PERSEUS contributes to Europe’s efforts to monitor illegal migration and combat related crime and goods smuggling by proposing a large scale demonstration of a EU Maritime surveillance System of Systems, on the basis of existing national systems and platforms, enhancing them with innovative capabilities and moving beyond EUROSUR’s 2013 expectations, addressing key challenges: supporting the network created by National Contact Centres, Frontex and EMSA through increased capabilities, including transnational exchange of useful and available information, and associated procedures and mechanisms, thereby supporting the creation of a common information sharing environment generation of a common situational picture improved detection and identification of non collaborative/suspicious small boats and low flying aircraft enhanced and increasingly automated detection of abnormal vessel behaviours, identification of threats and tracking of reporting and non-reporting vesselsPERSEUS articulates this demonstration through 5 exercises grouped in 2 campaigns, implementing missions of drug trafficking and illegal migration control and delivering surveillance continuity from coastal areas to high seas.PERSEUS delivers a comprehensive set of validated and demonstrated recommendations and proposes standards.PERSEUS has assembled major users and providers, ensuring privileged access to existing surveillance systems and assets for an optimised coverage of the area of interest. These users will define, assess and validate the alignment of PERSEUS’s recommendations to their needs. PERSEUS also includes an evolution mechanism to enlarge the user base and integrate emerging technologies during its lifetime.PERSEUS will augment the effectiveness of operational capabilities of the existing systems – a relevant and coordinated contribution to the establishment of an integrated European-wide maritime border control system