Research is the ´R in CBRA´ – our main activity since the beginning, the bread and butter for our institute. During the past ten years our team has carried out a multitude of research projects in supply chain security and trade facilitation, varying from a four month study on 21st century supply chain models (with the World Customs Organization) to a three year research and development project on risk management in global container logistics systems (FP7-CASSANDRA –project). CBRA´s role in these and many other research projects include literature reviews; methodology development; surveys and case studies; qualitative and quantitative modeling; metrics development and impact assessments; and so forth.

Besides research projects with the World Customs Organization (e.g. in Customs risk management), and European Framework Program 7 (e.g. INTEGRITY, LOGSEC, FOCUS, SAFEPOST, CWIT and CORE), we have carried out projects with the Swiss Science Foundation (e.g. in Interplay between supply chain companies and authorities to improve supply chain security); with the World BASC Organization in Latin America (survey with BASC member companies); and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, SECO, in Switzerland (survey on e-customs services); just to name but few examples.

We look forward to working with world-class partners – from governments, industries, non-governmental organizations and academia – also in the future, and kindly ask you to contact us on your research ideas and future consortia, including but not limited to Horizon 2020 –program. We love our research project portfolio – and strongly believe that this shows in our contributions and tangible research outcomes and results!

CBRA delivers lectures in supply chain security and trade facilitation particularly for undergrad and postgrad students at various Universities and research institutes across the world. At our “home university” in Lausanne, Switzerland, we give one lecture each year for 3rd and 4th year masters students; and another lecture for Executive MBA students – both lectures as part of Operations and Supply Chain Management –courses. At Riga Technical University we have a similar scheme both for part-time and for full-time students, as part of their International Logistics and Customs Management -courses.

On top of these, we deliver ad-hoc lectures across the globe, not only for academics, but also for industry and government practitioners – past examples include Shanghai Customs College in China; University of Costa Rica; World FreeZones Association in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and a Security services company in Texas, USA; to name few examples. The next step in CBRA´s education services is to expand the content from current 2-6 hour sessions to 16-32 hour courses – this development takes place in particular in the context of FP7-CORE –project.

Please feel free to contact us in case you are interested on any of the above: anything from a 2-hour overview session to a full-blown 32 hour course – we are happy to discuss this further with you.

Based on the 10+ years of research and education experience in supply chain security and trade facilitation, CBRA-team has started to engage also with consulting activities in these two fields. Our first references include a Trade Facilitation Master Plan –project in Abu Dhabi; an Authorized Economic Operator and Mutual Recognition Agreement –project in Thailand; as well as Air Cargo Security Screening Roadmap –project in the European Union.

We welcome you to contact us to explore further what we have to offer for your organization – anything from a few weeks review or advisory work to a multi-month / year in-depth consulting engagement.

Other activities carried out by CBRA – time-to-time linked with Research and/or Education and/or Consulting activities – include the following: Policy reviews and recommendations; Economic models and calculations; User requirement collection; Guidebook and compendium production; Roadmap development; Future scenario development; Standardization projects; Specific web-based databases and applications; Conference organization; and Information dissemination.

Our latest activity area covers e-learning solutions and services, particularly in crime prevention and supply chain security management, both for industries and for governmental agencies. Please send us an email to learn more about our other activities – we are also open for suggestions to expand the above list of activities in the future!