Valencia, 19 October 2022. – This morning took place in Rome the kick-off meeting of the EU-CIP – European Knowledge Hub and Policy Testbed for Critical Infrastructure Protection project, an initiative co-funded by the Horizon Europe programme that has brought together 20 partners from 13 European countries (Italy, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Ireland, Finland, Cyprus, Norway, Belgium, Greece, Spain, France and Romania), with the common objective of establishing a novel pan-European knowledge network for resilient infrastructures, enabling policy makers to develop and produce evidence-based policies, while boosting the development and production of evidence-based policies, France and Romania), with the common objective of establishing a novel pan-European knowledge network for resilient infrastructures, enabling policy makers to develop and produce evidence-based policies, while boosting the innovation capacity of critical infrastructure operators, authorities and innovators (including SMEs).
This project, led by Engineering Ingegneria Informatica Spa and with the active participation of Fundación Valenciaport, has a total budget of 2 million euros and is scheduled to run for 36 months, ending in September 2025.
The EU-CIP partners have already created the European Cluster for Critical Infrastructure Security (ECSCI), which brings together 22 projects that collaborate on critical infrastructure resilience.
EU-CIP will leverage the capacity, organisation, community and achievements of the ECSCI cluster to establish an EU-wide knowledge network with advanced analytical and innovation support capabilities.
To facilitate the collection and analysis of information, the project will establish a FAIR data observatory of research projects, research results, technologies, standards and policies. Along with analytical capabilities for evidence-based policy, the project will organise and deliver a rich set of innovation support services for EU projects and other innovators in CI security and resilience. These services will include training, business planning support and access to funding, as well as support for validation, standardisation and certification of new solutions.
The main outcome of this project is to constitute a reference group on the issues of standardisation and policy support for critical infrastructure protection and resilience in Europe. The results of the projects will be integrated and made available through a Knowledge Centre, which will provide a single entry point to the EU-CIP results.
EU-CIP will build a dynamic ecosystem of over 1000 stakeholders around this Knowledge Hub. To animate and grow the project community, EU-CIP will implement an ambitious set of dissemination activities, including the establishment and organisation of an annual conference on Critical Infrastructure Resilience, which will become a flagship event on this topic.
Specifically, Fundación Valenciaport will participate in the exchange of lessons learnt and experiences from European maritime security projects, providing various points of view on protection in a proactive manner. In addition, it will collaborate in the definition of solutions and policies in CI security; it will participate in the Steering Committee together with different sectors (transport, energy, telecommunications, etc.) and will promote communication, dissemination and awareness of the project’s actions.
EU-CIP has twenty partners: Ingegneria Informatica Spa (coordinator); German Aerospace Center – Deutsches Zentrum Fur Luft – Und Raumfahrt; Gft Italia Srl; Inov Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Inovaçao; Inlecom Commercial Pathways CLG; Sintef As; European Risk & Resilience Institute; Polish Platform for Homeland Security; Laurea-Ammattikorkeakoulu; Innov-Acts LTD; Norsk Regnesentral; European Organisation for Security; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Fstechnology Spa; Athens International Airport, S. A.; Fundación Valenciaport; Orange Romania; Electricite de France; Association Française de Normalisation and Leonardo S.p.A.
