On Wednesday 15 May 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of the Economy announced that it is launching, together with the National Cybersecurity Competence Center (NC3)(NC3) and with the collaboration of Luxinnovation, a first call for projects aimed at co-financing the creation of innovative tools, solutions and services by startups and SMEs in the Luxembourg cybersecurity ecosystem.
Co-funded by the European Commission under the Digital Europe Programme, this action forms part of the Commission's initiatives to provide financial support for third parties (FSTP) such as startups, scale-ups and SMEs in the adoption or development of digital innovation. The ministry added that the projects will be financed via the support mechanism for research and development (R&D) projects. This call for projects has a budget of €720,000 and the selected projects may be co-financed by a grant covering up to 80% of costs. For each selected project, a maximum grant of €60,000 can be awarded and requires a co-financing share of 20% for small businesses and 30% for medium-sized businesses.
The Luxembourg Cybersecurity Innovation and Development (LU-CID) financing programme is aimed at Luxembourg SMEs and startups wishing to implement projects aimed at creating innovative cybersecurity tools and services, and introducing new types of solutions to the Luxembourg market. The programme meets four objectives, according to the ministry: to support the development of startups in the field of cybersecurity through the creation of technical or non-technical solutions; to promote the creation or growth of local businesses developing affordable evaluation and testing services; to support the implementation of cybersecurity services with a sustainable open-source model; to promote the development of innovative approaches to improve the cybersecurity skills of SMEs.
The call for projects is open from 15 May to 15 July 2024. As part of this call for projects, NC3 and Luxinnovation can provide free assistance for setting up projects.
Detailed information on eligibility conditions and the project submission process is available at https://nc3.lu/pages/ecosystem/funding.html.
