Demand-led innovation in security

The HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-SSRI-03 grant opportunity focuses on demand-led innovation in the civil security sector, specifically under the Horizon Europe program. This pre-commercial procurement (PCP) opportunity aims to foster collaboration among public and private organizations to address innovative solutions in civil security. The total budget for this initiative is €5,830,000, with a single grant expected to be awarded.

Eligible applicants must form a consortium comprising at least three civil security practitioners and three public procurers from a minimum of three different EU Member States or Associated Countries. This consortia mandate is designed to create a robust group of stakeholders with shared needs and requirements.

The initiative's primary goal is to acquire research and development services and innovative technology solutions through a competitive tendering process rather than direct research funding. This method encourages SMEs and startups to participate by providing them access to the public procurement market.

Key focus areas within this opportunity include cybersecurity, border management, disaster resilience, and critical infrastructure protection. Applicants must demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and the potential for commercialization beyond the project's lifespan. Successful projects should lead to the development of at least two competing prototypes validated in real operational environments.

The application process is single-stage, with submissions opening on May 5, 2027, and closing on November 4, 2027. Projects are expected to incorporate open market consultations in at least three EU Member States to establish the viability of identified procurement needs.

Furthermore, financial support may extend to third parties, with a maximum of €100,000 allocated per entity to incentivize wider adoption of the developed solutions. Proposals should highlight strategies for engaging broader communities and ensuring the project's outcomes can be effectively communicated to potential public buyers.

In summary, this Horizon Europe opportunity encapsulates a strategic move towards enhancing innovation procurement in civil security, emphasizing the involvement of SMEs and the importance of aligning developed technologies with actual user needs and societal challenges.

This EU funding opportunity is part of the Horizon Europe program, specifically under the Civil Security for Society 2027 call (HORIZON-CL3-2027-01). It focuses on demand-led innovation in security, aiming to enhance the effectiveness of pre-commercial procurement (PCP) to address societal challenges by encouraging public procurers to strategically utilize PCP. The specific topic is HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-SSRI-03, which is a HORIZON Pre-commercial Procurement (HORIZON-PCP) action.

The planned opening date for submissions is May 5, 2027, with a deadline of November 4, 2027, at 17:00:00 Brussels time. This is a single-stage submission process. The total budget allocated to this specific topic is 5,830,000 EUR, and it is anticipated that around one grant will be awarded.

The expected outcomes of projects funded under this topic include:
Identification of a community of EU civil security practitioners with common needs for innovative technology solutions, supported by an industrial base, particularly SMEs and Startups, to access the public procurement market and scale up their business.
Procurers facilitating the commercialization of innovative solutions developed by their successful suppliers by providing them with first customer references for validation and pilot deployment.
Tested and validated capacity of the EU technology and industrial base to develop and produce technology prototypes that are accessible and meet the diverse needs of the EU user community, regardless of their gender, age, and ability.
Improved delineation of the EU market (including demand and supply) for innovative civil security systems that can articulate alternative options for uptake in function of different industrialization needs, commercialization needs, acquisition needs, deployment needs, and additional funding needs (beyond R&I funding).

The scope of this funding opportunity is to invite applicants to submit proposals for PCP action to acquire Research and Development (R&D) services and innovative civil security technology solutions. Proposals should demonstrate interest from a broader community of potential buyers, beyond the direct beneficiaries, who share similar needs and are open to jointly adopting the solutions developed, provided they are proven mature and operationally viable. The proposals are expected to include an analysis of the state of the art and market landscape, aligning research activities with identified needs and presenting a range of technical alternatives to address the challenge. Furthermore, to stimulate dialogue with the supply side, public procurers are required to organise proposals that should demonstrate sustainability of the action beyond the life of the project.

The proposals should build on the outcomes of CSA projects funded under previous Horizon Europe work programmes aimed at creating Stronger grounds for pre-commercial procurement of innovative security technologies. The proposals should provide clear evidence to justify and de-risk the PCP action, demonstrating that the identified challenge is significant and necessitates a PCP action to mature certain technologies and compare alternatives. It should be shown that a consolidated group of practitioners and procurers with shared needs and requirements is committed to the PCP process, enabling informed decisions on future joint procurement of innovative solutions. Activities covered should include cooperation with policymakers to reinforce the national policy frameworks and mobilise substantial additional national budgets for PCP and innovation procurement in general beyond the scope of the project. The tender process to be followed is described in Annex H.

