Facilitating strategic cooperation to ensure the provision of essential services

Overview

Objectives

The call seeks to fund projects that enhance the resilience of essential services within the EU by addressing risks and interdependencies. The objectives include:

• Develop tools for EU Member State authorities and operators to assess and anticipate risks;
• Facilitate cooperation among authorities through secure data exchange and cross-border risk assessments;
• Create simulation tools for resilience testing and design related training programs;
• Identify measures to assist operators in conducting risk assessments;
• Provide guidance for drafting resilience plans in accordance with the proposed CER-Directive.
• Establish an all-hazards framework to improve risk anticipation and response capabilities.

Activities/actions supported

Proposals under this topic should:

• deliver solutions for competent authorities of EU Member States, to support their task in overseeing the resilience of key sectors. Such solutions should enhance their ability for cooperation and communication, conducting large-scale risk assessments (including the cross-border dimension), developing best practices for exercises and dedicated complex training modules;
• develop concrete tools to support all-hazard analysis by integrating domain specific risk assessment and allowing to manage interdependencies phenomena among different sectors and Member States. Possible examples are virtual reality tools, dashboards, complex training and serious gaming modules or other instruments to be used and that currently may not exist on such scale.

Anticipated outcomes

Projects under this call are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Tools for EU Member State authorities and operators for the assessment and anticipation of relevant risks to the provisions of essential services are identified;
• Simulation tools are developed for large-scale exercises to test the resilience of operators and of specific sectors, and related training courses are designed;
• Provide common European guidance and support for the drafting of their resilience plans in order to meet all the provisions of the proposed CER-Directive: risk analysis, domino effects, cross-sector and cross-border analysis, standardised plans, educational and training tools.

Institution providing the funding

European Commission   

Size of funding

EUR 5 million

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

To be eligible, applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) established in one of the eligible countries, listed in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.

The following additional eligibiility criteria apply:

• This topic requires the active involvement, as beneficiaries, of at least 3 government authorities responsible for resilience on national level and / or for overseeing operators, from at least 3 different EU Member States;
• Participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States only;
• Proposals including entities established in countries other than EU Member States will be ineligible.

Overview of award criteria

The award criteria are the following:

• Excellence (5 points)
• Impact (5 points)
• Quality and efficiency of the implementation (5 points)

Maximum points: 15 points. Overall threshold: 10 points.

Procedures

Application procedures

Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section).

Application support available

For further help, please refer to the Online Manual on the Funding & Tenders Portal, as well as the Horizon Europe Programme Guide, which contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info