Project

Project Summary

SEMEDFIRE (South Eastern Mediterranean Excellence Development In FIre REsearch), is a Twinning project under Horizon Europe call: HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03, the ninth in a series of the European Union’s Research and Innovation Framework Programmes 2021-2027 with a budget of €95.5 billion.

The project is coordinated by the European University Cyprus (EUC) as the Widening Institution, that collaborates with five Advanced Partners to enhance the capacities and knowledge-acquisition in Research-&-Innovation (R&I) and Research-Management-Administration (RMA) relating to:

  • Fire Modelling and Evacuation Tools
  • Integrated Fire Management
  • Community Engagement in Forest Fires
  • Fire and Civil Protection Governance and
  • the establishment of an Excellence-in-RMA Unit.

Project Description

No longer a rare occurrence, extreme fires during summer months are not only frequent but also more intense and longer lasting. In Europe, most fires occur in southern countries characterised by a Mediterranean climate. What’s more, the combination of droughts and heatwaves has made prevention and firefighting difficult. This makes research concerning fire safety and management essential for the Southern and Eastern (SE) Mediterranean region. The EU-funded SEMEDFIRE project will increase the capacities EUC in R&I and research-management-administration in fire science. The project will promote networking activities with top-class counterparts at the EU level and will generate knowledge and capacities for the SE Mediterranean including the Middle East.

The high-level aim of the SEMEDFIRE project is to establish a regional centre for the advancement of disaster prevention and management with a focus on wildfires. During SEMEDFIRE, EUC will be given the opportunity to develop excellent research capacities in critical sectors of wildfire disaster prevention and management, and at the same time it will further develop its research capacity on the innovation and administration levels.

The high-level aim of the SEMEDFIRE project is to establish a regional centre for the advancement of disaster prevention and management with a focus on wildfires.

Project Objective

In full alignment with the WIDERA-Twinning-topic’s requirements, SEMEDFIRE aims to enhance the capacities and knowledge-acquisition of the Widening institution; EUC, in Research-&-Innovation (R&I) and Research-Management-Administration (RMA) relating to Fire Safety and Fire Management.

This is aimed through networking activities with five top-class leading counterparts at EU level:

  • IMPERIAL COLLEGE
  • WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY
  • PAU COSTA FOUNDATION
  • FRENCH GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF CIVIL SECURITY AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
  • NIMES METROPOLE

which represent a multifaceted, but complementary and synergistic, ‘geography’ of R&I-philosophies and approaches, comprising:

  • two leading Academic institutes in the area of fire safety and integrated fire management
  • a leading Foundation in investigating fires and communities-engagement
  • a Governmental Agency leading the EU-effort in operationally combating Forest Fires
  • an Agglomeration of Municipalities providing the tangible example of local governance in Forest Fires
  • a representation of both Member States and an Associated Country
  • a linking of the European Research Area (ERA) in a “compass” fashion: from north (United Kingdom) to central Europe (France, Netherlands), to the West (Spain), and to the Mediterranean biogeographical region (Spain, France, Cyprus) and its South-Eastern area (Cyprus).

The networking-for-excellence and twinning-contributions of the internationally leading Advanced Partners in knowledge-transfer and capacity-building, focus on both EUC and within and for its surrounding targeted stakeholders from public governance, industry/ entrepreneurship and civic society, at local and regional levels. It is hence scoped to raise the profile and reputation of EUC to such a level of ERA excellence that it will be able to become a lighthouse of spreading fire-science excellence in Cyprus and the SE Mediterranean, as well as to nurture a culture of societal fire-safety.

Project Details

Start Date:
1 December 2022

End Date:
30 November 2025

EU Contribution:
€ 940 454,50

Grant Agreement ID: 101079337
DOI: 10.3030/101079337