GLAVNA DIREKTSIA GRANICHNA POLITSIA

Their core work

Bulgaria's General Directorate Border Police is the national law enforcement agency responsible for border security, surveillance, and migration management across Bulgaria's external EU borders. In H2020 projects, they serve as an operational end-user, testing and validating new border surveillance technologies — from UAV platforms and sensor fusion systems to social media monitoring tools — in real-world border conditions. Their participation provides critical frontline expertise on what border guards actually need, making them a valuable validation partner for security technology developers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their early H2020 work (2017–2018) centered on physical border surveillance — testing detection systems in harsh environments and land border crossing management. From 2019 onward, their portfolio expanded significantly into digital and intelligence dimensions: UAV-based autonomous surveillance, social media monitoring for migration patterns, and pre-frontier intelligence pictures combining multiple data sources. This shift mirrors the broader European trend from purely physical border control toward integrated, data-driven border security combining hardware sensors with information analysis.

Moving toward AI-assisted, multi-domain border awareness that combines drone surveillance, sensor fusion, and social media intelligence — likely to seek partners in autonomous systems and data analytics next.

How they like to work

Exclusively a participant, never a coordinator — consistent with their role as an operational end-user who validates technologies developed by others rather than leading R&D. They work in large consortia (90 unique partners across 5 projects, averaging 18 partners per project), which is typical for EU security projects requiring multi-national validation. Their value to consortia is providing real operational testing grounds at an EU external border, not research output.

Broadly connected across 30 countries through 90 consortium partners, reflecting the pan-European nature of border security research. As a Bulgarian border authority on the EU's southeastern external border, they offer a strategically important operational context that attracts diverse European partners.

What sets them apart

As the border police of a country sitting on one of the EU's most active external borders (Turkey–Bulgaria), they offer something technology developers cannot easily find: real operational conditions with genuine migration pressure for field-testing security systems. Unlike academic or industry partners, they bring the authority to conduct live validation at actual border crossings and green borders. For any consortium needing a credible end-user from the EU's southeastern frontier, they are a natural choice.

Highlights from their portfolio

• BorderUAS
  Their largest funded project (EUR 99K), combining next-gen drones with a sophisticated multi-sensor suite (LADAR, RADAR, thermal, acoustic) for semi-autonomous border patrol.
• NESTOR
  Represents their most advanced involvement — integrating 360° surveillance, RF analysis, unmanned vehicles, social media intelligence, and AR/VR into a unified pre-frontier intelligence picture.
• PERCEPTIONS
  An unusual pivot for a police agency into social science territory, studying how migration narratives on social media shape perceptions of Europe.