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.
Work programmes
The overall objectives, scope, outcomes and deliverables as well as budget allocations, for each topic are described in different work programmes:
- Main Work Programme 2023-2024 - comprising Special Objectives 'AI, Data & Cloud', 'Advanced Digital Skills', and 'Deployment - Accelerating best use of digital technologies'
- Cybersecurity Work Programme 2023-2024
- European Digital Innovations Hubs (EDIH) Work Programme 2021-2023
- High-Performance Computing Work Programme 2023
- Chips Joint Undertaking Work Programme 2023 (here)
All work programmes other the one managed by the Chips JU are available at this link.
Detailed descriptions of the different call topics can be found in the call documents once the calls are published on the Funding & Tenders Portal.
Legal & Financial Rules
The legal and financial rules for Digital Europe resemble in many aspects those of other funding programmes such as Horizon Europe. However, there are some important difference that need to be taken into account, such as regards e.g. international collaboration and security restrictions. Information on the legal and financial rules can be found on our L&F overview page and in our infosheets.
Latest news
Health Digital Europe Deployment: Best use of technologies
Cascade funding: DigitalHealthUptake Call for Training
Digital Health Uptake (DHU), an EU-funded project under the Digital Europe Programme, is offering financial support to third parties to support the implementation of technical assistance and training activities aimed at enabling training users to apply and make use of key methods and tools that support digital health implementation and scale u... read more
Digital Europe AI, data & cloud
Evaluation completed: DIGITAL-2023-CLOUD-AI-04 and DIGITAL-2023-PROGRAM-SUP...
The European Commission has completed the evaluation of calls DIGITAL-2023-CLOUD-AI-04 and DIGITAL-2023-PROGRAM-SUPPORT-04. The evaluation results are as follows: DIGITAL-2023-CLOUD-AI-04-IPCEI-EXPLOITNumber of proposals submitted: 3Number of inadmissible proposals: 1Number of ineligible proposals: 0Number of above-threshold proposals: 1Total bud... read more
Digital Europe AI, data & cloud
New information on Simpl platform available
The European Commission has updated the available information on Simpl, an open source, smart and secure middleware platform that supports data access and interoperability among European data spaces on its dedicated website. Project proposals under Digital Europe, especially proposals on calls that aim at the development and deployment of dat... read more
Digital, Industry & Space Digital Europe
Applications open: Next Generation Internet Transatlantic Fellowship Progra...
The the third call for applications for the Next Generation Internet Transatlantic Fellowship Programme as part of the NGI Enrichers project, funded by Horizon Europe, has been opened. NGI Enrichers in a nutshell: Funded by the European Commission, the Programme supports European NGI researchers and innovators willing to spend 3 to 6... read more
Upcoming events
Digital Europe Cybersecurity Defence EDF NATO-EDA
EUDIS HACKATHON 2024 BELGIUM: DIGITAL IN DEFENCE
Your NCP contact for this programme
Marie Timmermann
marie.timmermann@fwo.be
+32 2 550 15 59
Work Programme & Calls
Infosheets
Infosheets contain edited content on aspects related to this programme. They are reviewed at least yearly.
- Expert Evaluators - Background & How to become an evaluator
- International cooperation in Digital Europe
- Lump sum actions
- Security - restricted calls in Digital Europe
- The coordinator's role in Horizon Europe or Digital Europe projects
- Unit costs for personnel costs and internally invoiced goods and services in Digital Europe
Related links
Related links are easy pointers towards external information. We curate the list, but are not liable for the destinations.
Documents
Documents contain additional information related to this programme, and are similar to related links.
Testimonial
Autoship - a new and durable way of freight transport
Autoship is, as the name suggests, an acronym for autonomous ship. Just like with self-driving cars, the possibilities of an unmanned boat seem endless. It can create more efficient freight transport, around the clock deliveries and these are just a few of the examples. The project has two societal challenges.
At first, De Vlaamse Waterweg was a bit hesitant as their experience with FP7 or Horizon 2020 projects was limited and they had not been very successful up until then. The fact that they were already doing basic research on the topic of autonomous boats, and the administrative help of NCP FLanders helped De Vlaamse waterweg to cross the line and get involved.
