The European Union economy is made up of twenty-five million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that can develop the innovation of society, including the security of European citizens.

However, despite the innovation capacity of EU SMEs, these often experience difficulties in finding their way to the public markets. These include red tape in public contracts, access to new customers, access to finance, industrial competition and IP valorisation. These difficulties are exacerbated in markets that show restrictions of different kind, as it is the case of security.

The SMEs require additional support to reach the security buyers and the collaboration opportunities offered by the projects of the Pillar II of Horizon Europe can be a catalyst for uptake, this topic aims to offer a collaborative environment for small and medium innovators to tailor their innovations to the specific needs of civil security end-users.

The proposals for technology development must respect the following principles:

• focus on mature technological solutions addressing EU security policy priorities in the areas addressed by the Cluster 3 work programme;
• not overlapping with the scope of the topics included in the other destinations of this work programme;
• fostering collaboration between SMEs from different M...