On 13 May 2020, Europol and the Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Europol and CENTRIC will now be able to assist law enforcement authorities with joint activities such as applied research and tool development to improve their capabilities in reacting, mitigating, and recovering from criminal threats as well as serious gaming for training and capacity-building purposes.

One example of the already existing cooperation between Europol and CENTRIC is the joint development of CRYPTOPOL, a cryptocurrency-tracing training game for law enforcement cryptocurrency investigators that simulates an investigation using real-life scenarios. Based on the newly established MoU, this training concept shall be applied to further capacity-building tools in other areas of crime.

CENTRIC is a centre of excellence in terrorism, resilience, intelligence and organised crime research.