Our daily lives depend on a wide variety of services – such as energy, transport, and finance, as well as health. These rely on both physical and digital infrastructure, adding to the vulnerability and the potential for disruption. During the COVID-19 pandemic, new technologies have kept many businesses and public services running, whether keeping us connected through remote working or maintaining the logistics of supply chains.

But this has also opened the door to an extraordinary increase in malicious attacks, attempting to capitalise on the disruption of the pandemic and the shift to digital home working for criminal purposes. Shortages of goods have created new openings for organised crime. The consequences could have been fatal, disrupting essential health services at a time of the most intense pressure.

The EU Security Union Strategy for 2020 to 2025  succeeding the European Agenda on Security (2015-2020), focuses on priority areas where the EU can bring value to support Member States in fostering security for all those living in Europe, notably including cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is one of the Commission’s priorities in its response to the Coronavirus crisis. The Recovery Plan for Europe therefore includes additional investments in this field.

Research into digital security is essential to reach innovative solutions that can protect us against the latest, most advanced cyber threats. That is why cybersecurity is an important part of the Commission’s research and innovation funding framework programmes, Horizon 2020 and its successor Horizon Europe.

As part of Horizon 2020, for the period 2014-2020, the Commission has been co-funding research and innovation into topics such as cybersecurity preparedness through cyber ranges and simulation, cybersecurity for small and medium enterprises, cybersecurity in the Electrical Power and Energy System, and cybersecurity and data protection in critical sectors. These topics fall under the cluster “Secure societies - Protecting the freedom and security of Europe and its citizens”.

In Horizon Europe, for the period 2021-2027, cybersecurity is part of the ‘Civil Security for Society’ cluster. The Work Programme 2021-2022 is currently under preparation.

The upcoming Digital Europe Programme, for the period 2021-2027, is an ambitious programme that is planned to invest €1.9 billion into cybersecurity capacity and the wide deployment of cybersecurity infrastructures and tools across the EU, for public administrations, businesses, and individuals.

Cybersecurity is also a part of InvestEU, which is a general programme that brings together many financial instruments and uses public investment to leverage further investment from the private sector. Its Strategic Investment Facility will support strategic ‘value chains’ in cybersecurity. It is an important part of the recovery package in response to the Coronavirus crisis.

For information on how B2EU Consulting could support your organisation in developing a funding strategy and in unlocking different financing tools for your operation in the digital sector, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@b2eu-consulting.com.