All data has been compiled via public sources or freedom of information requests to the relevant European Union or national institutions. Data may be incomplete or missing; some agencies or countries still haven’t responded to us, months later. Spreadsheets have been reformatted in order to fit into this data platform. If you see any errors, typos, translation issues or other problems, please get in touch: hello@opensecuritydata.eu.
The Internal Security Fund (ISF, 2014-20 and 2021-27) finances national and EU projects for policing, security and borders. More information on the EU website
The original Internal Security Fund (ISF) was in place from 2014 to 2020 and had two components: Internal Security Fund - Police (worth approximately €1.2 billion); and Internal Security Fund - Borders and Visa (worth almost €2.8 billion).
Some €350 million of the police component and around €1 billion of the borders component was managed directly by the European Commission. It was spent on a broad range of topics, ranging from anti-corruption measures to supporting civil society projects. However, it also funded work with human rights and civil liberties implications.
In the 2021-27 period the Internal Security Fund will solely focus on policing measures, and has a total budget of €1.9bn. This is split between funding distributed to the member states (€1.35 billion) and directly managed or distributed to other bodies by the Commission (€579 million, via the "thematic facility").
From 2014-20 funding for border surveillance and control measures was financed by the 'Borders and Visa' component of the Internal Security Fund. For 2021-27, a separate budget has been created: the Integrated Border Management Fund.
This has both a customs control equipment element, and a "borders and visa" element. The latter is worth €6.24 billion in total, which will be split between the member states (€3.7 billion) and the Commission (€2.5 billion, via the thematic facility).
The original Internal Security Fund (ISF) was in place from 2014 to 2020 and had two components: Internal Security Fund - Police (worth approximately €1.2 billion); and Internal Security Fund - Borders and Visa (worth almost €2.8 billion).
The remaining €750 million (police) and around €1.8 billion (borders) was distributed amongst EU member states and spent in accordance with national plans. For example, to develop the EUROSUR border surveillance system, to implement the Passenger Name Record (PNR) system of air travel surveillance, or to construct the Entry/Exit System for monitoring border crossings.
The data on the ISF included in this platform covers 18 EU member states and direct European Commission spending. It comes from the European Commission website, the EU’s funding database, the EU Financial Transparency System, national government websites and freedom of information requests. Some member states did not respond to our requests for information; the UK and Denmark did not participate in the ISF. Member states that did not respond (as of November 2022) are:
Horizon Europe (2021-27) is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. The security research component which funds projects designed to develop new security tools and techniques, in particular the development and deployment of new surveillance technologies has a total budget of €1.56 billion, slightly less than its precursor, Horizon 2020.
Horizon 2020 was the EU’s research and innovation budget from 2014 to 2020, with an overall budget of some €77 billion. The security research component, which had a total budget of €1.7 billion, focused on “understanding, detecting, preventing, deterring, preparing and protecting against security threats.”
The program focused heavily on developing and deploying new technologies such as biometrics, drones, surveillance systems and data-mining tools. Funding was generally provided to projects undertaken by consortiums made up of different groups of organisations, such as private companies (ranging from transnational corporations to small businesses), research and education institutions, and state ministries and agencies (such as police forces or border control agencies).
The Seventh Framework Program for research and development (FP7, 2007-13) was the precursor to Horizon 2020, and the FP7 security research budget was smaller, at €1.3 billion.
Projects funded through both programs have occasionally come into the public eye due to their controversial nature: for example, INDECT, TALOS, PROTECT, iBorderCtrl or the multitude of projects developing drone technology.
The data in this platform on Horizon 2020 and FP7 comes from the EU’s Open Data Portal. The data used here for both programs is a combined subset of the full datasets, which cover a wide range of research themes apart from security.
The Preparatory Action for Defence Research (PADR) was a precursor programme for the European Defence Fund, aimed at supporting military research and technology (R&T). It ran from 2017 to 2019 and funded 18 projects with a total budget of €90 million.
PADR was managed by the European Defence Agency (EDA). The projects funded under PADR were based on calls, determined by the European Commission in the annual working programmes, which set priorities for military cooperation and capability development. One call could encompass several projects. The year after the call the consortia selected to do the projects were announced, another year later financial details were published.
The data in this platform on PADR comes from the project fact sheets published by the EDA. Additional info is taken from project websites and from the EU Financial Transparency System. For five projects no data regarding the participants was published.
The European Defence Industry Development Program (EDIDP) was a precursor programme for the European Defence Fund, aimed at developing new weapons and military technologies and stimulating industry cooperation in this context. It ran in 2019 and 2020 and funded 44 projects with a total budget of €500 million.
EDIDP is managed by the European Commission (DG Defence Industry and Space), apart for two directly awarded to selected consortia – MALE-RPAS (Eurodrone) and ESSOR (interoperable communication) – which are managed by the the Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d’Armement (OCCAR – Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation). The projects funded under EDIDP were based on calls, determined by the European Commission in the annual working programmes, which set priorities for military cooperation and capability development. One call could encompass several projects. The year after the call the consortia selected to do the projects were announced, another year later financial details were published.
The data in this platform on PADR comes from the project fact sheets published by the European Commission and from the EU Financial Transparency System. For two projects no data regarding the participants was published.
The European Defence Fund (EDF) has a budget of €8 billion for the research and development (R&D) of new arms and military technologies for the current EU budget cycle (Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-27).
The EDF is managed by the European Commission (DG Defence Industry and Space). The projects funded under the EDF are based on calls, determined by the European Commission in the annual working programmes, which set priorities for military cooperation and capability development. One call can encompass several projects. The year after the call the consortia selected to do the projects are announced, another year later financial details will be published.
The first calls for the EDF were made in 2021, with consortia selected in 2022. Financial details will not be available before June 2023. This means there is no data in this platform on EDF yet.
For more information on these budgets, see this report published by Statewatch and the Transnational Institute
The underlying data model is based on the Follow the Money toolchain developed by Friedrich Lindenberg and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Because the source data comes in very different formats and the spellings of companies varies, the beneficiaries are deduplicated based on their names and other hints like location or identifiers. Therefore, beneficiaries are cross-matched against and enriched from the following databases:
This deduplication is a manual process by an actual human being. If you see any errors, typos, translation issues or other problems, please get in touch: hello@opensecuritydata.eu.