Proposals should demonstrate commitment to exploiting project results beyond its conclusion, ensuring engagement with stakeholders and implementation of strategies for future uptake. Applicants should also clarify measures to ensure compliance with the principles of the EU Directive on public procurement, particularly those related to PCP. The required open market consultations should be completed in at least three EU Member States. Prior consultations conducted under previous CSA projects should be used, provided they ensured procurement viability and remain relevant to the current state of the art.

Involvement of procurement decision makers is recommendable to ensure that end solution(s) are adopted by public buyers, increasing the societal impact of the related research activities. Therefore, procurers should declare in the proposal their interest to pursue deployment of solutions resulting from the PCP in case the PCP delivers successful solutions and indicate whether they will:
Procure successful solution(s) as part of the PCP.
Launch a separate follow-up procurement after the PCP to buy such type of solutions.
Adopt successful solutions without the need to procure them (e.g. in case of open-source solutions).
Foresee financial or regulatory incentives for others to adopt successful solutions (e.g. in case the final end-users of the solutions are not the procurers but for example citizens).

In these four cases, the procurers can implement the project as a fast-track PCP. In the first case, the procurers should foresee the budget in the proposal to purchase at least one solution during the PCP. In the second case, the procurers should include in the proposal a deliverable that prepares the follow-up procurement to purchase such type of solution(s) after the PCP. In the first and third case, the procurers should foresee sufficient time during the project to deploy and validate that the solutions function well after installation. In the fourth case, the procurers can use financial support to third parties to provide financial incentives to final end-users that are not part of the consortium (e.g. citizens) to adopt the solutions, including costly hardware components, with a maximum budget of EUR 100.000.

Applicants should propose an implementation of the project that includes:
A minimal preparation stage dedicated to finalising the tendering documents package for a PCP call for tenders based on the technical input, and to define clear verification and validation procedures, methods and tools for the evaluation of the prototypes to be developed throughout the PCP phases.
Moreover, to ensure the sustainability and uptake of the developed solutions, proposals should outline clear plans for post-PCP activities. As outlined in the general annexes of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027, the topic allows public buyers to use the fast-track PCP option (e.g. 2 instead of 3 phases) when they commit to buying or deploying the resulting solutions after the PCP. However, if such a commitment is not yet in place at the proposal stage, the call expects proposers to include a deliverable outlining concrete activities to prepare the ground for follow-up deployment or procurement after the PCP.
Launching the call for tenders for research and development services. The call for tenders should envisage a competitive development composed of different phases that would lead to at least 2 prototypes from 2 different providers to be validated in real operational environment at the end of the PCP cycle;
Conducting the competitive development of the prototypes following the PCP principles including a design phase, an integration and technical verification phase and a validation in real operational environment phase. In evaluating the proposals and the results of the PCP phases, the applicants should consider technical merit, feasibility and commercial potential of proposed research efforts.
Consolidating the results of the evaluation of the developed prototypes, extracting conclusions and recommendations from the validation process, and defining a strategy for a potential uptake of solutions inspired in the PCP outcomes, including a complete technical specification of the envisaged solutions and standardisation needs and/or proposals. This strategy should consider joint-cross border procurement schemes and exploit synergies with other EU and national non-research funds.

Applicants are expected to maximise the visibility of the project outcomes to the wide community of potential EU public buyers. Liaison with other civil security communities beyond those addressed by the project is encouraged in order to assess the possible reuse and extensibility of the identified solutions to different domains.

Finally, proposals are expected to address all applicable considerations expressed in the Introduction of the Strengthened Security Research and Innovation Destination.

The general conditions for admissibility include:
Proposal page limits and layout as described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes and Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
Eligible countries as described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. Note that some non-EU/non-Associated Countries have specific provisions for funding.
Restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
Mandatory participation of at least 3 practitioners and 3 public procurers as beneficiaries from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries. One organisation can have the role of practitioner and public procurer simultaneously. Minimum two public procurers must be independent legal entities, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country, with at least one established in a Member State.
Applicants with practitioner status must fill in the table “Information about security practitioners” in the application form.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS.

Financial and operational capacity and exclusion are described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. Evaluation and award criteria, scoring, and thresholds are described in Annex D, while submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual. The indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement is also described in Annex F.

