Desk research : Review of the existing framework to assess cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation in preparedness and response to biological and chemical terror attacks

This desk research aims to review the existing framework to asses cross-sectoral and cross-border collaboration in the case of a chemical or biological terror attack. Together with the previously conducted survey, it will complement into the mapping activities that aims to describe existing networks, their main purpose, their activities within the area of biological and chemical terror attacks and the collaboration between networks. 

The systematic review led to the selection of 54 documents based on an initial list of 2748 documents coming from four different databases (Publication office of the European Union, Eurlex, Google Scholar and Scopus). The analysis of the selected documents resulted into the identification of 31 key gaps or challenges, 25 key recommendations, 26 good practices at national level and 16 at European level, 5 lessons learned, 5 European legal acts and 4 guiding documents. Each of these elements should be directly linked to intersectoral collaboration.