Mission & objectives

The European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO) ASBL is a fully self-financed non-for-profit organisation under the Belgian law, established in June 2016.

ECSO is the privileged partner of the European Commission for the implementation of the Cybersecurity Public-Private Partnership. A pan European, multi-stakeholders and cross sectoral partnership organisation working on cybersecurity with a holistic approach, ECSO federates the European Cybersecurity public and private stakeholders, including large companies, SMEs and start-ups, research centres, universities, end-users and operators of essential services, clusters and association, as well as the local, regional and national public administrations across the European Union (EU) Members States, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and H2020 Programme associated countries.

FEDERATE & CONNECT

ACT

SUPPORT

Collaborations

In light of this, ECSO seeks out to establish and strengthen its collaboration with various other actors and stakeholders part of the European cybersecurity ecosystem.  The objective of each collaboration is to complement each other’s work, avoid duplication, learn from one another and promote the objective and vision of ECSO.

With European Institutions

ECSO maintains close collaboration with European Commissioners and top-level management of the European Commission's DGs including DG CNECT, DG RTD, DG ENER, DG MOVE, JRC, DG DIGIT, EEAS.

Upon the invitation of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, ECSO is regularly invited to provide updates on the status of its work to the Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues of the Council.

ECSO provides independent assessments on EU legislative proposals such as the NIS Directive, the Cybersecurity Act, the establishment of a EU Certification Framework and the definition of ENISA's new mandate, the set-up of a European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre and the Network of National Coordination Centres. In parallel, ECSO fosters relations between MEPs and ECSO Members.

With European Agencies and Bodies

ECSO regularly cooperates with European Agencies and Bodies such as ENISA (European Union Agency for Cybersecurity), EUROPOL (European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation), EDA (European Defence Agency), ESA (European Space Agency), EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency), EIT (European Institute of Innovation & Technology), EIB (European Investment Bank), CEN/CENELEC (European Committee for Standardisation/European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation), ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute).

Other European Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and Joint Undertakings (JU)

ECSO coordinates its work with other relevant PPPs and European Associations such as euRobotics, BDVA (Big Data), AIOTI (IoT), EFFRA (Industry 4.0), 5G AI (5G), INATBA (Blockchain), A.SPIRE (Processes), ECSEL (JU on Electronic Components and Systems), EUROHPC (JU on High-performance Computing). 

Pilot projects

ECSO is active in a number of H2020 projects, including four EU pilot projects composed by 40% of ECSO Members. Such projects are expected to strengthen the EU's cybersecurity capacity and tackle future cybersecurity challenges for a safer European Digital Single Market. These projects are: CONCORDIA, ECHO, CyberSec4Europe and SPARTA.

With European-funded projects