During the CERIS Disaster Resilience Days, held in Brussels from 30 June to 2 July 2026, the European disaster resilience community came together to celebrate innovation with the second edition of the DIREKTION Awards.
The Awards ceremony was one of the highlights of the three-day event, recognising promising solutions that could help address concrete operational challenges faced by disaster resilience practitioners across Europe.
The 2026 DIREKTION Awards laureates
Following the success of the first edition, the 2026 DIREKTION awards call attracted 47 applications from across Europe. Assessed based on impact, relevance, maturity and the uptake potential of the proposed solutions, ten innovations stood out for addressing concrete operational challenges and supporting disaster resilience practitioners.
The ten projects selected for the 2026 DIREKTION Award were:
These ten award-winning solutions illustrate the breadth of innovation currently emerging across the European disaster resilience ecosystem. Their capabilities range from AI-supported prediction and detection tools to hazardous substance monitoring, intelligence, robotic inspection, emergency medical decision support, digital-twin-based operational simulation, crisis communication and positioning in GPS-denied environments.
Despite their technological diversity, the solutions share a common objective: helping practitioners make faster, better-informed and safer decisions before, during and after disasters.
DIREKTION: The European disaster resilience knowledge network
Beyond the recognition itself, the winning solution developers will benefit from targeted communication and networking support through the DIREKTION Knowledge Network, to increase their project’s visibility across the European disaster resilience community. This will help connect promising innovations with potential users, responders, civil protection organisations and other stakeholders involved in the uptake of disaster resilience solutions.
DIREKTION is a European disaster resilience knowledge network dedicated to accelerating the uptake of innovation by connecting operational needs with promising technologies, research results and solution providers. Through technology visibility, knowledge exchange and multi-stakeholder cooperation, it helps bridge the gap between innovation development and operational use.
The DIREKTION Awards target the most promising innovative solutions addressing capability gaps in disaster resilience and responding to the needs of emergency responders, civil protection authorities and crisis management practitioners. By giving greater visibility to operationally relevant innovations, the Awards aim to facilitate connections between solution developers and potential users and contribute to accelerating the path from innovation to operational uptake.
The second edition of the DIREKTION Awards further confirms the role of the Knowledge Network in bridging the gap between capability needs, research and innovation results, and operational deployment. The ten 2026 laureates provide a snapshot of the innovative solutions that could help shape a more resilient Europe in the years ahead.
Stakeholders interested in disaster resilience innovation are invited to join the DIREKTION Knowledge Network and contribute to accelerating innovation uptake for emergency responders (www.direktion-network.org).
