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EU-HYBNET 4th Future Trends Workshop #FTW2024

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We are pleased to announce that the EU-HYBNET consortium will hold its fourth Future Trends Workshop, #FTW2024, on 23 April 2024 at the Valencia Local Police Headquarters in Valencia, Spain. Please save the date in your calendars!

Four years into the EU-HYBNET project, this workshop will build on the project findings and provide a platform of interaction for various stakeholders to discuss scenarios related to future manifestations of hybrid threats, looking into solutions and innovations not only for today but also for tomorrow. The purpose of the workshop is to support stakeholders’ everyday work by providing a future outlook for strategic planning and consider the consequences of today’s policy choices in long-term.

More information will be shared in due course. The agenda can be found here and will be updated regularly. The workshop will be open to project partners and external participants upon registration.

Registration Closed
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EU-HYBNET 3rd Future Trends Workshop #FTW

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We are pleased to announce that the EU-HYBNET consortium will hold its third Future Trends Workshop, #FTW2023, on 19 April 2023 in Bucharest, Romania.

The third EU-HYBNET Future Trends Workshop’s topic is “Hybrid Threats in the EU Neighbourhood – Implications for the future of EU security”. Please register and share the event with your relevant networks!

Three years into the EU-HYBNET project, this workshop will build on the project findings and provide a platform of interaction for various stakeholders to discuss hybrid threats in the EU’s neighbourhood, implications for the future of EU security and innovations to counter them.

Since the landscape of hybrid threats is continuously evolving, foresight and creative thinking is central for understanding, detecting and responding to emerging threats. It focuses on a more anticipatory and prospective outlook, highlighting the weak signals and outliers of disruptive and paradigmatic change to the European security environment.

Recent events in the EU neighbourhood have brought into attention a complex dynamic of adversarial tools and strategies involving weaponization of information, technology, cyberspace, critical infrastructure, energy, in an intricate pattern aimed to weaken cohesion and generate polarisation across the EU and its neighbourhood.

The purpose of the workshop is to support stakeholders’ everyday work by providing a future outlook for strategic planning and consider the consequences of today’s policy choices in long-term.

Please find the full draft agenda here. Further information will be provided shortly.

The workshop is open to project partners and external participants upon registration.

Registration is closed
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EU-HYBNET 2nd Future Trends Workshop #FTW – Democracies on the edge?

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The EU-HYBNET consortium will hold its second EU-HYBNET Future Trends Workshop, #FTW, on 5 of April 2022 in Rome and in hybrid format/telco. This workshop will address expected future manifestations of hybrid threats, and their evolving nature coupled with the different points of view that may be expressed as to how current innovations and solutions may or may not apply in tomorrow’s world.

The purpose of the workshop is to support the stakeholders’ everyday work by providing a future outlook for strategic planning and consider consequences of today’s policy choices in long-term.

The second EU-HYBNET Future Trends Workshop’s topic is “Democracies on the edge? Populism, Social networks, and international groups” including following topics:

* Trend 1 – Changing populism: what are the forms of populism? How will populism evolve and will it be a determining political movement in the future?

* Trend 2 – Instrumentalization of social networks: what are current social networks? How will the galaxy of social networks look like in the future? Will information virality models give and deepen social networks’ future harm potential at systemic levels?

* Trend 3 – Constitution of international groups: what narratives and topics unite and create movements transnationally? How this can be used as a tool by outside actors? Are these likely to grow into political force or are they more a disruption?

REGISTRATION

EU-HYBNET 2nd Future Trends Workshop Booklet with AgendaDownload

Save-the-Date-FTW

1st Future Trends Workshop #FTW (Deadline extended)

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The EU-HYBNET consortium will hold its first virtual EU-HYBNET Future Trends Workshop, #FTW, on 31 March 2021. This first workshop will address expected future manifestations of hybrid threats, and their evolving nature coupled with the different points of view that may be expressed as to how current innovations and solutions may or may not apply in tomorrow’s world.

The purpose of the workshop is to support the stakeholders’ everyday work by providing a future outlook for strategic planning and consider consequences of today’s policy choices in long-term.

Ahead of the event, the participants will be provided pre-reading on future trends assessment from hybrid threats perspective, and one-pagers on the following topics, around which the breakout sessions will be formed: 

  • Intelligent infrastructures – new IT and smart cities; 
  • New geography – changing identities and power relations; 
  • New drivers of the information domain – platforms ownership, flows and influence. 
Please register here by 26th March COB
EU-HYBNET FTW BookletDownload

The event takes place virtually via BlueJeans platform. Agenda and meeting link will be provided closer to the event. 

Should you need any other information or support, please contact Ms. Emma Lappalainen: <emma.lappalainen@hybridcoe.fi>

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EU-HYBNET partners co-edit ICONO 14 journal issue on “Digital Communication and Hybrid Threats”

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Hanna Smith, Hybrid CoE’s Director of Research and Analysis, and Ruben Arcos, lecturer and researcher of communication sciences at Rey Juan Carlos University co-edited vol. 19 no 1. (2021) issue of the ICONO 14 journal: “Digital Communication and Hybrid Threats”. The special issue supported the EU-HYBNET project’s research component. Among the contributions were submissions from ICDS (Estonia), University of Tromsö (Norway) and National Institute for Intelligence Studies (Romania) – all EU-HYBNET partners. The special issue aims to address hybrid threats from a digital communication perspective, understanding the strengths and the vulnerabilities to hybrid threats of our digital ecosystems and societies, the processes, methods, and tools by which they can be exploited in coordinated campaigns and activities, and how to counter malicious strategic communications and influence.

Malicious information activities by state, non-state and state-backed actors are an essential part of hybrid threats and operations. Political warfare, proactive measures and covert action are not new, but ICTs and digital communication tools and channels offer unprecedented opportunities for coordinated hostile activities that exploit the vulnerabilities of our democratic societies for different purposes.

Cyberspace is recognized as a domain of operations in which digital communication channels can be exploited in campaigns directed against individuals, institutions and societies through information and influence in decision-making. While the content of the communication of symbolic interactions on social media platforms has varying degrees of visibility, coordinated inauthentic behaviors and the use of cyberproxies challenge detection and attribution. The militarization of information by hybrid threat actors can take multiple forms and raises the question of how to prevent, counter and respond to it without undermining the democratic rights and freedoms of our societies.

This special issue of ICONO 14 aims to address hybrid threats from a digital communication perspective, understanding the strengths and vulnerabilities to hybrid threats of our digital ecosystems and societies, the processes, methods and instruments by which they can be exploited in campaigns and coordinated activities, and how to counter malicious strategic influences and communications.

Find out more here