On February 14 and 15, 2024, the SUNRISE project held in-person General Assembly (GA) meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, hosted by ICS Ljubljana.

The GA meeting brought together representatives from the project’s 41 partner organisations as the project is in month 17 of total 36 months. The meeting focused on various updates and future plans following the project’s latest work completed and future plans including our stakeholder workshops with the project’s end-users and the SUNRISE technical tools and strategy for CI operators.

Across the two days, partners discussed, ideated and collaborated with the overall aim of achieving the project’s goal of strengthening Europe’s critical infrastructures against pandemics and other major threats. Key updates from the GA meeting included the development of the SUNRISE strategy. This strategy is also being informed by the research carried out via the project’s national and local workshops with critical infrastructure operators. The workshop cluster leaders from Spain, Italy and Slovenia are looking ahead to the next round of national workshops to be implemented in May 2024 and an EU-level online workshop in June 2024. Additionally, partners discussed, in depth, the design of the various SUNRISE Tools and participated in a brainstorm session on their requirements as well as the implementation of the pilots. The partners also considered the communications and dissemination topics and the way ahead for the further promotiom of SUNRISE at various conferences, seminars and events over the next period as well as the promotion via social media channels, our website and newsletter.

SUNRISE is a €10M EU-funded Horizon Europe project that aims to improve the resilience of critical infrastructures affected by pandemics. The 3-year project will develop effective strategies and technologies to ensure availability, reliability, and continuity of ‘lifeline’ services in Europe, such as electricity, drinking water and healthcare. It will also improve procedures to reduce the exposure of workforce to infectious diseases and disruptions to healthcare services, and it will enhance collaboration (public-private, cross-border, and cross-sector) between critical infrastructure stakeholders to strengthen the EU’s response to pandemics and understand their cascading effects.