Digital Europe Introduction
The Digital Europe programme (DIGITAL) with a budget of € 7.5 billion aims to support the digital transition in the EU by fostering the uptake of digital technologies by businesses, citizens and public administration and enhancing digital skills of the workforce.

Strategic objectives

Digital Europe funds projects in five key capacity areas (strategic objectives):

  • Supercomputing (€2.227 bn): deployment of world-class exascale and post-exascale supercomputing capacities;
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI), data & cloud (€ 2.062 bn): setting up EU-wide sectoral data spaces based on a cloud-to-edge federated infrastructure and promotion of testing and adoption of AI-based solutions;
  • Cybersecurity (€ 1.650 bn): building up advanced cybersecurity capabilities, promoting the sharing of best practices and ensuring wide deployment of cybersecurity solutions;
  • Advanced digital skills (€ 0.577 bn): increasing the education offer and training in key digital technologies and digital skills for non-ICT sectors, and support collaboration between higher education institutions and the private sector;
  • Accelerating best use of technologies (€ 1.072 bn): establishment of a network of European Digital Innovation Hubs supporting the digital transformation of European public and private organisations and deployment of high-impact projects such as blockchain capacities or the digital transformation of public administration and services.

With its variety of topics the programme addresses a wide range of stakeholders: SMEs, higher education institutions, research centres, public authorities, large companies etc.

The Digital Europe Programme complements other EU programmes, such as the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation, and the Connecting Europe Facility for digital infrastructure, the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the Structural funds.

 
 

Testimonial

image of ROOT - Rolling Out OSNMA for the secure synchronization of Telecom networks

ROOT - Rolling Out OSNMA for the secure synchronization of Telecom networks

The ROOT project obtained funding under Horizon 2020 topic ‘EGNSS applications fostering societal resilience and protecting the environment’. The project, which ran from November 2020 to July 2022,  aimed to demonstrate the benefit of Galileo OSNMA signal to increase the robustness of critical telecom infrastructures.

The Flanders-based company Septentrio contributed substantially to completing this objective together with the other ROOT partners. The results of the project partially close a gap in the security of telecommunication networks dependent on satellite-derived time, with indirect benefits in curbing illegal attempts to disrupt network services.