Regional policies for competitive cybersecurity SMEs
Cybersecurity threats know no borders and are becoming more and more sophisticated.
In a fast changing world, increasingly dependent on digital services, breaches in cybersecurity are a threat to governments, businesses and citizens. They not only cause damages and costs. They also undermine trust of internet users.
The EU is investing in answers to these challenges. Its Digital Single Market Strategy is flanked by the EU Cyber Security Strategy (2013) and the Network and Information Systems Directives.
With these challenges, however, comes opportunity. Europe 2020 is designed to ensure that the EU economy addresses today’s main challenges, while promoting competitiveness. Cybersecurity fits into this aim. It presents an opportunity for SME competitiveness. If policy can help SMEs to overcome a series of barriers, SMEs can take advantage of the cybersecurity market as it expands at an astonishing rate.
CYBER overall objective is to boost competitiveness of  cybersecurity SMEs, thanks to improved public policies. It involves public authorities that can help knock down barriers of market fragmentation, lack of coordination of regional actors and lack of skills. The innovation ecosystem is the thread that runs through CYBER’s suggested policy improvements.
Interregional cooperation is key to identifying solutions and moving towards a more integrated cybersecurity market. CYBER uses a series of interregional events and connects stakeholders to address common barriers to an interregional problem. 
Thanks to policy improvements that help to create and strengthen innovation ecosystems, CYBER achieves improved competitiveness of EU cyber SMEs.
Medium-term results are to reduce fragmentation and ensure greater coherence between offer and market demand, with a chance to build up skills and merge competences. In the long term, by making the digital world safer, CYBER contributes to the development of the EU digital market.