2nd Specific Service Procedure

CYBERSTAND.eu will provide € 1.500,000 of funding to support the participation of European experts in cybersecurity standardisation activities. Through 6 Specific Service Procedure (SSP) Cycles this funding will enable cybersecurity specialists to contribute and help create standards for the Cyber Resilience Act, and hence strengthening Europe’s position in global cybersecurity standards. 

Apply now to the 2nd SSP

The 2nd SSP cycle deadline on the 6th December 2024, at 17:00 CET.

The topics and priorities for the 6 CYBERSTAND.eu SSP cycles which will run from August 2024 to December 2026 are defined through continuous monitoring analysis of the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and its Standardisation Requests. Topics will include inputs from the Cyber Resilience Act Working Groups (CRAWGs), which may focus on requirements, conformance assessment and vertical sectors, engagement with the National Coordination Centres and international SDOs.

The CYBERSTAND.eu consortium has implemented the main guidelines for applicants who are interested in applying to CYBERTSTAND.eu SSPs.

Check the guidelines for applicants

Who can receive financial support?

Potential applicants of CYBERSTAND.eu SSPs are European specialists who: 

• Are companies, individuals or natural persons residing in European Member States and Associate countries (Link ad European member states and associate countries)
• Have experience regarding developments of standards, e.g., existing standards for development for CRA, SReq; existing CRA-related TC/WGs for development;
• Are not receiving support from other instruments (PPPs, EU or national R&I projects) for the proposed activities.

2nd SSP Topic Priorities

Services that address topics closely correlated priority areas of the CRA
standardisation requests (currently in preliminary draft) will be considered of equal validity and merit during the evaluation process.
More specifically, services should provide: 

• Contribution / recommendation / proposal to develop a new standard / revise an existing standard
• Contribution or delivery of a technical report / technical specification
• Contribution to create a new TC or WG
• Participation in a WG or TC meeting as chair, convenor, participant or moderator.

Specific Service Procedures - Process and timing

CYBERSTAND will run 6 SSP cycles. Each call will be open for 60 days for proposal submission. At the end of the sixty-day period all proposals received through the CYBERSTAND.eu platform will be screened for eligibility, evaluated by the selected External Evaluators (EE), scored, and ranked for selection. This process will last a maximum of 30 days at the end of which all applicants shall be notified whether their proposal has been retained for funding or not and provided with access to a Consensus Report compiled by the EE.

Please note that each application is independently evaluated by three members of the EE and undergoes quality control by a fourth member after consensus is reached to guarantee maximum fairness and transparency. As the EE are highly-skilled experts whose qualifications are assessed through a SSP process their decision is binding and any redress requests or complaints will be dealt with strictly in relation to the procedural aspects of the evaluation and not on the merits of scientific or technical judgement of the experts.

2nd SSP timing

Launch: 28th October 2024, 9:00 CET
Deadline: 6th December 2024, 17:00 CET
Evaluation: Each proposal is evaluated by three External Evaluators and after consensus the evaluation undergoes a quality check by a fourth member of the EE. 
Notification of outcome: Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their proposal and provided with feedback from the External Evaluators in an Evaluation Consensus Report by the beginning of January 2025.

Type of contributions

Three types of proposals can be funded under the CYBERSTAND.eu SSPs, as shown below:

Description: Contribution to ongoing standards development as a chair, convener, rapporteur or member of an SDO WG. E.g. comments on standards development and drafts, attending meetings also as an observer, paying membership fees. Contribution to standards documentation e.g. liaison to WG, comments on standards drafts, participation at meeting with membership fee paid.

• Proposal type: ST - short-term contribution   
  • Maximum contract duration: 3 months
  • Funding range: up to 5.000€
• Proposal type: MT - mid-term contribution 
  • Maximum contract duration: 6 months
  • Funding range: up to 10.000€
• Proposal type: LT - long-term contribution
  • Maximum contract duration: 12 months
  • Funding range: up to 20.000€

Please do note that the maximum funding requested per proposal cannot exceed that indicated for the respective type of application (LT, MT, ST), nor can the duration exceed that indicated.

Eligible costs

• Personal Working Effort (this cannot exceed the EU maximum daily rate of 450 Euro)
• Travel costs
• Event registration fee(s)
• Membership fee(s) for SDO & SSO organisations

Evaluation criteria

The initial eligibility screening will be undertaken by the Consortium to assess compliance to the call. Services which are ineligible for any reason or which do not meet the call criteria will be identified as such and the applicant will receive an automatic notification from the system. 
The consortium will consolidate all eligible proposals and submit them to the external evaluators (EE) to undertake the formal evaluation.

The service applications will have to clearly demonstrate:

• The standardisation request items to be addressed
• Target TC/WG for output
• Impact of work on the CRA SReq/CRA/European interests/SMEs
• Expertise of the applicant in the relevant priority area(s)
• Service type and output

Evaluations (for each application) will be performed using the following 4-criteria principle (score 1 to 10):

• Criterion 1: Soundness of the application and foreseen impact on SSP topic and relevance to CRA SReq (30%);
• Criterion 2: Technical excellence & relevance of the activities proposed (30%);
• Criterion 3: Experience and qualifications of the applicant (20%);
• Criterion 4: Economics of the application considering the principle of best value for money (20%).

The application’s final score will be automatically determined by averaging scores from the various evaluators and then applying a weighting process among the 4 criteria as per the percentages indicated in the SSP. In case of a tie between 2 or more applications, the application received first will precede (the “time stamp” of submission will be the reference).