SECRETARIA DE INTELIGENCIA ESTRATEGICA DE ESTADO - PRESIDENCIA DE LA REPUBLICA ORIENTAL DEL URUGUAY

Their core work

SIEE is Uruguay's national strategic intelligence secretariat, operating under the Office of the Presidency, responsible for gathering, analyzing, and acting on intelligence relevant to state security. In the EU research context, they contribute as an operational end-user and policy authority — providing real-world intelligence mandates, law enforcement coordination perspectives, and national security requirements that help shape research outputs toward practical deployment. Their participation in H2020 projects spans critical infrastructure resilience and the investigation of child exploitation and human trafficking crimes, where they bring the vantage point of a national intelligence body that must act on the findings. For research consortia, they are the bridge between academic or technical deliverables and actual state-level adoption.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both of SIEE's H2020 projects began in 2021, so the timeline is compressed rather than spread across a decade — genuine multi-year evolution cannot be inferred from the data. That said, the keyword split reveals two distinct thematic tracks active simultaneously: the first project (PRECINCT) engages them in infrastructure simulation tools such as serious games and digital twins, while the second (HEROES) moves toward investigative work against human crimes, including digital forensics and victim protection. The direction of travel appears to be from systems-level security simulation toward crime-specific intelligence and victim-centered digital investigation work.

SIEE is moving from broad infrastructure security simulation into operationally specific crime intelligence — particularly around digital exploitation crimes — suggesting future collaborations in law enforcement AI, digital forensics, or victim identification technologies would be a natural fit.

How they like to work

SIEE participates exclusively as a consortium partner and has never led an H2020 project, which is consistent with their role as a practitioner end-user rather than a research driver. Their two projects sit inside very large consortia — 69 unique partners across 21 countries for just two projects implies consortium sizes of roughly 35 partners each, which is characteristic of major EU security research calls (RIA and IA instruments). This suggests they are valued as a legitimizing operational voice and policy authority, not as a technical delivery organization.

SIEE has reached 69 distinct consortium partners across 21 countries through only two projects, reflecting the large multi-national consortia typical of EU security research. As a Uruguayan public body, they bring a rare non-EU, Latin American governmental perspective to European security research networks.

What sets them apart

SIEE is one of very few Latin American national intelligence authorities participating in EU H2020 security research, making them an unusual and valuable partner for consortia that need to demonstrate international reach or validate findings against non-European law enforcement realities. Their state-level mandate — rather than academic or commercial affiliation — gives them credibility as an end-user that can genuinely influence policy adoption of research outcomes. For projects targeting crime investigation or critical infrastructure, having a sitting national intelligence secretariat in the consortium strengthens the case for real-world impact.

Highlights from their portfolio

• HEROES
  The only project generating recorded EC funding for SIEE, and the more operationally specific of the two — directly targeting child sexual exploitation and trafficking crimes with digital forensic tools, where a national intelligence body's presence adds significant policy weight.
• PRECINCT
  Addresses cascading cyber-physical threats to critical infrastructure using serious games and digital twins — a technically ambitious scope that positions SIEE at the intersection of national security preparedness and simulation-based resilience testing.