Support for implementation of EU legislation on cybersecurity and national cybersecurity strategies
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 focuses on capacity building and the enhancement of cooperation on cybersecurity at technical, operational and strategic levels, in the context of existing and proposed EU legislation on cybersecurity. In addition, it aims at improving industrial and market readiness for the cybersecurity requirements set in the proposal for a regulation on cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements, known as the Cyber Resilience Act bolstering cybersecurity rules to ensure more secure hardware and software products.
Detailed Call Description
Proposals should contribute to achieving at least one of these objectives:
- Development of trust and confidence between Member States.
- Effective operational cooperation of organisations entrusted with EU or Member State’s national level cybersecurity, in particular cooperation of CSIRTs (including in relation to the CSIRT Network) or cooperation of Operators of Essential Services including public authorities.
- Better security and notification processes and means for Operators of Essential Services and for digital service providers in the EU.
- Better reporting of cyber-attacks to law enforcement authorities in line with the Directive on attacks against information systems.
- Improved security of network and information systems in the EU.
- More alignment of Member States’ implementations of NIS2 (Directive (EU) 2022/2555).
- Support cybersecurity certification in line with the Cybersecurity Act.
The action will focus on the support of at least one of the following priorities:
- Implementation, validation, piloting and deployment of technologies, tools and IT-based solutions, processes and methods for monitoring and handling cybersecurity incidents.
- Collaboration, communication, awareness-raising activities, knowledge exchange and training, including through the use of cybersecurity ranges, of public and private organisations working on the implementation of NIS2 (Directive (EU) 2022/2555).
- Twinning schemes involving originator and adopter organisations from at least two different Member States to facilitate the deployment and uptake of technologies, tools, processes and methods for effective cross-border collaboration preventing, detecting and countering Cybersecurity incidents.
- Robustness and resilience building measures in the cybersecurity area that strengthen suppliers’ ability to work systematically with cybersecurity relevant information or supplying actionable data to CSIRTs.
- Ensure that manufacturers improve the security of products with digital elements since the design and development phase and throughout the whole life cycle.
- Ensure a coherent cybersecurity framework, facilitating compliance for hardware and software producers.
- Enhance the transparency of security properties of products with digital elements.
- Enable businesses across all sectors and consumers to use products with digital elements securely.
- Support to Cybersecurity certification, including support to national cyber authorities and other relevant stakeholders, such as SMEs.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
50%
Maximum grant amount per project: €1 000 000 – €5 000 000
Thematic Categories
- Information Technology
- Justice - Security
- New Entrepreneurship
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
Eligibility for Participation
- Local Authorities
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
- 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), established in one of the EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories) or EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein).
Targeted stakeholders
This topic targets relevant industrial stakeholders, including SMEs and start-ups in the scope of the upcoming CRA, concerned by the NIS2 Directive or that may benefit from the European cybersecurity certification schemes.
It refers also to Member State competent authorities, which play a central role in the implementation of the NIS2 Directive, Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) including sectorial CSIRTs, Security Operation Centres (SOC), Operators of Essential Services (OES), digital service providers (DSP), Information Sharing and Analysis Centres- ISACs, actors that play a role in the implementation of the Cyber Resilience Act (including certification bodies), and any other actors within the scope of the legislations mentioned above.
Other stakeholders: national cyber authorities.
Multi-country consortia composition is not mandatory for this topic but will positively contribute to the impact of the action.
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