D4.5 Annual report on interaction with practitioners and existing networks and dissemination conference #4

The FIRE-IN project is an initiative funded by the European Commission and initiated on the 1st of May 2017. FIRE-IN has been designed to raise the security level of EU citizens by improving the national and European Fire & Rescue (F&R) capability development process. FIRE-IN addresses the concern that capability-driven research and innovation in this area needs much stronger guidance from practitioners and better exploitation of the technology potentially available for the discipline. The purpose of this report is to inform how FIRE-IN has engaged with practitioners during the fourth year of the project: number and profile of practitioners reached, type of interactions etc. It also describes the interactions between FIRE-IN and other existing networks in civil protection. Finally, this report details how FIRE-IN has addressed the COVID19 crisis and the strategy developed to keep in touch with the community during this period and beyond.