Horizon 2020’s Societal Challenges funding stream includes a theme entitled Secure Societies – Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

The specific objective of this challenge is to increase the level of security and protection of European citizens and society in general, through the security of infrastructure and services. This is seen as necessary in order to protect the prosperity, political stability and the well-being of the European Union.

The activities financed and implemented under this theme have the ultimate goal of contributing to the achievement of specific objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, as well as those of the Internal Security Strategy, the Cyber Security Strategy and the Security Industrial Policy.

The aim is to develop and apply innovative solutions, as well as to improve the competitiveness of the related European industries; the challenge Secure Societies therefore supports multidisciplinary research, development and application of new technological solutions, which provide adequate response to major global threats to the security of citizens (crime, violence, terrorism, natural/man-made disasters, cyber-attacks, etc.), while ensuring European citizens’ individual rights and freedom.

This challenge should bring together all security stakeholders: industry – including SMEs, research organizations, universities, as well as public authorities, NGOs and public and private organizations in the security domain. The active involvement of end-users like police forces, security forces and/or counter-terrorism units is of high importance.

The Secure Societies Work Programme covers four different priorities:

– Disaster-resilience: safeguarding and securing society, including adapting to climate change (H2020-DRS-2015) is divided into 12 different topics related to crisis management and civil protection, disaster resilience and climate change, and critical infrastructure protection. The available budget is €82.330 million.

– Fight against Crime and Terrorism (H2020-FCT-2015), is divided into 8 different topics, encompassing areas like forensics, law enforcement capabilities, urban security. The available call budget is €42.16 million.

– Border Security and External Security (H2020-BES-2015) is divided into 11 topics related to maritime border security, border crossing points, supply chain security and external security. The available call budget is €42.17 million.

– Digital Security (H2020-DS-2015-1) is divided into 4 topics linked with privacy, access control, trust eServices and secure information sharing. The available call budget is €50,21 million.

The total budget for these 35 topics in the four calls amounts to €216,87 million.

The calls are open until 27 August 2015. Applicants must submit their proposals electronically, following the procedure from the Participant Portal.

Further information on each topic and all official documents on the calls are available on the pages:

H2020-DRS-2015: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-drs-2015.html

H2020-FCT-2015: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-fct-2015.html

H2020-BES-2015: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-bes-2015.html

H2020-DS-2015-1: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-ds-2015-1.html