EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for HORIZON-CL3-2025-01-FCT-02

1. Single Market Access

• Immediate reach to 450+ million citizens enables pan-European piloting of prevention/detection tools in diverse legal, linguistic and cultural contexts.

• Easier commercialisation of validated solutions (e.g. training curricula, digital platforms, awareness campaigns) under the free movement of services and goods.

• Shared public-procurement directives allow project results to be referenced in joint cross-border tenders (e.g. PCP/PPI).

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Mandatory inclusion of at least two Member/Associated States plus Police Authorities and CSOs hard-wires multinational cooperation from day one.

• Access to EU practitioner networks (Europol Innovation Lab, RAN, CEPOL, EUCPN, EEN) accelerates peer learning and rapid replication of successful pilots.

• Facilitates comparative research on societal drivers of crime/radicalisation across different socio-economic settings, delivering richer datasets than any single state could assemble.

3. Alignment with EU Strategies

• Security Union Strategy 2020-25 – directly addresses pillars on organised crime, terrorism and public-private partnerships.

• EU Digital Strategy & Data Act – exploitation of common European data spaces (law-enforcement, health, migration) for AI-driven detection while respecting GDPR.

• European Democracy Action Plan – complements actions against disinformation and extremist online content.

• European Pillar of Social Rights & Gender Equality Strategy – option to include gender-sensitive or vulnerable-group-specific crime-prevention approaches.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standard Setting

• Research outputs can feed into EU-level soft law (e.g. Council conclusions, Commission recommendations) easing future transposition into national law.

• Opportunity to co-develop interoperable technical standards (CEN/CENELEC, ETSI) for ethical AI, digital forensics or evidence chains, reducing market fragmentation.

5. Leveraging the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Direct links to 3,400+ Horizon Europe RIA beneficiaries, 250+ security-focused Living Labs, and 25 EIT Digital/EIT Urban Mobility hubs.

• Access to Europe’s world-class SSH expertise for nuanced societal analysis (e.g. COST Actions, ERC projects on radicalisation).

• Synergies with national competence centres funded by Digital Europe for AI/cybersecurity testing.

6. Funding Synergies & Blended Finance

• Internal Security Fund (ISF) 2021-27 – can bankroll deployment of validated tools in Member-State agencies after the project.

• Digital Europe Programme – scale-up of AI/Big Data components via Testing & Experimentation Facilities (TEFs).

• InvestEU & EIC Accelerator – follow-on equity for commercial spin-outs.

• AMIF & EU4Health – cover complementary social-integration or mental-health strands if tackling radicalisation drivers.

• Recovery & Resilience Facility (RRF) reforms on digital public administration provide ready-made national co-funding channels.

7. Scale, Uptake & Impact Potential

• Built-in Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) (5–20 %) turbo-charges grassroots adoption by additional police forces/CSOs in up to 27 Member States.

• Engagement obligations with Europol, EU Drugs Agency and the Radicalisation Knowledge Hub ensure institutional buy-in and policy visibility.

• Balanced techno-societal research helps avoid the ‘AI black-box’ backlash, boosting public trust and compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

• Uniform, validated tools create a de-facto EU benchmark, paving the way for European Critical Infrastructure protection certification and export markets.

8. Added Strategic Levers Accessible Only at EU Level

• Mutual recognition: training curricula developed under the project can be endorsed by CEPOL for EU-wide accreditation.

• Free circulation of evidence: alignment with the European Production & Preservation Orders facilitates seamless cross-border investigations.

• Open Science mandates: Horizon Europe’s open-access/data rules maximise scientific visibility and secondary exploitation.

• Ethics & SSH mainstreaming: early involvement of EU Data Protection Supervisor & Fundamental Rights Agency ensures anticipatory compliance, lowering later regulatory costs.

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Bottom line: Operating under this Horizon Europe topic amplifies impact well beyond national initiatives by unlocking the EU’s single market, institutional networks, harmonised regulatory environment and multi-programme funding ladder—creating an unparalleled launchpad for scalable, citizen-centric innovations in crime and terrorism prevention.