European call for proposals HORIZON-CL3-2023-CS-01-02

[Libor Polčák]

Hello all,

I went through 
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2023-2024/wp-6-civil-security-for-society_horizon-2023-2024_en.pdf
 and I think we can try to submit a proposal for the HORIZON-CL3-2023-CS-01-02 
call, see pages 89-90, 92-94. I think that we might base the proposal on the 
failed proposal for the Czech-US cooperation from the last year. We would frame 
our work as:

* Development of free tool to protect privacy of individuals.
* Develop tools suitable for monitoring GDPR compliance (Fingerprint detector).

The call opens 29 Jun 2023 and closes 23 Nov 2023. So we have some time to 
think about the proposal, our aims and participants. As the expected EU 
contribution per project is 2-4 millions EUR, we will likely need to form a 
broader consortium.

I copied the most relevant text:
"""
HORIZON-CL3-2023-CS-01-02: Privacy-preserving and identity management
technologies

Specific conditions

Expected EU
contribution per
project

The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of between EUR
2.00 and 4.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed
appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and
selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.

Indicative budget The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 15.70 
million.

Type of Action Innovation Actions
Legal and financial
set-up of the Grant
Agreements

The rules are described in General Annex G. The following exceptions
apply:
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the
Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions
under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for
Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the
Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy
Community (2021-2025).

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

 Improved scalable and reliable privacy-preserving and identity management
technologies for federated and secure sharing and for processing of personal and
industrial data and their integration in real-world systems;

 Improving privacy-preserving technologies for cyber threat intelligence and 
data sharing
solutions;

 Privacy by design;

 Contribution to promotion of GDPR compliant European data spaces for digital 
services
and research (in synergy with DATA Topics of Horizon Europe Cluster 4). Also,
contribution to the promotion of eID Regulation compliant European solutions;

 Research and development of self-sovereign identity management technologies 
and
solutions;

 Provide resource efficient and secure digital identity solutions for Small 
and medium
sized enterprises (SME);

 Strengthened European ecosystem of open-source developers and researchers of 
privacy-
preserving solutions;

 Usability of privacy-preserving and identity management technologies.


Scope: Using big data for digital services and scientific research brings about 
new
opportunities and challenges. For example, machine-learning methods process 
medical and
behavioural data in order to find causes and explanations for diseases or 
health risks.
However, a large amount of this data is personal data. Leakage or abuse of this 
kind of data,
potential privacy risks (e.g. attribute disclosure or membership inference) and 
identity
compromises pose threats to individuals, society and economy, which hamper 
further
developing data spaces involving personal data. Likewise, there are similar 
challenges for the
exploitation of non-personal/industrial data assets that may compromise the 
opportunities
offered by the data economy. Advanced privacy-preserving technologies such as, 
for
example, cryptographic anonymous credentials, homomorphic encryption, secure 
multiparty
computation, and differential privacy have the potential to address these 
challenges. However,
further work is required to ensure and test their applicability in real-world 
use case scenarios.

The security of any digital service or the access to data is based on secure 
digital identities.
The eID Regulation provides the legal framework on which to build technological 
solutions
that address the user needs concerning their digital identity. With regards to 
personal data, it is
also important to develop self-sovereign identity solutions that give users 
complete control on
their personal data and use.

Proposals should address usability, scalability and reliability of secure and 
privacy-preserving
technologies in supply chain and take integration with existing infrastructures 
and traditional
security measures into account. They should further take into account, whenever 
needed, the
legacy variation in data types and models across different organizations. The 
proposed
solutions should be validated and piloted in realistic, federated data 
infrastructures such as, for
example, European data spaces. They should ensure compliance with data 
regulations and be
GDPR compliant by-design. Open-source solutions are encouraged.

Consortia should bring together interdisciplinary expertise and capacity 
covering the supply
and the demand side, i.e. industry, service providers and, where relevant, 
end-users. The use
of authentication and authorisation infrastructure framework tools developed 
for data spaces,
and notably with the European Open Science Cloud, could be considered. 
Participation of
SMEs is strongly encouraged. Legal expertise should also be added to ensure 
compliance of
the project results with data regulations and the GDPR.

The identification and analysis of potential regulatory aspects and barriers 
for the developed
technologies/solutions is encouraged, where relevant.

"""

Regarding funding, FSF will likely not be eligible, see 
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf
 but can participate at own costs.

Please let me know if we want to pursue this or another 
(https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/reference-documents;programCode=HORIZON)
 opportunity from EU funding further.

Best wishes

Libor