The Centre of excellence EX-EMERGE (Centre of EXcellence on Connected, Geo-localized and Cyber-secure vehicles) of the University of L’Aquila was founded in 2019 and it represents a major goal of the broader EMERGE (Light Commercial Vehicles & Emerging Technologies for dual-use in “everyday operations” and “emergency”) research program: that program had been formerly selected and approved by the Inter-ministry Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE) of Italy with act n. 70/2017 in the frame of RESTART, an initiative of the Italian Government that relies on research and technology advances as a driver for the economic and social development of L’Aquila and Abruzzo region after the earthquake of 2009.