DIGITAL EUROPE – Deploying Strategic Cyber Capabilities Across Europe – 2026

Objectives

• To allow for more effective creation and analysis of Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), automation of large-scale processes, as well as faster and scalable processing of CTI and identification of patterns that allow for rapid detection and decision making
• To overcome the challenge of finding the technical skills required to deal with a complex technology landscape that relies heavily on extensive configurations and capabilities
• To aim to complement efforts by Member States and those at Union level to increase the level of protection and resilience to cyber threats by assisting Member States in their efforts to improve their preparedness for cyber threats and incidents by providing them with knowledge and expertise
• To o support the progressive establishment of Regional Cable hubs, one per sea basins of the EU, whose role will be to concretely enhance threats detection and operational security around these strategic infrastructures

Priorities

• Priority 1: in addition to being secure, the AI technologies being developed should perform well, and be robust and trustworthy. In particular, having trustworthy AI solutions will help in the deployment phase, where social acceptance is essential
• Priority 2: to achieve coordinated preparedness testing of entities operating in sectors of high criticality across the Union considering ICT as well as Operational Technology/Industrial Control Systems

Eligibility

• Be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• Be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
  • EU Member States (including overseas countries and
    territories (OCTs))
  • EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein)
• Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting the proposal.
• For the Topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CABLEHUBS, a minimum of 2 independent applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 2 different eligible countries must be constituted.

Additional information

• Initial duration of the action:
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CYBERAI, DIGITAL-ECCC2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-UPTAKE, and DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER09-CABLEHUBS the indicative duration of the action is 36 months, other durations are not excluded
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-COORDPREP the indicative duration of the action is 24 months, other durations are not excluded.
• Contact: applicants@eccc.europa.eu

Useful

• Guidelines: Click here
• Other call documents: Click here
• DG website : Click here
• More information: Click here

• Total budget of the call: 50 million euros
• Budget per topic:
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CYBERAI : 15 million euros
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-UPTAKE : 15 million euros
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-COORDPREP : 10 million euros
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CABLEHUBS : 10 million euros
• Amount of the grant:
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CYBERAI: indicatively between 3 and 5 million euros per project but other amounts, if duly justified, are not excluded
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-UPTAKE: 3 million euros per project but other amounts, if duly justified, are not excluded
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-COORDPREP: 1.5 million euros per project but other amounts, if duly justified, are not excluded
  • for topic DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CABLEHUBS: 3 million euros per project but other amounts if duly justified, are not excluded
• Funding rate:
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CYBERAI : up to 50% of the total eligible costs
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-UPTAKE : up to 50% and 75% (for SMEs) of the total eligible costs
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-COORDPREP : up to 50% of the total eligible costs
  • DIGITAL-ECCC-2025-DEPLOY-CYBER-09-CABLEHUBSs : up to 70% of the total eligible costs

The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.