Proposal for a European Cybersecurity Competence Network and Centre: Questions and Answers

The proposal creates a Network of National Coordination Centres, a Cybersecurity Competence Community and a European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre.

This proposal will allow public authorities and industries across Member States to more effectively prevent and respond to cyber threats and it will enable them to get access to cybersecurity expertise and state of the art products and solutions. This is in particular relevant for the protection of access to essential services such as transport, health, banking and financial services.

Ultimately, the increased capacity of the European Union to secure its products and services would also help citizens to enjoy their democratic rights and values. For example, it would better protect their information-related rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, particularly the right to the protection of personal data and private life. Consequently, this would increase their trust in digital society and economy.

In other words, this proposal will make a contribution to reducing cybercrime such as online banking fraud or identity theft and to preventing or detecting data leaks, such as from social media.

This initiative will help the European cybersecurity industry to develop and deploy new and better cybersecurity products and solutions. It will also help them to overcome current market barriers and increase their market share while respecting the rules of fair competition.

The initiative will also help businesses across different sectors, including transport, energy, health, finance and more, to make their products and services more cyber secure and thus turn cybersecurity into a competitive advantage. This includes support for SMEs.

This initiative will support SMEs and industry by procuring and co-investing in infrastructure experimentation and certification, supporting deployment activities, developing digital skills and avoiding brain-drain. It will also help SMEs and industry to gain visibility towards potential investors and new business partners and implement a strategic research agenda responding to industrial needs.

Through the Competence Centre, financial support to collaborative projects of the research and industrial community will continue to be provided in the same way as has been the case in the Research and Innovation Framework programme so far. This means that consortia of universities, companies and/or other stakeholders can continue to apply for funding such as for projects securing the Internet of Things or telecommunications systems or for the development of privacy-enhancing techniques.

In addition, the structures created with the Competence Centre and the Network and the financial support provided through them will open up additional opportunities for networking, community building, access to testing and experimentation facilities and capability development, thereby advancing the research and industrial agenda.

Practically this means that scientists and developers will have better access to the know-how available in Europe, as well as to computing facilities, testbeds or data resources.

The present initiative builds on the experience of the contractual Public-Private Partnership on cybersecurity (cPPP) created in 2016. The cPPP was a first step to bring together the cybersecurity industry, the demand side and the research community. The present proposal is an ambitious next step: creating a mechanism which allows implementing research, innovation and deployment projects in an integrated way, pooling and managing budget from different sources (European Commission, Member States) to ensure the availability of shared competence and infrastructures, supporting effective deployment of cybersecurity products and solutions.