Digital Europe: Regional Cable Hubs

Conditions

The results of this call should lead to:

• enhanced and consolidated collective situational awareness and capabilities in detection, supporting the development of operational capacities to ensure the security and resilience of undersea cables.
• a central point allowing for broader pooling of data and information relevant for the security environment of the cables, enabling the rapid sharing of information about threats and incidents between countries and organisations, such as national security services, national hubs or CSIRTs (Computer Security Incident Response Teams).
• agreements on how to cooperate and exchange (sensitive) information.
• an integrated, direct cooperation with private entities, especially cable operators, to increase access – in a highly secured framework - to information on ongoing and future threats and voluntary incident reporting.
• an integrated defence dimension, as any defence capacities is likely to increase the situational awareness as well as the capacity to respond fast in case of incident against these strategic critical infrastructures.
• preparatory activities for setting up the Regional Cable Hub, its interaction and cooperation between its members and with other stakeholders. As well as the running/operating costs involved, enabling the effective operation of the Regional Cable Hub.

The grant could also be used to cover the acquisition of the infrastructures, tools and services needed to build-up the Regional Cable Hub. But also to equip it with the necessary capacities to enhance the security and resilience of undersea cables, such as detection capacities.

Submission criteria

• Any public authority, agency or entity in charge in Member States of Cable Security, Maritime security, resilience or protection of critical infrastructures.
• Other relevant stakeholders specialized in maritime surveillance technologies, cybersecurity and threat detection, data aggregation and AI-driven analysis and critical infrastructure resilience.
• The involvement of the largest number of eligible entities pertinent for the sea-basin is strongly encouraged.
• Only entities established in and controlled from EU  countries or countries associated with Specific Objective 3 of the Digital Europe Programme are able to apply for this call.