The Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) is a new EU funding programme focused on bringing digital technology to businesses, citizens and public administrations. The programme was launched in 2021 by the European Union Commission with an aim of accelerating economic recovery and shaping Europe’s digital transformation. With a budget of €7.5 billion, EU DIGITAL Programme will be achieved by funding projects in supercomputing, AI, cybersecurity and advanced digital skills, and ensuring widespread use of digital technologies.
The Digital Europe Programme will provide strategic funding to answer these challenges, supporting projects in five key capacity areas: in supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring a wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society, including through Digital Innovation Hubs. With a planned overall budget of €7.5 billion (in current prices), it aims to accelerate the economic recovery and shape the digital transformation of Europe’s society and economy, bringing benefits to everyone, but in particular to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Digital Europe Programme will not address these challenges in isolation, but rather complement the funding available through 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, to name a few. It is a part of the next long-term EU budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027.
For the first years, the Digital Europe programme will be implemented through four work programmes :
For High Performance Computing actions – the work programme will be prepared by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
The first call for proposals for the Digital Europe Programme was made in November, for the set-up and deployment of the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) network. These hubs will support private companies, including SMEs and start-ups, and the public sector in their digital transformation.
