Atlantic Security Award 2024
The Atlantic Security Award is an initiative that results from the partnership between the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD), the Atlantic Center and the National Defence Institute (IDN) and is now in its third edition supporting two more researchers in the area of Security and Defence in the Atlantic. The projects were selected for their potential to contribute to the advancement of knowledge on topics related to current challenges in the field of Security and Defence in the Atlantic Space and will be developed over a period of eight months throughout the year 2024.
The winners of the third edition of the Atlantic Security Award are: Alexandra Mendes and Jan Stockbruegger.
Winning projects:
Alexandra Mendes is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, and will develop the project “Leveraging Large Language Models Trained on Dark Web Data to Support Decision Making for Atlantic Security and Defense".
This project envisages the development of a prototype of a software tool that aims to make use of a Large Language Model (LLM – large language model) 'trained' using large databases with data from the dark web, and policies relevant to the Atlantic. The objective is to have a model that facilitates the formulation of policies, strategies and defence policies, and operations by security forces against cybercrime, illicit trade, and other threats facilitated by the dark web in the Atlantic.
Jan Stockbruegger is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, and won the award for the project “The Environmental and Supply Chain Threat of the Global Shadow Fleet: A Risk Assessment for the Atlantic". 
This project will investigate the growth of what is known as the 'shadow fleet', i.e. ships used to try to circumvent sanctions imposed for violations of international law. These are the cases of Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and Russia, whose 'dark fleet' has been repeatedly highlighted as one of the main ways it has used to successfully circumvent the sanctions imposed on the purchase of Russian oil, with result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This project aims to assess the consequences of the presence of this ghost fleet in the Atlantic region and develop recommendations for the implementation of policies with a view to strengthening maritime security cooperation in that region.