Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL)

Digital Europe — Advanced Digital Skills (10th batch)

Funds European entities expanding advanced digital skills with AI and cybersecurity programs.

Eligibility · EU member states

The Digital Europe Programme (DEP) Advanced Digital Skills call (10th batch) is part of the 2025–2027 Digital Europe Work Programme, administered by HaDEA (Health and Digital Executive Agency) under DG CNECT. The call carries a budget of €12.5 million, opened 21 April 2026, and has a submission deadline of 1 October 2026 at 17:00 CET via the EU Funding and Tenders Portal (SEDIA). Digital Europe's total 2021–2027 budget exceeds €8.1 billion across five specific objectives: high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and deployment and best use of digital capacities. This 10th-batch call specifically targets Specific Objective 4 — Advanced Digital Skills — funding initiatives that scale up post-secondary, vocational, and professional training in AI, cybersecurity, high-performance computing, and related digital technologies. DEP explicitly funds deployment and capacity building, not research; activities requiring earlier-stage research and innovation should be directed to Horizon Europe.

Eligible applicants include for-profit companies, non-profit organisations, universities, and research bodies registered in EU Member States or DEP-associated countries. The Technology Readiness Level range applicable to this call is TRL 6–9, consistent with the deployment-and-scaling mandate. Individual applicants are not eligible. The DEP Advanced Digital Skills calls often require applicants to demonstrate that their training programmes are market-facing, scaled, and complementary to the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) network. National Contact Points (NCPs) for Digital Europe are available in each Member State to support applicants.

Winning proposals typically combine a credible training provider network, measurable learner-outcome KPIs, and clear alignment with EU digital skills gaps in AI or cybersecurity as documented in the European Digital Decade policy targets. Organisations that aggregate national training providers into a cross-border programme, or that deliver retrainable short-cycle credentials at scale, are well-aligned with the DEP deployment mandate. Per-topic call conditions, eligibility specifics, and scoring criteria are published in the individual call fiche on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal; applicants should review these before scoping their proposal against the Specific Objective 4 Work Programme text.