – Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens. The funding scheme is CSA (Coordination and Support Action) and the topic of reference is: Pan-European clusters of practitioners and other actors in the field of Security (Subtopic Innovation clusters from around Europe managing demonstration sites, testing workbenches and training facilities). 

INCLUDING connects 15 Partners from 10 EU Member States (MS), bringing together infrastructure, equipment and experts operating in the field of radiological and nuclear emergencies. Project is coordinated by ENEA Italian Agency for the New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. 


Radiation and nuclear emergencies are by far the most feared by people and difficult to face by the authorities and the radiological threat is now recognized as a high, if not the highest, priority in the global agenda for nuclear security and an important element in the broad spectrum of unconventional threats pursued by malicious individuals and groups. To date, new scenarios add to conventional ones to further widen the range of intervention of front-line authorities and in general of all practitioners and pose a great challenge in terms of making the most effective use of the present knowledge and technologies, while keeping abreast of the continuously evolving threats. The job of improving Radiological and Nuclear security is never done: security must constantly evolve as the threats change, technologies shift and new vulnerabilities are revealed.


Far from being a simple aggregation of entities separated geographically and with complementary expertise, INCLUDING pursues to develop a Federation in which individual Members will cooperate together to provide a common framework to standardize access to their respective facilities, enhance interoperability and to allow a more intensive use of expensive equipment. 


• To provide a Pan-European Federated model of RN Security sector cluster to optimize sharing of resources and expertise
• To develop a centralized management tool for remote booking and utilization of resources in the Federation
• To develop a common learning framework for RN training
• To capitalize results and training facilities developed in previous EU projects
• To execute several real threats driven Joint Actions at Federation facilities to validate the federated model
• To collaborate with RN community, on-going EU and national projects and other cluster for long-term sustainability of the Federation

The INCLUDING Federation will provide in a flexible way training activities on unconventional scenarios of RN crisis. The INCLUDING team is able to monitor, translate and merge advanced, proven technologies in prepare-response and recovery sequence with practices applied during a RN emergency. The plurality of testbeds in the cluster allows for execution of all the main types of exercises, ranging from full-scale to functional field exercises, table-top exercises and drills. 

• Two nuclear centres to run large and medium scale exercises on nuclear emergencies.
• Qualified site for testing countermeasures against smuggling of explosive and radioactive materials for dirty bombs assembling (fully developed with funds coming from EDEN project).
• Naval base providing military grade emergency services and with the appropriate radar facilities, systems for tracking and surveillance and broadband communication network.
• Urban areas qualified as “Living Lab” for field exercises with also wide open forest.
• Three medical centres for radiological triage, treatment of external and internal contaminated people, radiotherapy, emergency surgery.
• Fire corps training centre.
• Two training centres for nuclear forensic in RDD scenario and radiological survey.
• Testing workbenches and related laboratory facilities for RN application with availability of calibrated radiation source.
• Centre for simulation of border check point Portal radiation Monitoring for cars and pedestrian.
• Proving ground for AUV operations.
• Nuclear Forensics Laboratory which uses different techniques (SEM, TEM, MS, XRF, XRD, PIXE, FTIR, OSL, TL, Pulse Train Recorder for neutron detection, Gamma Spectrometers, Neutron detectors, NAA, PGAA).
• Laboratory for immersive virtual reality that allow creating authentic/credible multisensory virtual reality applications supporting various crisis scenarios.

• Simulator for crowd dynamics in chaotic situation and for mass evacuation.
• Crisis management advanced system.
• Simulation tool for the determination of the atmospheric dispersion in an urban area of radioactive material released by a radiological dispersion device (RDD).
• E-learning Platforms.
• Training system to be used for preparations and simulations before on-field trainings to test scenarios and plan use of resources.
• Virtual Neutron Source for training purposes (detection training without using real radioactive sources).
• Serious gaming platforms.

In order to improve knowledge and expertise sharing between practitioners from different countries and organizations INCLUDING will organize meetings, workshops and Joint Actions. The activities will help to identify how unconventional scenarios are evolving, the gaps in the training, simulation and exercise functions.