National Coordination Centre for Cybersecurity (NCC-DE)

The European Parliament and the European Council have agreed to establish the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), located in Bucharest, and a network of national coordination centres extending across the European Union on basis of the EU regulation 2021/887. The ECCC and the network are intended to pool investment in cybersecurity research, technology and industrial development and to better coordinate planning by the EU’s Horizon Europe and Digital Europe funding programmes.

In addition, the ECCC will conduct research and innovation measures (with the support of Horizon Europe) as well as capacity-building measures (with the support of the Digital Europe Programme) on its own responsibility, and will use its own expertise in advising other programmes (such as the European Defence Fund) in order to avoid duplication of efforts. The ECCC will work closely with the network of national coordination centres to reach out to the cybersecurity community and gain its support. These activities will pay particular attention to the concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups.

The ECCC will ensure greater coordination of research, development and innovation and of strategies to introduce and integrate cybersecurity products, services and procedures at European and national level. A governing board will be established for the ECCC, made up of representatives from the member states and the European Commission. Germany’s representative on the board will be the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which will also serve as the single point of contact for the national coordination centre in Germany.

The European network of national coordination centres will intensify exchange among the member states, enabling interested parties in government, industry and the research community in the European Union to identify partners for multilateral projects more quickly and easily, thereby increasing the EU’s digital sovereignty. Within each EU member state, the national coordination centre will promote and intensify dialogue and exchange among interested national partners. In this way, the flow of information to the ECCC will be consolidated to provide optimal support to the national cybersecurity community and to ensure that national interests are represented effectively in the EU’s funding programmes.

Germany’s National Coordination Centre (NCC-DE) for cybersecurity in industry, technology and research is a joint platform for cooperation among the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI); the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK); the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg), as well as individual ministries’ executive agencies (the Federal Office for Information Security and the Research Institute CODE). The responsibility for overall coordination will lie with the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The Federal Office for Information Security will serve as the single point of contact for the ECCC, the European network of national coordination centres and the national stakeholders.

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