SECRETARIAT GENERAL DE LA DEFENSE ET DE LA SECURITE NATIONALE

Their core work

The SGDSN is the French government body responsible for coordinating national defence and security policy, operating under the Prime Minister's office. It oversees France's strategic security capabilities, including supervision of the national cybersecurity agency ANSSI, crisis management coordination, and defence planning. In EU research, SGDSN does not conduct technical research — it contributes governmental authority, security policy frameworks, and regulatory insight to research consortia that need institutional grounding. Their value in a project is bridging academic and technical work with national-level security governance and the legitimacy that comes with it.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

SGDSN's earliest H2020 participation (REASSURE, 2017) left no descriptive keywords, suggesting a narrow technical contribution — likely security evaluation standards or assurance criteria for cryptographic hardware, areas adjacent to their national accreditation responsibilities. By 2019, SPARTA introduced a completely different keyword set: international cooperation, research governance, cybersecurity skills, certification, and community engagement. This shift from technical-adjacent to explicitly governance-oriented work reflects France's growing role in shaping EU-level cybersecurity architecture under frameworks like NIS and the ENISA-led competence network model. The trajectory is consistent: SGDSN is moving from reviewer to architect in EU cybersecurity research infrastructure.

SGDSN is increasingly positioned as a governance anchor in EU cybersecurity research, contributing policy authority and certification frameworks to projects that need national government legitimacy — a role that will grow as the EU's cybersecurity regulatory landscape (NIS2, EUCS, ENISA) matures.

How they like to work

SGDSN participates exclusively as a consortium partner and has never led an H2020 project as coordinator, consistent with a government body that provides institutional validation rather than research direction. Their two projects together involved 53 unique partners across 16 countries, meaning they were embedded in large, multi-stakeholder consortia — not small, focused technical teams. This suggests that working with SGDSN means joining a broad collaborative network where SGDSN's contribution is policy credibility and regulatory access, not technical delivery bandwidth.

Despite only two projects, SGDSN has connected with 53 unique partners across 16 countries — an unusually wide reach that reflects participation in large, Europe-wide cybersecurity consortia. The network is geographically European and oriented toward the EU's cybersecurity research and competence infrastructure.

What sets them apart

SGDSN is one of the very few national-level defence and security secretariats with direct H2020 participation, which makes them exceptional in a consortium seeking government endorsement or pathway to national security adoption in France. Their oversight of ANSSI — France's cybersecurity authority — means that involvement with SGDSN can open doors to national certification recognition and policy influence that no university or tech firm can replicate. For projects working on cybersecurity standards, skills frameworks, or cross-border security governance, SGDSN is the rare partner who can translate research into enforceable national policy.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SPARTA
  SPARTA was a flagship EU cybersecurity competence network project — SGDSN's participation signals French governmental commitment to shaping EU-wide cybersecurity skills and certification architecture, making it the most strategically significant entry in their portfolio.
• REASSURE
  REASSURE's focus on side-channel and fault attack resilience is a niche, high-stakes domain where government security evaluation expertise is rare and valuable, and SGDSN's presence suggests a role in defining assurance criteria beyond what most consortium partners can offer.