The National Security Council designates INCIBE as the National Coordination Centre of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre

The National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the Secretary of State for Digitisation and Artificial Intelligence, has been designated by the National Cybersecurity Council as Spain's National Coordination Centre, forming one of the 27 national coordination centres of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre.

The designation is due to the fact that INCIBE meets all the requirements to be elected as National Coordination Centre, has extensive experience in the sector and expertise in technology, research and innovation, and has established itself as a benchmark entity for the development of cybersecurity and digital assurance for citizens, academic and research networks, professionals, companies, and particularly for strategic sectors.  

The national coordination centres will serve as the contact and coordination point of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre at national level and will cooperate with other relevant actors, industry, the public sector, the academic research community and citizens, taking the national and regional cybersecurity challenges of each country into account.  

Its mission also includes the implementation of cross-border projects and joint actions funded through the EU, which are incorporated into the national productive fabric through instruments such as cascade funding that enable the granting of aid to third parties. In this way, technical and economic support can be provided, above all to SMEs, by facilitating access to knowledge, connection to potential markets and access to funding. 

Furthermore, the national coordination centres have the mission of creating a public-private community of competences at national level, which brings together the current knowledge in the field and helps to outline national priorities for research and capacity building, taking into account the specific circumstances, characteristics and level of maturity in this field in each country.

The European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) 

The European Cybersecurity Competence Centre is a European initiative within the framework of European cybersecurity policies that aims to increase Europe's cybersecurity capabilities and competitiveness through a "Network" of nNational coordination centres, one per Member State. The European Centre will act across the entire value chain ranging from research, innovation, deployment and adoption of key technologies, avoiding fragmentation and pooling the knowledge of entities and individuals in a Europe-wide cybersecurity competence community.

This centre will be located in the city of Bucharest (Romania), and its task is to promote cooperation and coordination between national coordination centres, to pool the identification of research priorities and deployment of capabilities for the management of cybersecurity funds in the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, primarily through the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes, with the aim of helping to create an interconnected industrial and research ecosystem on cybersecurity at EU level. It will also contribute to fostering better cooperation to help make the best use of existing resources and expertise in order to strengthen the EU's digital autonomy and strategic sovereignty in cybersecurity. 

The Board of Directors of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre includes one representative from each Member State, as well as two representatives of the Commission acting on behalf of the EU. For Spain, the representative will be Miguel Ángel Amutio, Director of Cybersecurity Planning and Coordination at the General Secretariat for Digital Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of the Spanish Government. The presidency of this body is held by Luxembourg, and the vice-presidency by Poland.

Digital Europe Programme

The Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) is a new EU funding programme focused on making digital technology available to businesses, citizens and public authorities. This initiative will provide strategic funding, supporting projects in five key areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills and ensuring widespread use of digital technologies in the economy and society. It aims to accelerate economic recovery and support the digital transformation of Europe's society and economy, to the benefit of all, but in particular small and medium-sized enterprises.

Thus, INCIBE, as National Coordination Centre of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre, will apply to one of the 7 announcements of the new cybersecurity support lines, specifically to the Digital ECCC 2022 Cyber Natcoordination, whose main objective is to promote the Cybersecurity Competence Community in each Member State, helping them to acquire the necessary capacity for its implementation. With this funding, the National Coordination Centres will support cybersecurity capacity building at European, national, regional and local level and foster cross-border cooperation and the preparation of joint actions by supporting stakeholders in the application phase of ECCC managed projects.

The duration of the funding will be two years with a financing of 50% of the project costs and a maximum contribution of 1 million Euro for the development and operation of the National Coordination Centre and 1 million Euro that can be requested for financial support to third parties to reinforce the adoption and dissemination of state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions.