EC3 Cyber Innovation Forum 2025

Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) is pleased to announce that it is organising for another year the Cyber Innovation Forum (CIF2025), bringing together leading experts from law enforcement, private industry, and academia.

The Cyber Innovation Forum aims to foster collaboration, exchange cutting-edge insights, and identify transformative solutions to enhance EU law enforcement’s ability to prevent, detect, and investigate cybercrime.

The Cyber Innovation Forum will take place at Europol’s Headquarters in The Hague from 13 to 14 November 2025. The conference is open to professionals from law enforcement, the private sector, the public sector and academia. Participation is free of charge. Further information related to registration will be announced in due time.

We invite contributions related to innovative developments that may have an impact on preventing and combating the different forms of cybercrime (cyber-enabled crime, cyber-dependent crime, child sexual exploitation) leveraging the use of new technologies.

Please find below a non-comprehensive list of areas of interest:

• AI (ML, Automation, Robotics, Tool development and testing, etc.)
• Quantum computing, PQC, QKD, etc.
• Mobile communications: 5G, 6G, etc.
• Extended reality (AR/VR/Digital twins)
• IoT, intelligent assistants and smart policing
• De-anonymisation techniques
• Penetration testing, ethical hacking and cyber incident response
• Vulnerability management and frameworks
• Digital forensics
• UAV
• Legal challenges (legislative, regulatory and compliance standards and/or tools that facilitate the use of innovative techniques)
• Capacity building and cybercrime prevention
• Biometrics: face recognition, ETCT, etc.
• Malware analysis, steganography, etc.

The above list is non-exhaustive. We welcome original and impactful ideas that support law enforcement in addressing cybercrime. 

Requirements and submission of proposals 

The proposal can be a product of previous research, case investigation/examination or a project. Authors are encouraged to demonstrate the practical applicability of their work. However, please note that submissions primarily intended to promote commercial tools or services will not be considered.

Deadline

Proposals can be submitted until Friday, 4 July 2025 at 23:59 (CEST – Amsterdam time).

Selection process

Submissions will undergo an objective review by a Selection Committee composed of Europol’s staff. The Selection Committee will evaluate the submitted proposals to select the most relevant in order to offer a diverse agenda. 

Europol reserves the right to only contact the authors of selected proposals who will be invited to present their work at the Cyber Innovation Forum. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered for invitees, subject to the availability of funds.

Additional information for selected proposals

The selected proposals will be presented during the CIF2025 and will undergo an additional selection procedure with scoring done by a jury composed by Europol and the audience of the forum, with the purpose of selecting the best proposal of the CIF2025.

Important dates

• The deadline to submit proposals is Friday, 4 July 2025 at 23:59 (Amsterdam time)
• Selected participants will be notified by Friday, 27 September 2025
• The EC3 Cyber Innovation Forum 2025 will take place on 13-14 November 2025

Transparency statement

Any documentation shared or correspondence with Europol in relation to this call, including submitted proposals, is subject to access to document rules. Documents should refrain from including any personal data, or sensitive information: while there are possible exceptions from release of documents under these rules (e.g. personal data in emails), Europol is keen to ensure transparency towards the public in relation to the collaboration.

Personal data statement

Any personal data provided in relation to this call and the Cyber Innovation Forum will be handled by Europol in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC applicable to all administrative personal data held by Europol in accordance with Article 46 of the Europol Regulation.

Further information

For enquiries regarding submission and the Cyber Innovation Forum in general, please contact: O3-22@europol.europa.eu