The SOAR (Strengthening the security and resilience of at-risk religious sites and communities) project held an EU-Level Jury Meeting in Brussels on 31st August 2022, for the Jury Members, project coordinator and the European Commission to discuss the entries of the Best Practice Call published in the framework of the project by project partner ACE.

The project partners Enhancing Faith Institutions (EFI), the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers , and the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) cooperate in this endeavour with an extensive network of professionals, including representatives from all majority and minority faiths practicing within the EU. The project is supported by the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations.

The EU-funded project SOAR aims at increasing the awareness of, and capacity to prevent and mitigate physical and human security threats to places of worship through Security By Design (SBD). The concept of Security By Design incorporates security features into the design and fabric of the building and its urban context.

The aim of the discussion was to look over each entry submitted for the SBD Best Practice Examples for Places of Worship, eventually to rank and award them.

The agenda for the event was as follows:

09:45 am Arrival of guests to the venue [Coffee / Greetings / Networking]
10:00 am Welcome message from Architects Council of Europe – Dr. Veronika Schröpfer and

Gloria Oddo, Architects’ Council of Europe

10:05 am Tour de Table – all
10:20 am Overview of the Jury’s task, the call and award – further procedure – Dr. Veronika Schröpfer and Gloria Oddo, Architects’ Council of Europe

10:30 am General overview of the entries with comments on technical compliance and completeness of submissions – Gloria Oddo, Architects’ Council of Europe

10:45 am– 16:00 pm Jury’s discussion (ca. 20 minutes per entry)
• General individual comments (based on criteria)
• Ranking of the entries
• Decision on awarding (incl. the preparation/compilation of written
comments for each entry)

01:00 pm Lunch
16:00 am Finalisation and conclusions of the workshop – Dr. Selma Harrington, Chair of the

Jury
16:30 pm END.