Early Perspectives on the Digital Europe Programme

TL;DR

This paper empirically examines projects funded by the EU's Digital Europe Programme, highlighting their strategic focus areas, funding patterns, and collaboration tendencies, contributing to discussions on European innovation and industrial policy.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of DEP-funded projects, revealing funding distribution, collaboration patterns, and technological and sectoral focuses, which inform policy debates.

Findings

Projects align with strategic focus areas like AI and cybersecurity

Funding is equally distributed between national and EU sources

National organizations tend to collaborate domestically

Abstract

A new Digital Europe Programme (DEP), a funding instrument for development and innovation, was established in the European Union (EU) in 2021. The paper makes an empirical inquiry into the projects funded through the DEP. According to the results, the projects align well with the DEP's strategic focus on cyber security, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, innovation hubs, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and education. Most of the projects have received an equal amount of national and EU funding. Although national origins of participating organizations do not explain the amounts of funding granted, there is a rather strong tendency for national organizations to primarily collaborate with other national organizations. Finally, information about the technological domains addressed and the economic sectors involved provides decent explanatory power for statistically explaining the funding amounts granted. With these results and the accompanying discussion, the paper contributes to the timely debate about innovation, technology development, and industrial policy in Europe.