Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On July 5, 2016, the European Commission announced the launch of a new public-private partnership (the “Partnership”) on cybersecurity, as part of its Digital Single Market and EU Cybersecurity strategies. In this context, the European Commission released several documents, including a Commission Decision establishing a contractual arrangement of the new Partnership for cybersecurity industrial research, and a Staff Working Document on the preparation activities for the Partnership.

The Partnership brings together the European Commission and “cybersecurity market players, represented by the European Cyber Security Organisation, as well as members from national, regional and local public administrations, research centers and academia.” These partners are committed to supporting the development and implementation of research and innovation activities of strategic importance to the European Union’s competitiveness and industrial leadership.

The goals of the Partnership are as follows:

• Build trust among EU Member States and industrial actors by fostering cooperation during the research and innovation process.
• Help align the supply and demand sectors for cybersecurity products and services.
• Seek synergies to develop common, sector-neutral technological building blocks with maximum replication potential.

The Partnership will advise the European Commission on cybersecurity aspects of the future work programs under Horizon 2020 (i.e., the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness), and will also act as a discussion platform between the supply and demand sides of cybersecurity products and solutions. In this context, the Partnership will focus on technical priorities that have been defined previously by the industry that include (1) assurance, security and privacy by design, (2) data security, (3) protection of the ICT infrastructure, (4) identity, access and trust management, and (5) cybersecurity services.

Read the European Commission’s Questions and Answers document.