At the EAFS 2022, one of the days was specifically devoted to European cooperation. Throughout the day a number of activities were devoted specifically to emphasize the importance of collaboration throughout Europe, and further, how Europe can play a role in the global forensic science community.

On stage to open the day, we had the ENFSI Board Chairperson Christina Bertler Edlund alongside Dr. Nada Milisavljevic of the European Commission, DG Home. Christina highlighted the importance of cooperation and the importance of ENFSI as an enabler for such cooperation, highlighting specifically the common vision set out by ENFSI and an updated European Forensic Science Area (EFSA) plan. Nada expressed the commissions view on forensic science as an important area to develop and presented a comprehensive overview of the opportunities provided to support research, innovation and development through the Horizon Europe and Internal Security Fund (ISF).

Among the activities specific to the European Day was an exhibition of projects funded through the European Commission. In total 18 projects from the Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 and ISF programs were exhibited at the conference. In addition, several projects coordinated by ENFSI and funded via the Direct Grants received from the ISF programme, exhibited and demonstrated their results.

Within the European Perspective track there were 8 sessions during the day, all highlighting results achieved through European cooperation.

Plenary speakers throughout the day highlighted the importance of cooperation and exemplified what the forensic science community can achieve. To start off the day, Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University Sweden presented on the topic of using Artificial Intelligence within Law Enforcement and the need for trustworthy AI.

Unfortunately, due to medical reasons, the second plenary speaker Professor Dr. Peter M. Schneider from the University of Cologne, Germany, could not attend the conference in person. However, he provided a pre-recorded version of his talk on the results from and implementation of, the VISAGE project, a project that provides key contributions to the field of deriving visual attributes through genomics. The presentation was highly appreciated and well attended. Sadly, Peter passed away soon after the conference and we would like to acknowledge his contribution and dedication to forensic science.

The final plenary speaker of the European Day was Dr. Justice Tettey of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He highlighted in his talk how the conditions under which forensic science practitioners conduct their work vary across the world and the need for sharing knowledge and experience not only within Europe, but globally.

To start off the panel debate, Arnoud Heeres of the European Commission, DG Home, presented his experience of working with the International Security Fund (ISF) programme. Arnoud exemplified the potential of these initiatives by describing the work on the Cerberus project. This project significantly contributed to the successful cracking of the EncroChat network.

The panel debate that followed highlighted the opportunities enabled through joint innovation activities, the obligation and importance of distributing the findings within Europe and globally, and the importance of facilitating innovation uptake.

From the survey of the EAFS 2022 participants, we can conclude that the European Day was an appreciated activity. The two questions particularly relating to the European Day project exhibition both scored a median value of 4 on a scale of 5.