Cross-Border Cyber Hubs

Expected Outcome: Proposals are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes: stakeholders involved in biodiversity conservation and restoration activities have an improved understanding of how direct and indirect drivers [1] of biodiversity decline work, considering spatial and temporal scales and dynamics, and their interactions; the implementation at different spatial and temporal scales of the EU biodiversity policies and legislation, notably the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) is improved, enabling the prioritisation of actions and the identification of systemic solutions; stakeholders, including primary producers, whose business models rely on ecosystem services are better equipped to take strategic decisions that support biodiversity, thereby increasing opportunities while reducing their exposure to risks linked to the decline of these services. Scope: Biodiversity decline has rippling effects on climate, economy, and human well-being. Focusing on representative groups of invertebrates (including insects, molluscs and crustaceans and, in particular, understudied taxonomic groups) across representative European terrestrial, freshwater and marine…

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following expected outcomes: Improved detection, localization, characterization and, when applicable, neutralisation, of unmanned vehicles alone or in swarms, involved in trafficking or smuggling activities across external borders, while complying with legal and ethical guidelines; Improved border situational awareness, especially in the context of large-scale movements of people across borders, including from potential instrumentalisation of irregular migration, conflicts, social, economic, environmental and climate stress; Better safeguard and promotion of fundamental rights thanks to enhanced situational awareness; Reliable, redundant detection and reaction capacities without putting staff and society at risk. Scope: Capabilities for situational awareness and surveillance of land and sea borders need improvement, in consideration of potential future challenges that may require updated capabilities. These challenges may include potential future large-scale movements of people across external borders, resulting from future attempts to instrumentalisation of irregular migration, but also from…

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: An increased number of local authorities systematically identify and quantify vacant, obsolete or underutilised spaces for reuse in neighbourhoods [1] in a context-sensitive way to address local community [1] challenges and needs. Increase in renovated, renatured, or converted spaces that address local community challenges and needs. Scope: Europe’s housing needs, inefficient use of the existing building stock, environmental commitments, and the EU’s goal of “no net land take” by 2050 make a compelling case for reusing the significant number of existing spaces, including buildings and infrastructure, that are vacant, obsolete or underutilised. In Europe, there are, for instance, an estimated 19,000 km² of underutilised brownfield land and 300 km² of vacant or underutilised office space [3] . The reuse of vacant, obsolete or underutilised spaces, following circularity [1] and sufficiency principles, can help address community challenges and needs thanks to their typical proximity and connection to essential infrastructure and services. While vacant, obsolete or underutilised…

Expected Outcome: The Regional cable hubs will contribute to enhancing and consolidating collective situational awareness and capabilities in detection, supporting the development of an operational capacities to ensure the security and resilience of undersea cables. The hubs should act as a central point allowing for broader pooling of data and information relevant for the security environment of the cables, enabling the dissemination of threat information and incident detection on a regional scale and among a diverse set of national actors as designated by each Member States (e.g. National Hubs, CSIRTs.) The Hubs should allow a rapid exchange of information, even if classified among participating authorities in a given hub. To that end, the participating authorities shall set procedural arrangements on cooperation and information sharing. Furthermore, regional cable hubs could also benefit from additional solutions for the surveillance and protection of submarine cables, and the detection of malicious activities. For instance, situational awareness performed through the collection and analysis of in-situ, sea-based sensor data as well as relevant satellite imagery or undersea…

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following expected outcomes: Creation of an integrated ecosystem for secure and resilient communication systems to support civil security operations across Europe; Advancement of next-generation capabilities, ensuring robust, scalable, and interoperable communication systems for critical civil security functions relevant for the future EU Critical Communication System (EUCCS). Scope: The European Union Critical Communication System (EUCCS) is a flagship initiative aiming at gradual development of a unified, secure, and interoperable communication infrastructure to support critical public safety and civil security operations across Europe. Aims to provide law enforcement, first responders, emergency services, and other critical sectors with reliable, real-time communication capabilities, even in challenging or high-risk environments. This topic aims to streamline the creation of an integrated ecosystem for secure and resilient communication systems that support civil security operations across Europe. It aims to advance next-generation capabilities, ensuring robust, scalable, and interoperable…

Expected Outcome: Strengthening the expert capacity in the EU in a wide range of raw materials along the whole value chain; Better informed and more effective decision-making by the EU and National policy makers and the producers and users of raw materials regarding the supply and demand of raw materials and the associated environmental and social aspects; Improved EU official statistics and building the EU knowledge base of primary and secondary raw materials. Scope: Actions should strengthen an EU expert network and community covering all raw materials screened in the critical raw materials assessment of 2027. Flexibility in screening additional raw materials will be an added value. The consortium should build the EU expert community covering each screened raw material with expertise on primary and secondary resources; production, including exploration, mining, processing, recycling and refining; substitution of critical raw materials; raw materials markets; future demand and supply; supply risk management and stress tests; materials flows; raw materials standardisation; environmental footprint, socio-economic analysis, and strategic value chains and end-use sectors, including…

Objective: The general objective of “National Cyber Hubs” is to act as reference points and gateways to other public and private organisations at national level for participation in the European Cybersecurity Alert System and to ensure that cyber threat information from public and private entities is shared and collected at national level in an effective and streamlined manner. National Cyber Hubs are public entities given the role at national level to act as clearinghouses for detecting, gathering, aggregating and storing data on cybersecurity threats, analysing this data, and sharing and reporting cyber threat intelligence (CTI), reviews and analyses. They provide a central operational capacity and support other SOCs at national level (e.g., by offering guidance or training, making available data or analysis of this data, coordinating joint detection and monitoring actions, providing incident response services methodologies towards the mitigation of identified threats, vulnerabilities and/or misconfiguration weaknesses). They will play a central role at national level and can act as a hub within a context of SOCs in the different countries. The platforms should act as a central…