Conclusion for the European Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for Resilience scheme

This report analyses the opportunities and challenges of the first European public-private partnerships in the field of network and information security and resilience in Europe: the European Public-Private Partnership for Resilience (EP3R), in which mainly participated stakeholders belonging to the Telecom and Information Technology sectors.

The report aims to define:

• The affinity of respondents with security and resilience issues and their impact
• The outcomes of PPPs in the Telecom and Information Technology sectors in comparison with those focused on other sectors (e.g. transport, energy, health, finance)
• The needs for a public-private partnership to improve network and information security and resilience at a pan-European level
• Other network and information security and resilience initiatives in the area of CIIs (different from the EP3R)
• Security and resilience issues related to CIIs as strategic assets of the European economy

The results confirm that the PPP approach is not equally distributed both in considered sectors and in the Member States. Among the advantages is the opportunity to exchange information, knowledge, expertise and good practices (25%), the opportunity to influence the decision making process (16,10%) and effective networking opportunities (17,90%). Factors impeding participation in these cooperation initiatives is because it’s uncommon in their sector of activity (35, 7%) or because these initiatives are not used in the countries in which the organisation operates (20%).

The EP3R participants initiated many discussions, saw a lot of commitment, and produced interesting conclusions. The scheme proved appropriate for addressing complex cooperation problems within multi-stakeholder scenarios and cooperation issues in security and resilience. It also revealed some further needs in security and resilience, and the gaps to be filled in order to reach a higher maturity level of the Telecom Sector. Key recommendations for the future include four main points:

• Implement agile PPPs which can adapt to new needs and topics;
• Incentivise Industry initiatives;
• Define simple but formal rules and governance;
• Publish and advertise successful results

The EP3R (European Public-Private Partnership for Resilience) was established in 2009 and was the very first attempt at Pan-European level to use a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to address cross-border Security and Resilience concerns in the Telecom Sector. In 2011 ENISA published a Good Practice Guide on Cooperative Models for Effective PPPs and implemented the suggested features in the EP3R for the second half of its existence.

For full report: EP3R 2009-2013 Future of NIS Public Private Cooperation