Laurea helping to strengthen Europe’s capacity to counter foreign information manipulation

Laurea University of Applied Sciences is participating in the Horizon Europe ATHENA project, which supports European efforts to detect, analyse and counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). The project strengthens democratic resilience by developing practical tools, research-based methodologies and policy recommendations to address increasingly sophisticated influence operations targeting European societies.

A recent ATHENA policy brief, “Shields Up: Recommendations to Strengthen the European Centre for Democratic Resilience’s Response to FIMI” (April 2026), highlights the growing need for coordinated European action against foreign information manipulation. The brief supports the objectives of the European Commission’s European Democracy Shield initiative and the work of the European Centre for Democratic Resilience (ECDR), which started its work in 2026 to strengthen Europe’s ability to anticipate, detect and respond to FIMI threats.

FIMI has become one of the most significant challenges facing democratic societies in Europe. Through disinformation campaigns, coordinated online influence operations, manipulated media and emerging technologies such as deepfakes, hostile actors seek to undermine trust in democratic institutions, increase societal polarisation and influence political processes, including elections.

The ATHENA project is developing practical solutions to support European resilience against these threats. Project outputs include:

• a large-scale FIMI data collection platform and dataset covering more than 500 channels linked to information manipulation activities,
• analytical tools for detecting and assessing disinformation and FIMI campaigns,
• network analysis and deepfake-related tools currently under development,
• network analysis tools for tracking influence operations.

The policy brief particularly emphasises the importance of strengthening national and local capabilities across Europe. As information manipulation becomes increasingly localised and linguistically tailored, strong cooperation is needed between public authorities, researchers, media organisations, civil society actors and digital platforms.

Laurea contributes to the ATHENA project through its expertise in coherent security, resilience and multidisciplinary applied research, development and innovation (RDI). The project is linked to Laurea’s Coherent Security research programme, which focuses on themes such as hybrid influence operations, cyber threats, critical infrastructure protection and broader societal resilience. ATHENA also supports Laurea’s strategic goals of strengthening European cooperation and developing solutions that enhance societal security and democratic resilience.

The ATHENA project demonstrates how European research and innovation cooperation can contribute to safeguarding democracy in an increasingly complex digital information environment.

ATHENA is a Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action running from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2026 under grant agreement 101132686. The project has a total budget of approximately €3.1 million and brings together a multidisciplinary consortium from 11 countries, including universities, research institutes, cybersecurity experts, SMEs and fact-checking organisations.

Learn more about the project: