On July 13^th, 2017, in Brussels, the members of Strengthening European Network Centres of Excellence in Cybercrime (SENTER) project (Reference No. HOME/2014/ISFP/AG/7170), have brought together a special interest group from areas of law enforcement and academia from all across European Union member states, to consider and elaborate on new opportunities, new ideas and new partnership models in the open-source intelligence (OSINT) domain.

Meeting objectives were:

• LEA base line definition. Identification and prioritization of needs and challenges. Definition of technological crime fighting capabilities based on OSINT technologies.
• Academia base line definition. Identification of existing competence, resources, latest developments in OSINT domain.
• Identify interaction areas and collaboration scenarios LEA-Academia
• Outline common roadmap and action plan.

This Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting was attended by representatives from Lithuanian Cybercrime Center of Excellence for Training, Research and Education (L3CE, LT), Tallinn University of Technologies (TUT, EE), University of Albstadt-Sigmaringen for Applied Science (UASAS, DE), International Cyber Investigation Training Academy (ICI, BL), Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH, GR) and Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI, SI), Police and Border Guard Board /TUT of Estonia, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Centro Nacional de Excelencia en Ciberseguridad (ES), SBA research (AU), Cyprus Neuroscience & Technology Institute, Nationale Politie (NL), NDES and Mercury Programme National Counter Terrorism Policing HQ (UK), Federale Politie (BE), Helleni Police (GR), and Mindef (NL).

The discussion among participants was followed by topic-oriented workshops, and included exchange of knowledge, experience, and an overview of implemented projects.

One of the overviewed project activities was presented by Marcus Rock (UASAS), who introduced Skills Matrix management solution (SMM) which is an important element of SENTER Project and one of the key outputs of one Work Package.

SMM solution is an excellent example of successful cooperation among LEA and academia, built on confidence and trust. SMM integrates existing roles, functions and knowledge with regard to the functions within LEA organizations and training models available in academia community (SENTER network). Governance and further development of SMM solution will be based on LEA-Academia co-creation and collaboration process.

Other meeting topics included harmonization of knowledge among workshop participants on the Special Interest Groups (SIGs’) initiative that will lead to the common understanding of SIG’s goals, objectives, governance and operational model. The further key priorities and actions agreed by the participants:

• Information exchange platform
• Rollout out the Skill matrix
• Development OSINT Guidelines
• Further analysis of Law Enforcement Agencies’ needs
• Establishment of ground rules

All valuable discussions and knowledge exchanged will be used as a base for the future OSINT Special Interest Group (SIG) roadmap development.