Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following outcomes:

• To offer advanced services on innovation uptake to the security community;
• To provide a self-sustained mechanism for advanced advisory and support services, to act as a market catalyst; and to accelerate the uptake of innovation for security;
• Enhanced cooperation between research institutions, smaller private research agencies, security practitioners, Start-ups and SMEs to support innovation uptake;
• Strengthening the technology transfer from research to the market and strengthening of security ecosystem. Supporting Start-ups and SME to reach the security market and strengthen the capacity of security practitioners to uptake innovative tools from the security market.

Scope:

The uptake of innovation stemming from EU-funded security research is not a single-step process, and there is no single method of ensuring the market uptake of successful research results. Innovation uptake needs to be contemplated as a long process that is conditioned by a number of enabling actions to be taken before research is even planned and long after it is completed. However, market uptake and deployment of innovation by security practitioners are recurrent challenges in civil security research.

The EU-funded security research ecosystem has changed the traditional relationship between practitioners and solution providers. The awareness of security needs and solutions has been steadily growing at all levels during the last years, with EU funded security research and innovation projects playing a pivotal role. This awareness guarantees not only that research addresses critical needs, but also that the research investment will deliver tangible results.

There are several approaches to achieve a better market uptake and to ensure that innovation can pass from the realm of research to the realm of the market and eventually innovative tools to be used by security practitioners.

In order to support SMEs and start-ups but also practitioners to find the avenues of uptake of innovation, models and methods for transferring research to the market should be promoted. This topic aims to offer services and guidance to entities in the security ecosystem to achieve market uptake.

The services should be delivered to SMEs/Start-ups and Practitioners. Therefore, there would be Supply-oriented Services and Demand-oriented services.

Some of the expected services could be open for the whole community (e.g., material online) and examples of good practices, whereas others would be provided upon specific request by an entity (on demand services). On demand services may be linked to other EU-funded actions but should not cover activities already funded from those in order to avoid double funding.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate a proven experience in technology development and innovation in the area of security and deep knowledge on the security ecosystem.

Successful candidates should be able to provide services such as:

• Funding & procurement guidance
• Market research / competitive landscaping / Marketplaces / Market surveys/consultations
• Proof of concept development (for TRL 2-4)
• Funding and tendering observatory
• Investor search / venture building
• Technology validation support Lab testing support (i.e., Readiness assessment, Artificial Intelligence act compliance, Machine Learning security, Ethical Legal and Societal assessment, High Performance Computing capabilities, Synthetic data generation, Access to Datasets, stress testing etc.)
• Tech and/or entrepreneurial skills development (training)

The proposals should outline the methods and processes by which they intend to decide which organisations they provide support to, respecting principles such as transparency, equal treatment, non-discrimination between organisations and effectiveness (impact). The project should provide suggestions for such methods and processes as deliverable to be approved by the European Commission. The applicants submitting the proposals have to ensure sufficient representativeness of the communities of interest (including, but not only, geographical representativeness) and a balanced coverage in terms of knowledge and skills of the different knowledge domains required to face the challenge, including security operations, technologies, research & innovation, industry, market, etc. The applying consortia need to demonstrate that the project beneficiaries guarantee the expertise required to steer the project activities in all the knowledge domains to ensure the success of the action. The work of the partners has to be supported by solid and recognised tools and methods, also accompanied by the required expertise to put them in practice.

Proposals should take into account the work initiated by the Networks of Practitioners funded under H2020 Secure Societies work programmes and the ongoing work of Knowledge Networks. Proposals should build to the extent possible on the outcomes of previous initiatives that foster innovation uptake (e.g., iProcureNet^[1] Multirate^[2], etc). In addition, existing initiatives like Horizon Booster^[3] EACTDA^[4] and EAFIP^[5] have some components which could be used by the successful project and to be adapted in the area of security.

The project has to identify and describe options for the sustainability of the services beyond the project lifetime, including the setting up of a permanent scheme which will continue to offer the proposed services to the community as a self-sustainable mechanism.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content should be addressed only if relevant in relation to the objectives of the research effort.

The project should have a maximum estimated duration of 5 years.

The provision of financial support to third parties in the form of grants is optional.

[1] https://www.iprocurenet.eu/

[2] https://www.multirate.eu/

[3] https://www.horizonresultsbooster.eu/

[4] https://www.eactda.eu/

[5] https://eafip.eu/