Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.
Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.
The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
This action aims to strengthen the cybersecurity of hospitals and healthcare providers. The goal is to ensure that hospitals and healthcare providers, which are crucial operators in the health sector, can effectively detect, monitor, and respond to cyber threats, particularly ransomware, which pose significant risks, thereby enhancing the resilience of the European healthcare system.
Detailed Call Description
This action addresses the growing need for continuous cybersecurity monitoring, threat intelligence, and incident response in hospitals and healthcare providers, which often lack dedicated cybersecurity resources to adequately protect themselves from cyber threats.
The pilot projects will define the state of preparedness of clusters of hospitals and healthcare providers in the European Union, to be able to assess their needs. Based on this analysis, they will prepare an overview of the state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions and resources needed (technologies, services, tools, human resources, training needs, etc.) for hospitals and healthcare providers to meet the scope of the action. These may include, for example: Security Operation Centres offering real-time monitoring, threat detection, and rapid incident response, and advanced cybersecurity tools, such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, threat intelligence, and automated response capabilities, among others.
The pilots will develop technical plans, tailored to the needs of representative hospitals and healthcare providers (e.g. small or large hospitals, private healthcare providers, etc.) which will also need to include best implementation recommendations and cost estimates for effective deployment.
The pilot projects will conduct a demo implementation of these technical plans to demonstrate their effectiveness in operations at the stakeholders’ sites, showcasing different use cases for different user groups at small, medium and large hospitals and healthcare providers, at least in two different Member States.
The pilot projects will serve as demonstration projects and will also provide cybersecurity education and training to the staff of their partner hospitals and healthcare providers, enhancing awareness and ensuring best practices in safeguarding sensitive healthcare information.
Finally, in cooperation with each other, the pilot projects will undertake wide dissemination activities of best practices across the EU, with the specific goal of helping replicate and scale up the pilots’ activities as widely as possible.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
50%
Requested grant amount per project: indicatively between €3 and €5 million, but other amounts are not excluded, provided they are duly justified.
Thematic Categories
- Health
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Information Technology
- Public Administration
Eligibility for Participation
- Businesses
- Central Government
- Large Enterprises
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein)
Consortium composition – Proposals must be submitted by: minimum 2 independent applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from at least 2 eligible countries.
Please note however that all topics of this call are subject to restrictions due to security reasons, therefore entities must not be directly or indirectly controlled from a country that is not an eligible country. All entities will have to fill in and submit a declaration on ownership and control.
The action will support pilot projects, which will bring together stakeholders such as regional and/or national clusters associations1 of hospitals and healthcare providers (such as national healthcare systems, hospitals or associations of hospitals, healthcare providers and/or professional associations of healthcare practitioners), as well as cybersecurity service providers.
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
National Contact Point(s)
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
Directorate of Research and Innovation
Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy
EU Contact Point
For help related to this call, please contact ECCC Applicants Direct Contact Centre at applicants@eccc.europa.eu