Unknown perpetrators of crime cannot be identified with the current forensic use of DNA. The VISAGE Project aims to overcome this major limitation by developing, validating, and implementing in the relevant forensic DNA service environment a set of prototype tools for predicting appearance, age, and ancestry in as much detail and as accurately, and effectively as possible from DNA traces. This VISAGE Toolkit will allow the construction of composite sketches of unknown trace donors directly from their crime scene traces, which will guide and focus criminal investigations towards finding them. The VISAGE Toolkit will include analysis prototype tools based on massively parallel sequencing for genotyping the large number of DNA predictors for appearance, age, and ancestry established within the Project, as well as an integrated statistical framework with prototype software for translating these genotype data into statistical probabilities on appearance, age and ancestry, which represents the intelligence information finally used for guiding criminal investigations towards the most probable group of suspects. The VISAGE Toolkit will consider ethical, societal, and legal dimensions of Forensic DNA Phenotyping as identified within the Project, by applying a privacy-by-design strategy. The interdisciplinary VISAGE Consortium includes European (and global) scientific leaders in Forensic DNA Phenotyping as well as in forensic massively parallel sequencing, leading European forensic DNA service providers, and one of the leading social scientists in the field of forensic DNA analysis, ensuring that the Project goals will be achieved on time. The outcome of the VISAGE Project will have a major impact on solving more crimes more rapidly by providing previously unused intelligence information from trace DNA to find unknown perpetrators, which will lead to reduced impact on victims, reduced societal distress, preventing miscarriages of justice, thereby avoiding unnecessary costs.

Project “Together Against Crime by Education” No. 2015-1-CZ01-KA202-013916 of Erasmus+ programme was primarily designed for forensic technicians and forensic experts. The target of the course was to create, for these groups of policepersons, new courses of further specialist training that would be, within the frameworks of an identical curriculum, taught at the police schools of all the three participating countries, it means the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The complete project documentation was approved at international project meetings that formed the spine of the project. To be able to verify the correctness and completeness of the content of the courses and of the pedagogical strategies of the teachers, altogether seven 5-day pilot courses took place and these were attended by forensic experts from the police forces of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Four pilot courses were for a group of forensic technicians and three pilot courses were for forensic experts. A course evaluation in the form of a questionnaire represented an inseparable part of each course. Every successful participant of a particular course received a certificate. The content of the newly created courses will be integrated into the police education which means that sustainability of the outcomes of the project will be ensured. Meanwhile the participants of the pilot courses have taken the role of trainers at their workplaces and inform their colleagues about the course of the project and they pass their knowledge and skills on their colleagues. To ensure dissemination of the project, information brochures are distributed to forensic and expert police workplaces and also the project coordinators may take part at events concerning forensic and expert activities. An information video represents another outcome of the project and it introduces policepersons to the Erasmus+ programme, project activities and the project outcomes. 140 policepersons and civilian workers of the police forces of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia were engaged to control, organize and carry out the whole project. The project was executed between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2017. The project was provided the EU grant money of € 185,759.

The SYSTEM project will design and demonstrate a data fusion system for the continuous monitoring of threats associated to the manufacturing of explosives and to the production and handling of synthetic drugs. Data fused from different mature sensor networks will provide Law Enforcement Agencies with enriched information to assess the potential occurrence of a criminal activity (e.g. to localize the production of improvised explosive devices and/or clandestine synthetic drugs laboratories) in an identified area. Forerunners and basis of SYSTEM are two H2020 IA projects, NOSY and microMole, funded under the call FCT-05-2014. SYSTEM devices will support the detection of home-made explosives and synthetic drugs manufacturing by detecting intermediates and impurities of the production process and precursors used for their synthesis, identifying abnormal use of chemicals transported/provided within the covered urban areas. Additionally, the prevalence of new psychoactive substances including metabolites in the sewage system will be assessed. Deploying a network of sensing systems, working in different and complementary utilities and environments, SYSTEM will acquire and process data from the sewage wastewater and solid waste networks as well as air emissions from target areas in real-time. Such network will consist of different sensing systems, working in different and complementary utilities and environments, Metal-Oxides (MOXs) sensors, Molecular Imprinted Polymers (MIPs), Liquid Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry and autonomous sampling (online LC/MS), fast Gas-Chromatography with Photoionization Detection (GC-PID) and commercial pH and conductivity sensors combined with passive sampling devices and integrated into SYSTEM through a centralised monitoring centre. The consortium will test and demonstrate functionality of SYSTEM in seven different European cities during three years of activities

The threat of synthetic drugs is one of the most significant current drug problems worldwide. Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) are the second most widely used drugs. Since 1990, ATS manufacturing has been reported from more than 70 countries worldwide and the figure keeps rising. In 2008, 80 % of the amphetamine production facilities dismantled worldwide were located in Europe (UNODC, 2010) (EMCCDA, 2011). Organised Crime Groups are involved in ATS large-scale production (Europol, 2007) (EMCDDA, 2009). Since 2011, the wide availability of pre-precursors (like APAAN) significantly lowered the price of the controlled precursor BMK and caused severe environmental problems, taking the problem to a greater dimension. The aim of this project is to design, develop and test a prototype of a system for legal recording, retrieving and monitoring operations of ATS and ATS precursor laboratories in urban areas. The sensor system will be installed within the sewage system and will track waste associated to ATS production. Criminal investigators and forensic specialists will use the system in case of: 1. initial general suspicion of ATS production in a certain area, for locating laboratories by monitoring the sewage system for long time periods; 2. strong suspicions that in a well confined area ATS is being produced, for collecting material for forensic analysis and potential use in court, and for aiding in the planning of LEA raid operations. The μMole prototype will contain the following features: a) miniaturized system for 200mm sewage pipes, b) robust housing taking into account sewage system environment, c) minimized power consumption, d) enhanced operation time supported by energy harvesting, e) high-specificity electro-chemical sensors, f) integrated micro-tanks for sample storage, and g) secure GSM and radio communications for remote monitoring. Analysis of privacy law, data protection and social acceptance will be carried on at different stages.