Four EU pilot projects launched to prepare the European Cybersecurity Competence Network

CONCORDIA, ECHO, SPARTA and CyberSec4Europe will be the four base points on which EU will reinforce its cybersecurity capacity

The EU has just approved funding for four pilot projects to establish a European Cybersecurity Competence Network. CONCORDIA, ECHO, SPARTA and CyberSec4Europe are the projects winners of the Horizon 2020 cybersecurity call "establishing and operating a pilot for a European Cybersecurity Competence Network and developing a common European Cybersecurity Research & Innovation Roadmap".

Altogether all four projects will establish a stronger and more sustainable European Research and Coordination network for Cybersecurity. They count more than 160 partners from 26 EU countries, including big companies, SMEs, universities and cybersecurity research institutes and covering every field of expertise and sector that may be related to cybersecurity.

CONCORDIA, ECHO, SPARTA and CyberSec4Europe will address critical challenges for the European cybersecurity especially in sectors like eHealth, finance, telecommunications, smart cities, transportation, Cyber Range. At the same time they will offer training, develop programmes to tackle the cybersecurity-skills gap in EU and deliver innovative marketable solutions made in EU to tackle the future cross domain cybersecurity challenges.

All four projects are asked to closely cooperate and coordinate their activities, as this will be fundamental for their success. At the same time they will have to work together with the European cybersecurity ecosystem in order to advance the way cybersecurity research, innovation and deployment is performed in Europe, and across sectors of our economy.

Mariya Gabriel - Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society - said:
We are counting on CONCORDIA, ECHO, SPARTA and CyberSec4Europe to assist us in pooling Europe's cybersecurity expertise and preparing the European cybersecurity landscape in order to efficiently implement our vision for a more secure digital Europe. These projects will assist EU in defining, testing and establishing the governance model of a European Cybersecurity Competence Network of cybersecurity centres of excellence.

The four projects have been chosen among a pool of 12 eligible proposals that the European Commission has received for the Horizon 2020 call SU-ICT-03-2018 and they will now receive funding for more than 63.5 million Euros.

More information on the four pilot projects is available here