Call: Next generation of information systems to support EU external policies

• Health, demographic change and wellbeing;
• Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the Bioeconomy;
• Secure, clean and efficient energy;
• Smart, green and integrated transport;
• Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials;
• Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies;
• Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

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

The broad range and the complexity of Common Security and Defence Policy civilians' missions make the management of information and of resources critical to decision-making, planning, optimizing for pre-deployment, and deploying capabilities within such missions, and essential to increase the efficiency, visibility and impact of the missions. The processes, procedures, information systems, and equipment currently committed to such missions by the Member States need to be brought together and coordinated to constitute a common interoperable platform to enhance the EU capacity to play its role.

The procurers in the buyers group must be responsible for the acquisition and/or regulatory strategy for the targeted innovative solutions and aim to obtain ambitious quality and efficiency improvements in the area of public interest addressed by the PCP, or be entities with a mandate from one or more of such procurers to act on their behalf in the procurement (e.g. central purchasing bodies). Other entities (e.g. end-users, certification bodies, private/NGO procurers that provide services of public interest and share the same procurement need) whose participation is well justified may participate in additional activities that clearly add value to the action and support the preparation and execution of the PCP or embed the PCP into a wider set of demand side activities. ‘Sole participants’ must indicate which of its 'members' are the procurers contributing to the budget of the proposed joint procurement that satisfy the participation requirements and which are the respective procurement budgets of each of these members that are at the disposal for carrying out the procurement. A sole participant acting as buyers group must have a mandate based on a well-defined procurement need and budget from its procurers to act on their behalf. 

The buyers group must contain minimum two legal entities which are public procurers that are established in two different Member States or associated countries. Both legal entities must be independent of each other.

Indicative budget: The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of 10 million € would allow for this topic to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The requested reimbursement of the estimated eligible costs of coordination and networking activities should not exceed 30% of the requested grant. Indirect eligible costs are calculated as a flat rate of 25% of direct eligible costs, excluding direct eligible costs for subcontracting (e.g the price of the PCP procurement) and costs of resources made available by third parties which are not used on the premises of the beneficiary (e.g test equipment).