Fifth round of NOTIONES Working Groups, part 1: WG9 Crime prevention approaches regarding addictions and crime

Five different rounds of Working Groups have been a practical and hands-on form of collaboration and professional exchange in the NOTIONES project 2021–2026. With various NOTIONES-related themes and forms of working together, the groups have given a platform for sharing expert knowledge, forming networks, and building shared understanding of technological and societal challenges facing law enforcement actors in Europe today. Timely themes have been tackled with simple, low-hierarchy structures.

The selection of topics for the fifth round of Working Groups 2025–2026 was taken from a publicly available draft of Annex VI of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 (Cluster 3, 6. Civil Security for Society). From a wider selection were themes, the rubrics that were voted as the chosen themes were “Crime prevention approaches, online and off-line, tackling the nexus between addictions and crime” for WG9 and “Preventing and countering the misuse of emerging technologies for criminal purposes, including issues related to lawful access to data” for WG10.

The planning and scheduling of these working groups began in October 2025. By June 2026, WG9 held eight monthly remote meetings lasting usually 1,5–2 hours. Thematically, WG9 covered Horizon-related brainstorming on the call theme, situational crime prevention and learning theories, case studies of vulnerable people and substance addicts, a first-hand account of addiction and drug crime by an expert by experience, reflections of the TASM 2026 conference and discussions on a WG9-themed Horizon application.

Especially in WG9, some sessions focused on iterative group work instead of listening to an external speaker. Group work was facilitated with the help of Miro, a virtual whiteboard. Group work and collaborative sessions encouraged active participation from attendees from within the consortium, promoting exchange of experiences, ideas, and professional expertise.

The main result of WG9 was its tangible contribution to the development of a project proposal: narrowing down crime type related to the call rubric, exchanging knowledge on the situation in different European countries, and reflecting on theoretical approaches and frames applicable to the real-life problems in question. Indeed, a proposal is now in preparation for the call “HORIZON-CL3-2026-01-FCT-04: Crime prevention approaches, online and off-line, tackling the nexus between addictions and crime” led by Laurea University of Applied Sciences.

Empirically, the distance between addiction and serious organised crime is often small. It is also important to be able to distinguish people struggling with addiction from more serious criminal networks. These enablers may include law enforcement agencies supported by intelligence services, as well as other public, private, and civil society actors. Understanding and strengthening these mechanisms is surely key to preventing further victimisation. This was a topic on which we shared valuable experiences and learned about a great deal in Working Group 9.