Strengthen Cybersecurity capacities of European SMEs in line with CRA requirements and obligations

Overview

Objectives

The objective of this topic is to support European SMEs, with a focus on micro and small enterprises, to strengthen their cybersecurity capacities and to support the implementation of the proposed Regulation on the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).

Activities/actions supported

The proposed project should include actions addressing the following:

• Awareness raising
• Managing an open call process to distribute cascade funding
• Establish an openly available platform providing links to CRA-related resources supporting community building and upskilling (e.g. training materials, open source resources)
• In close coordination with the EU Cybersecurity Skills Academy, perform trainings and upskilling of stakeholders to achieve CRA compliance
• Facilitate and share CRA compliance best-practices and use-cases
• Contribute to standardisation efforts

Anticipated outcomes

Expected outcomes include:

• Financial support for SMEs and other stakeholders for CRA compliance.
• Openly available platform with CRA-related resources (such as guidelines and supporting documents), providing supporting community building and upskilling.
• Workshops, events, networking and exchange of experience of stakeholders.
• Contributions to CRA standardisation

Institution providing the funding

European Commission

Size of funding

EUR 22.000.000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

To be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries (i.e. EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)), or EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein)

Overview of award criteria

Project proposals will be assessed taking into account the following 4 criteria, for a maximum of 15 points:

• Relevance (maximum 5 points)
• Implementation (maximum 5 points)
• Impact (maximum 5 points)

The threshold for individual criteria is 3 points.

Procedures

Application procedures

All proposals must be submitted directly online via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System.

Application support available

For further information, please check the text of the call (link below). Furthermore, you can consult the Online Manual: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/om_en.pdf

Non-IT related questions should be sent to the following email address: CNECT-ECCCDEPec [dot] europa [dot] eu (CNECT-ECCCDEP[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info