Limoges and Brive-la-Gaillarde, France
On 21–22 May 2026, members of the B-prepared consortium travelled to France for a two-day programme that went well beyond what any video call could achieve: combining deep stakeholder exchanges, a real-world field test of our mobile app, and a rare look inside a professional emergency response centre.
Day 1
PUI premises, Limoges
The first day was spent entirely with our French partner PUI at their base in Limoges. What made this visit particularly valuable was its scope: we were walked through the full operational reality of what PUI does. That included their warehousing and logistics setup, their equipment and material preparedness stocks, and the broader infrastructure that underpins their capacity to act before, during and after emergencies. Seeing how they organise, store and mobilise resources gave us a much clearer picture of the operational context our approaches need to fit into.
Alongside this, we held extended conversations with the PUI team about our shared goals. These discussions were substantive and direct, covering what local actors genuinely need from citizen preparedness tools, where the gaps are, and how the B-prepared solutions can be shaped to serve their work more effectively. We left with a stronger understanding of each other’s needs, constraints and ambitions, and with a much sharper sense of how we can support them in the future.
Day 2 – morning
Lac du Causse field test: IM-prepared goes outdoors
The second day began with a walk at Lac du Causse, where we put the IM-prepared mobile application to the test in a real-world outdoor environment. Local participants joined us on the route, in order to see if the tool is efficiently designed to serve them. Their feedback was direct and invaluable. They spotted things our team could not have identified from behind our desks, and the observations we gathered will now serve for concrete improvements. We now have a clear sense of what works well in practice and exactly what needs to be refined before the end of the project.
Day 2 – afternoon
Centre de Secours de Brive-la-Gaillarde
In the afternoon, the delegation visited the Centre de Secours de Brive-la-Gaillarde, part of the SDIS 19 – Service Départemental d’Incendie et de Secours de la Corrèze. We were welcomed by the centre’s director and a team of professional firefighters, who gave us an extraordinarily thorough look at how the station operates day to day.
We were shown the nerve centre of the operation, where alerts are received, assessed and translated into dispatch decisions in real time.
We learned how command and communication are maintained once units are on site, including how multiple teams are coordinated across complex interventions.
We had the opportunity to examine the full range of specialised apparatus the station uses, from standard firefighting kit to technical rescue equipment.
This visit offered something that briefings cannot replicate: an unfiltered view of how professional emergency response actually works at the local level. Understanding the daily realities of first responders – their workflows, their tools, their pressures – is directly relevant to how B-prepared frames citizen preparedness. The more accurate our background knowledge becomes, and the more our scenarios reflect the professional response environment, the more useful and credible our gamified learning tools can become for the people who will ultimately use them.
These two days opened up exciting possibilities for what comes next. Conversations throughout the visit touched on how the collaboration between consortium members and local actors could extend well beyond the formal boundaries of the B-prepared project. From joint initiatives in community resilience to shared approaches to training and content development, there is genuine appetite on both sides to keep building together.
