This paper will introduce and describe the goals, concept and overall approach of the European CLOSE-SEARCH project. CLOSE-SEARCH stands for ’Accurate and safe EGNOS-SoL Navigation for UAV-based low-cost SAR operations’ and is being conducted by a consortium of a research centre (Institute of Geomatics, IG), a private for non-profit technology centre (Asociaci´on de la Industria Navarra, AIN), the Geodetic Engineering Laboratory (TOPO) of the Ecole Polytechnique F´ed´erale of Lausanne (EPFL), an aerospace engineering company (DEIMOS Engenharia, DME), a public research agency and geospatial data provider (Institute of Cartography of Catalonia, ICC) and an end user, the Direcci´o General de Protecci´o Civil (DGPC, the Catalan civil protection authority).