The Dutch Home Office has awarded a consortium of Berenschot and IB Consultancy a contract to do a study into the knowledge needs in the field of CBRN for the Dutch government. The contract was awarded after a competitive tender, in which the IB Consultancy and Berenschot consortium had the best offer.
During this study a large number of national and international stakeholders are interviewed and also a workshop with participants from different departments and responder organisations will be organised.
CBRN incidents have a tremendous effect on various aspects of society, such as the safety of humans and animals, environment and economy. Therefore, almost all Dutch departments are involved in case of a CBRN incident. Regarding their different responsibilities, the knowledge needs of the involved departments diverge. Responder organizations performing at a local level have other knowledge needs. In order to investigate the knowledge needs of all involved parties three sub questions have been formulated:
- Which knowledge, capabilities and facilities are needed to prevent, or to mitigate the consequences of a CBRN incident?
- Which ambition can be defined regarding the Dutch effort in the field of R&D for instance in case of measuring and respirators?
- Which knowledge has therefore to be maintained?
The study has a number of important premises. Most importantly, the knowledge needs will be examined based on an all hazard approach. This includes both deliberate as well as accidental CRBN incidents. The study has a risk based approach similar to the EU CBRN Action Plan. Another emphasize of the study is the psychological context of the behavior of civilians. Expertise in this and other CBRN related topics such as decontamination is already gained abroad. Therefore, international developments are reviewed, inter alia to indicate ‘blind spots’. The study will also focus on specific knowledge needs regarding the local available means. For instance, it will examine the needs of first responders in the field of personal protection equipment and tools to detect CBRN agents.
Data will be collected by means of interviews and workshops with involved parties. Experts from eight departments will be interviewed, next to other involved parties such as intelligence services, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, TNO, and responder organizations. In the workshops the knowledge needs of organizations dealing with CBRN incidents will be explored in an interactive manner. The results of the interviews and workshops will be presented in an ordered overview, with a description of the experienced knowledge needs of each organization.
A third way of collecting data is a concise document study. This document study will result in a roadmap of foreseeable developments in the threat spectrum, a short comment on new technologies, an oversight of planned procurement moments of equipment and a concise comparison with international experiences.
The projects starts in April 2010 and will run for 7 months. The results of the study are intended to serve as input for a possible common research programming in the Netherlands.