Lo European Cyber Competence Centre, together with the Network of National Coordination Centres, represents the new European framework to support innovation and industrial policy in the field of cybersecurity. In line with the legislative acts establishing the relevant programmes, particularly the Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe, the Competence Centre will strategically allocate relevant Union financial resources to contribute to this mission.
The Competence Centre has opened new calls for proposals under Horizon Europe Pillar II 'Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness', Cluster 'Civil Security for Society', Section 'Cybersecurity'.
The first call concerns 'Security Approaches and Tools for Software and Hardware Development and Evaluation – HORIZON-CL3-2026-02-CS-ECCC-01. With a maximum budget per project of €4 millionThe call aims to develop innovative tools, methods, and processes to secure the entire software and hardware development ecosystem. Specifically, solutions must address at least one specific area of interest, including (a) secure hardware systems on trusted chips and/or (b) software supply chain security. Five solutions are expected to be funded. This is a Research and Innovation Action; the EU co-financing rate is 100% of eligible costs.
The second announcement, 'Improving the security, privacy, and robustness of artificial intelligence models and systems (SecureAI)' – HORIZON-CL3-2026-02-CS-ECCC-02, aims to strengthen the resilience of AI systems and algorithms against various threats and attacks. Solutions should therefore develop real-time anomaly detection, mitigation techniques to defend against adversarial attacks, and robust federated learning techniques. The call is aInnovation Action and provides a maximum budget per project €4 million. Five projects are expected to be funded; the EU co-financing rate is 70% of eligible costs for profit-making entities.
The third call concerns the HORIZON-CL3-2026-02-CS-ECCC-03 call – 'Advanced cryptographic schemes and high-speed, high-assurance cryptographic implementationsSolutions should address the design and implementation of advanced post-quantum cryptography (PQC) schemes and protocols for improved security and privacy, or the development of a unified specification language to formalize and document cryptographic security conditions in software implementations. Therefore, the solutions are expected to contribute to improving the security and privacy of digital wallets through quantum-resistant cryptographic primitives and/or the development of formal verification tools, improved high-assurance cryptographic software (HACS) approaches, and their integration into software workflows. The call for proposals provides for a maximum contribution per project of €3 million and 4 projects are expected to be financed. This is a Research and Innovation Action; the EU co-financing rate is 100% of eligible costs.
All three calls above have a deadline for submitting proposals of September 15, 2026.
For more information: info@iniziativa.cc
