CA Technologies will investigate how to secure multiple cloud deployments after it was awarded a contract by the EU.

A sum of €3.5 million has been put aside for the project, which was awarded to a European consortium of firms by the research body Horizon 2020 as the EU seeks to challenge American dominance in the sector.

Peter Matthews, vice president and research staff member, CA Labs, said: "Cloud security must keep pace with the explosive growth in demand for cloud services, and this research will help steer the next generation of multi-cloud secure applications.

"CA Labs is immensely proud to be awarded this funding from the Horizon 2020 programme, and will be a key member of a consortium of partners to innovate multi-cloud secure application breakthroughs and discoveries that position European research at the vanguard of the cloud revolution."

Other firms in the consortium include British cloud company Aimes, aviation IT firm Lufthansa Systems AG and the IT developer Montimage, which will work with universities in Italy and Finland.

The project will aim to prevent unauthorised data access in the cloud, as well as illegitimate use of cloud services, and begun in January earlier this year.

Marco Comastri, president EMEA at CA Technologies, said: "Recent research commissioned by CA Technologies revealed that the major obstacle among organisations deploying cloud solutions was concerns over security.

"The breakthroughs and discoveries brought about by this Horizon 2020 programme and the research conducted by CA Labs will help alleviate those concerns by creating a security framework for distributed applications over heterogeneous cloud resources."