Call: Cyber Security for SMEs, local public administration and Individuals

1. Excellent Science
2. Industrial Leadership
3. Societal Challenges

The primary aims of the Secure Societies Challenge are:

• to enhance the resilience of our society against natural and man-made disasters, ranging from the development of new crisis management tools to communication interoperability, and to develop novel solutions for the protection of critical infrastructure;
• to fight crime and terrorism ranging from new forensic tools to protection against explosives;
• to improve border security, ranging from improved maritime border protection to supply chain security and to support the Union's external security policies including through conflict prevention and peace building;
• and to provide enhanced cyber-security, ranging from secure information sharing to new assurance models.

Securing the society against disasters is one of the central elements of the functioning of any society. There is barely any societal sector which is not to some extent concerned by disasters and related resilience and security issues. Fighting crime and terrorism requires new technologies and capabilities for fighting and preventing crime (including cyber-crime), illegal trafficking and terrorism (including cyber-terrorism), including understanding and tackling terrorist ideas and beliefs to also avoid aviation-related threats. The protection of the European borders requires the development of systems, equipment, tools, processes, and methods for rapid identification. This includes supply chain security in the context of the EU’s customs policy.

On Digital Security, this Challenge focuses on increasing the security of current applications, services and infrastructures by integrating state-of-the-art security solutions or processes, supporting the creation of lead markets & market incentives in Europe, following an end-user driven approach, including for instance law enforcement agencies, first responders, operators of critical infrastructures, ICT service providers, ICT manufacturers, market operators and citizens.

This Challenge should bring together all security stakeholders: industry - including SMEs, research organisations, universities, as well as public authorities, non-governmental organisations and public and private organisations in the security domain. The active involvement of end-users is of high importance.

The Secure Societies Challenge will contribute to the implementation of the policy goals of the Europe 2020 strategy, the Security Industrial Policy, the Internal Security Strategy and the Cyber Security Strategy.

Europe's SMEs, local public administration and citizens face particular challenges in addressing basic cyber security threats. In the case of SMEs and local public administration, their size and budgetary constraints often precludes them from putting in place highly granular organisational structures, retaining dedicated information security personnel and making significant investments in cybersecurity products or services. Whether addressing SMEs, local public administrations or individuals, few cyber security solutions have been designed with the human factor in mind and therefore present severe limitations in their usability which hampers proper decision making and adequate usage. Proposals should develop innovative solutions with a high degree of usability and automation while ensuring that the end-users retain an adequate degree of cyber situational awareness and control.

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. 

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between 3 and 4 million € would allow these areas to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

EU funding rate: 70% (except for non-profit legal entities, where a rate of 100% applies).

Electronic submission here.

Link to the National Contact Point Finder.