November 25, 2025
The NERO project held its 5th Plenary meeting
On the 19th of November 2025, the NERO project “advaNced cybErsecurity awaReness ecOsystem for SMEs”, held its 5th physical meeting in Brussels, Belgium. This 36-month EU-funded Digital Europe Programme project officially started on the 1st December 2023.
Dr. Charalambos Klitis (R&D Senior Project Manager) and Dr. Elisavet Grigoriou (R&D Program Manager) participated in the plenary meeting, hosted by Pluribus One.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the 16 consortium partners and included partners’ presentations of the vision and objectives of the project. Partners also discussed the project’s implementation work plan, challenges and risks identified, and its implementation schedule.
NERO is dedicated to making a concrete impact by actively cultivating a culture prioritising security, countering cyber threats, and bolstering overall cybersecurity resilience. This commitment materialises through an advanced Cybersecurity Ecosystem consisting of four key frameworks:
- Implementing a Cybersecurity Awareness program to create a culture that prioritises security.
- Customising solutions for SMEs through the provision of a Cyber Immunity Toolkit Repository.
- Delivering a Cyber Resilience Program and Gamified Cyber Awareness Training.
- Offering a user-friendly Marketplace to ensure easy access to essential cybersecurity resources.
The validation of the NERO project will take place through three heterogeneous use cases covering their diverse sectors:
- Enhancing Patient Data Security in Healthcare.
- Strengthening Supply Chain Resilience in Transportation and Logistics.
- Enhancing Financial Security in specific scenarios.
These impactful initiatives collectively empower SMEs to effectively address cybersecurity challenges and promote a proactive and resilient security posture.
eBOS assumed a pivotal role in the project acting as the Technical Manager, overseeing critical technical aspects of the project, including not only crafting the technical planning and executing the project but also providing diligent technical oversight and support.
In addition to steering the technical management, eBOS leads in shaping NERO’s ecosystem design, including NERO’s conceptual architecture. Emphasis is placed on interconnecting all NERO architectural components, ensuring seamless interoperability from the project’s inception.
eBOS also leads the integration, demonstration, and evaluation phases of NERO’s use cases. A vital objective is to showcase NERO’s technologies and extract valuable insights. To achieve this, eBOS leverages its commercial applications suite, termed WiseBOS, and infrastructure, in a collaboration aimed at validating, evaluating, and demonstrating NERO’s frameworks within a fintech organisation. This ensures robust protection against cyber threats through the deployment of the CYBIT framework tools.
Co-Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Digital Europe Programme. Neither the European Union nor Digital Europe Programme can be held responsible for them. NERO has received funding from the EU’s Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL-JU) under Grant Agreement no. 101127411.