Legal and financial aspects of the grants:
The granting authority may object to a transfer of ownership or exclusive licensing of results up to 4 years after the end of the action.
Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties in the form of grants/prizes, with a maximum of EUR 100,000 per third party for providing financial incentives to final end-users (e.g., citizens) to adopt the solutions.
PCP/PPI procurement costs are eligible.
Specific conditions for actions with PCP/PPI procurements in section H of the General Annexes apply.
Subcontracted work must be performed in at least 3 Member States unless otherwise approved.

Application forms are available in the Submission System, including standard forms for HE RIA, IA, CSA, PCP, and PPI. Evaluation form templates will be used with necessary adaptations. Guidance documents include the HE Programme Guide, Model Grant Agreements (MGA), and call-specific instructions. Additional documents include the HE Main Work Programmes, EIC Work Programme, ERC Work Programme, HE Framework Programme, HE Specific Programme Decision, EU Financial Regulation, and other related guidelines and regulations.

The budget overview lists various topics under the Civil Security for Society 2027 call, including their respective budget, stage (single-stage), opening date (2027-05-05), deadline (2027-11-04), contributions, and indicative number of grants.

Partner search announcements are available for those seeking partners to collaborate on this topic. The submission system is planned to open on the date stated on the topic header.

This funding opportunity aims to foster demand-driven innovation in the civil security sector by encouraging pre-commercial procurement of R&D services and innovative technology solutions. It seeks to connect public procurers with SMEs and startups, promoting the development and adoption of cutting-edge security technologies to address societal challenges effectively. The program emphasizes collaboration, sustainability, and alignment with EU directives on public procurement.

Eligible Applicant Types: The eligible applicant types for this opportunity are practitioners and public procurers, SMEs, startups.

Funding Type: The funding type is pre-commercial procurement (PCP) under the Horizon Europe program. There are also Innovation Actions (IA), Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) available under other topics of the same call.

Consortium Requirement: A consortium is required. The consortium must include at least 3 practitioners and 3 public procurers as beneficiaries. These beneficiaries must be from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility): The geographic eligibility for applicants includes EU Member States and Associated Countries. A minimum of three EU Member States must be involved in open market consultations. Subcontracted work must be performed in at least 3 Member States.

Target Sector: The target sector is civil security, specifically focusing on acquiring Research and Development (R&D) services and innovative civil security technology solutions.

Mentioned Countries: At least three EU Member States or Associated Countries must be involved in the consortium.

Project Stage: The project stage is focused on acquiring Research and Development (R&D) services and maturing civil security technology solutions, implying a development and validation stage. The projects should lead to at least 2 prototypes from 2 different providers to be validated in a real operational environment.

Funding Amount: The budget for the HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-SSRI-03 topic is EUR 5,830,000. The indicative number of grants for this topic is 1. For other topics under the same call, the funding ranges from EUR 2,000,000 to EUR 14,000,000 with varying numbers of grants.

Application Type: The application type is a single-stage open call.

Nature of Support: Beneficiaries will receive money to acquire R&D services and innovative civil security technology solutions through pre-commercial procurement. Financial support to third parties is also possible, with a maximum of EUR 100,000 per third party, to provide financial incentives to final end-users.

Application Stages: The application process is a single-stage process. The pre-commercial procurement process itself involves multiple phases, including a design phase, an integration and technical verification phase, and a validation in a real operational environment phase.

Success Rates: The success rate cannot be determined from the provided text, but the indicative number of grants for the HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-SSRI-03 topic is 1.

Co-funding Requirement: The text does not explicitly state a co-funding requirement from the applicant.

Summary: This Horizon Europe call, specifically the HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-SSRI-03 topic, focuses on demand-led innovation in civil security. It aims to foster a community of EU civil security practitioners and support SMEs and startups by providing access to the public procurement market. The call utilizes pre-commercial procurement (PCP) to acquire R&D services and mature innovative civil security technology solutions. Consortia must include at least 3 practitioners and 3 public procurers from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries. The selected project will receive EUR 5,830,000 to conduct a PCP process that leads to the development and validation of technology prototypes. The call emphasizes the importance of open market consultations, commitment to exploiting project results, and maximizing the visibility of project outcomes to potential EU public buyers. The ultimate goal is to improve the EU market for innovative civil security systems and enhance the capacity of the EU technology and industrial base.