Bucharest will host the European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology, and Research Competence Centre, which is meant to improve cyber-resilience and support cybersecurity research across the EU, according to Romania-Insider.com.
It will be the first EU agency Romania hosts, foreign affairs minister Bogdan Aurescu noted when making the announcement.
Bucharest was chosen from a list of cities that included Brussels, Munich, Warsaw, Vilnius, Luxembourg, and León (Spain).
In its application to host the center, Romania highlighted the “broad pool of IT&C specialists due to its excellent education system in this area” and that it ranks third in the EU statistics referring to the women ICT specialists, much above the EU average. A total of 24% of ICT graduates in Romania are female.
Bucharest also hosts the Cybercrime Program Office of the Council of Europe (C-PROC). This assists countries in strengthening their legal systems capacity to respond to the challenges posed by cybercrime.
The center will implement cybersecurity-related financial support from Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Program.