Since training and developing personnel are essential to the future success of Customs administrations, in Europe and beyond, production and trials in innovative training materials are central to the mandate of PEN-CP. During first half of the project, PEN-CP surveyed partner administrations on their views on customs training needs and priorities, and obtained responses from most PEN-CP Customs partners, as well as from a representative of CELBET, the Customs Eastern and South-Eastern Land Border Expert Team. Important training themes and topics identified in the survey included “Master course for recruitment staff on X-ray image analysis,” “Post-clearance auditing,” “Customs controls on trains,” and “Cooperation with other agencies at the border.” All of these remain possible topics for future PEN-CP training modules.

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In 2022, based on this broad fact-finding exercise, the main training package - “Customs seals control” - was designed, implemented and piloted by PEN-CP, in close collaboration with CELBET. The materials include an introductory recording, an actual lecture recording and lecture slides, all readily available online for PEN-CP, and CELBET customs officers to study. The lecture addresses four main topics: 

• General information about customs seals;

• Seals samples (SMS TAXUD) and documents verification;

• Custom seals examination; and

• Means of transport that can be secured with Customs seals: Curtain siders; Solid siders (refrigerated) and Containers; Tankers; and Vans and small trucks

In another phase of its training material development activity, PEN-CP included the “Customs data analyst e-learning course” materials, located on Canvas Learning Management System, in the overall PEN-CP training materials package. As of January 2023, we have some 80 hours of self-learning content, which strongly reflects the actual research and experimenting outcomes of the EU Horizon 2020 project PROFILE, ready for pilot learners to study and test themselves with. The 15 modules, covering several dozens of sub-modules, are aimed at two main target audiences: (i) data analysts and scientists without customs experience who are starting to work in the customs domain; and (ii) customs experts who intend to work in data-analytics related tasks in the future, but who have no or little previous experience in methods and techniques, external and internal data sources, etc. 

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PEN-CP is also developing, in cooperation with the State University of Campinas (Brazil), a 60-hour training package on “Basic statistics and probability for Customs officers”, which will be the equivalent of a bachelor-level university course in statistics. The target audience for the course includes customs officers working in risk management & targeting, operations planning & management, and in various customs and trade statistics functions, as well as in Customs strategic management. As of late January 2023, around 60 hours of material, rich with customs-relevant examples, datasets and exercises for a learner-friendly e-learning experience, are available in a Google e-learning environment. The authoring team will also publish a course book in the near future.

Another package of training materials is featured in a 40-hour lecture series entitled “Crime and security in global supply chains”, an area commonly referred to as “the dark side of global supply chain management”. The lecture series allows learners to:

• Learn about real-world security incidents in global supply chains

• Discover security management strategies of leading companies and law enforcement agencies worldwide

• Develop their risk management thinking in customs and logistics, with the help of in group works

• Exchange their ideas with experienced academics and law enforcement practitioners

• Solve quantitative crime and security problems

• Learn cutting-edge supply chain security management from educational animations and videos