ENTENTE POUR LA FORÊT MÉDITERRANÉENNE

Their core work

Entente pour la Forêt Méditerranéenne is a French inter-regional public body focused on wildfire prevention and civil protection across Mediterranean ecosystems. They bring operational knowledge of emergency response — particularly wildfire and urban search and rescue — into EU research projects addressing climate resilience and security. Their work bridges the gap between frontline practitioners (firefighters, civil protection agencies) and researchers developing new tools for crisis management, geospatial fire response, and critical infrastructure protection against climate threats.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their early H2020 work (2015-2017) centered on climate adaptation and environmental resilience — protecting infrastructure and managing wildfire emergencies. From 2018 onward, they shifted decisively toward security and crisis response, engaging with practitioner networks, border management challenges, migration-related crises, and search and rescue technology. This evolution suggests a deliberate move from passive climate resilience toward active operational security and emergency response in the Mediterranean context.

They are moving toward technology-enabled security and crisis response — expect future work combining robotics, AI-driven sensors, and practitioner coordination for civil protection across the Mediterranean.

How they like to work

Exclusively a project partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project, preferring to contribute domain expertise within larger consortia. With 73 unique partners across 22 countries from just 4 projects, they operate in large, diverse consortia (averaging ~18 partners per project). This pattern indicates they are valued as a practitioner voice bringing real-world operational experience to research-heavy teams, rather than driving the research agenda themselves.

Despite only 4 projects, they have built a remarkably wide network of 73 partners across 22 countries — a ratio that reflects participation in large pan-European consortia. Their geographic gravity centers on the Mediterranean basin but extends well beyond it.

What sets them apart

Their distinctive value lies at the intersection of Mediterranean environmental management and civil security — few organizations combine deep wildfire and natural hazard experience with security research and search and rescue. As a practitioner organization (not a university or lab), they bring end-user perspectives that research consortia need for real-world validation. For anyone building a consortium on Mediterranean climate-security challenges, they are a credible practitioner partner with a proven EU project track record.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EU-CIRCLE
  Their largest funded project (EUR 310,875), tackling the high-impact intersection of critical infrastructure protection and climate change across Europe.
• CURSOR
  Represents their newest direction — miniaturized robotics and advanced sensors for urban search and rescue, bridging their traditional civil protection expertise with emerging technology.
• MEDEA
  Their second-largest project (EUR 262,500), building a practitioners' network across the Mediterranean and Black Sea — directly extending their regional coordination role into security policy.