Project 67
Funded by the European Union
Project News and Activity Updates
SUSTAINABLE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SOLUTIONS EUROPE (SCJS EUROPE)
Sustainable Criminal Justice Solutions Europe (SCJS Europe) delivers criminal justice and capability building projects on behalf of the European Commission and other Governments and law enforcement agencies around the world. SCJS Europe seek to build sustainable partnerships at both national and international levels, with a particular focus upon the CBRN community, the judiciary, court processes, prosecutors, police and other law enforcement bodies.
The overarching objective of SCJS Europe is to improve the safety of citizens and communities by delivering projects that support victims and witnesses of crime and thereby strengthening the Rule of Law.
Adopting a global approach to the criminal justice arena, SCJS Europe performs as an “in country facilitator” taking into account the cultural, political, social and environmental ethos, through activities such as:
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CBRN Regional Capability Building Projects
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EU Twinning Projects
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Criminal Justice Capacity Building Projects
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Evaluation Research Projects
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Workshops
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Training Partnerships
The SCJS Europe team is highly skilled and professional in delivering CBRN, criminal justice and security projects, enjoying the contribution of medical practitioners, scientists, prosecutors, lawyers, academics, forensic science experts, project managers and recently retired police chief superintendents and detective superintendents. As well as these specialist skills, SCJS Europe has carefully selected personnel to manage and deliver their finance, HR and IT requirements. Individuals in the team have worked extensively across the European Union, the Western Balkans, the Caribbean, South Africa, Nigeria, USA, United Arab Emirates, South-East Asia, Pakistan, China and Turkey.
The ability to draw upon a wide range of experts is one of SCJS Europe's biggest assets. In addition to a core team of staff, the organisation has access to hundreds of current experts, some based overseas and many of whom are also available for short-term deployment. SCJS Europe has a proven ability to deliver successful outcomes and is engaging in identifying and applying for EU and international projects.
The Team:
Mr Nicholas Apps
MSc, BA
SCJS Europe Director- P67 Project Director
Nicholas Apps is a Director within the SCJS grouping which includes SCJS UK, SCJS Europe and SCJS Asia. He is responsible for Programme Management, including the oversight of projects, amounting to more than £10m. Throughout his career, he has worked extensively across the globe in capacity building projects concerning law enforcement, criminality information exchange and Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) initiatives. Nicholas has current oversight of the coordination and implementation of the overall project activities delivered within CBRN CoE P54, P55, P61, P67 and P81.
Nicholas also manages transnational projects, funded by the European Commission and HMG, while also dealing with the financial management of the non-profit organisation. He has significant strategic experience in bringing about organisational change. He has also successfully initiated and maintained strategic partnerships with numerous academic institutions and several EU Member State Authorities, NGO’s and international donor organisations.
In 2013, Nicholas successfully secured European Commission funding to support the Home Office with the introduction of Prüm, a European initiative to exchange DNA and fingerprints between EU Member States. He subsequently managed these projects that were designed to understand the variety of options available to HMG in implementing fingerprint and DNA exchange with other EU Member States. The findings of this work were used by Theresa May, then Home Secretary, to influence a vote on Prüm in the House of Commons in December 2015. This work helped to secure a convincing majority Commons vote of 503 in favour of Prüm engagement.
Prior to creating the SCJS grouping, Nicholas was a co-founder and Senior Manager of the ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO), a UK police unit established to improve the arrangements for storing and disclosing criminal record information to authorised personnel, following the tragic murder of two school girls by Ian Huntley. Responsible for over 120 staff, his Department delivered a range of Criminal Record Bureau services for government agencies and the public. Nicholas holds an Honours degree in Criminology and is also a Chartered Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Management Institute. Nicholas recently received an Honorary Master of Science in recognition of his contribution to criminal justice and crime prevention.
Dr Hendrik Visser
PhD (Biophysical) Chemistry
MSc (Physical-Chemical, Chemical) Molecular Sciences
P67 Project Team Leader
Dr. Hendrik (Henk) Visser has over 20 years of experience in managing cooperative, international projects that deal with CBRN issues. Beside Project 67, he currently is the lead implementer of the EU CBRN CoE Project 53 (Strengthening the National Legal framework and Provision of Specialized Training on Bio-Safety and Bio-Security in Central Asian Countries). Since 2005, he has managed over 40 projects in Armenia, Belorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The projects that he oversaw covered technical areas, such as: bio-safety/bio-security, disease surveillance, toxicology, public health studies, drug development, diagnostics, cancer research, and agriculture, as well as, managed various physical upgrades to bio-laboratory facilities. As part of his responsibilities he has engaged with partner country governmental officials, experts and international funding agencies.
Between 2002 and 2005 he was a visiting scientist in the Russian Federation as part of an US Governmental sponsored visiting scientist program, to study the three-dimensional structure of membrane molecules of Yersinia Pestis using NMR spectroscopy. Before that he undertook a short post-doc at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory after he had completed his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. He obtained his MSc degree in Molecular Sciences at the Wageningen Agricultural University (The Netherlands).