​Following a strategic decision taken by the Board of Directors of the Central European Police Academy (CEPA) in 2013, this forum expressed the necessity to extend the range of training courses of the CEPA in order meet the requirements related to the fight against crime, specifically in the cross-border dimension. In this context furthermore it was determined to have this additional tasks covered by means provided by the European Union, which were granted by the European Commission in respect of the high importance of this issue.

Under the umbrella of the CEPA-ISEC-Project, co-funded by the European Union, several meetings and events took place. They went hand-in-hand with the setting up of the Internet-Website of the CEPA in English language. In order to prepare and facilitate the National Contact Points of the member states of the CEPA for their new tasks resulting from this Project, an intensive workshop took place from 11 to 13 May 2015 in the premises of the special police forces of Austria (“Cobra”) in Wiener Neustadt. This workshop was led by an IT-expert of the State Police of Baden-Württemberg.

The aim of this workshop was chiefly to update the participants of all National Contact Points on the on-going technical implementations on the IT-sector, on the one hand which already have been finalized and on the other hand which still have to be dealt with in the upcoming future. The utilization of the several functionalities of the IT-system was trained by the demonstration of practical examples and hands-on tutorials.

Finally this meeting gave an excellent opportunity provided for an extensive exchange of experiences concerning the CEPA-Online tools; issues and feasible solutions were discussed into depth as well as areas of improvement and the outlook for the future of the IT-landscape of the CEPA.