Lack of skills, capabilities, and awareness is one of the primary reasons for the current critical state of cybersecurity including the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. Hence this issue has become a priority to EU digital strategies, EC institutions (e.g. DG CONNECT), EC agencies (e.g. ENISA and Europol) and other European organisations like ECSO and the newly established EU Cybersecurity Competence Centre and Network (ECCC) as well as the related communities. ENISA proposed the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework (ECSF) with 12 cybersecurity professional role profiles, Moreover, EU institutions are discussing a cybersecurity skills academy to improve the situation.

Now CyberSecPro (www.CyberSecPro-Project.eu) as a new project in the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) is supporting European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in enhancing their role for preparing the new generation workforce and upskilling the existing one in addressing the sometimes daunting and ever-growing cybersecurity challenges. 15 HEIs and 13 companies from 16 European countries are working on an agile, collaborative, and multi-modal training program. It will complement, support and advance the existing academic programmes by linking innovation, research, technology, industry, academia, and SME support. The partnership between HEIs and SMEs will contribute towards sustainable, practical and dynamic cybersecurity trainings needed by the Digital Single Market.

CyberSecPro’s kick-off meeting on January 18/19 in the representation of the State of Hessen to the EU was crowned by a public panel event on “Overcoming Cyberignorance: Capabilities, Skills, and Education in Cybersecurity”. The panel gave useful input to the work of CyberSecPro, e.g. the market analysis where the project aims to check the alignment between cybersecurity skills needed and those offered in EU academic programmes.

Based on this comparison and further analyses CyberSecPro will develop requirements and specifications for best practice cybersecurity professional training modules (e.g. courses, seminars, summer schools, hackathons). Technological tools for innovative cybersecurity learning and teaching will be considered and tested on cybersecurity examples to make the learning as realistic and market-oriented as possible.

The training modules will cover various relevant cybersecurity knowledge areas, e.g. cybersecurity principles and management, related tools, emerging technologies and cybersecurity offensive practices, as skills on these areas are needed. This approach will support CyberSecPro in its aim to bridge the gap between degrees, working life, and marketable cybersecurity skill sets and to enable mobility of the cybersecurity workforce including trainers, trainees, professionals, and experts.

"The current state of cybersecurity is critical. Education and training that enable out-of-box critical thinking based on solid expertise are the most important instruments to sustainably defend European digital sovereignty." - CyberSecPro coordinator Kai Rannenberg (Goethe University Frankfurt)

A further public panel event on cybersecurity skills, education and training will be organized by CyberSecPro on July 18, again hosted by the representation of the State of Hessen to the EU in Brussels.