The European Commission has launched a new public-private partnership on cybersecurity, pledging to invest €450m under its research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

Private cybersecurity groups, represented by the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), are anticipated to invest three times more, bringing the total amount to €1.8bn by 2020.

Members from national, regional and local public administrations, research centres and academia will take part in the partnership.

Citing research suggesting that about 80% of European companies have experienced at least one cybersecurity incident in the last year, the commission said the partnership intends to advance cooperation at early stages of the research and innovation process as well as build cybersecurity solutions for several sectors like energy, finance, transport and health.

The number of security incidents across all industries globally were reported to have increased by 38% in 2015.

The partnership was first unveiled as part of the Digital Single Market strategy back in May 2015.

European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger said: "Europe needs high quality, affordable and interoperable cybersecurity products and services. There is a major opportunity for our cybersecurity industry to compete in a fast-growing global market.

"We call on Member States and all cybersecurity bodies to strengthen cooperation and pool their knowledge, information and expertise to increase Europe’s cyber resilience. The milestone partnership on cybersecurity signed today with the industry is a major step."

As part of its Digital Single Market strategy, the commission wants to strengthen cooperation across borders, and between all actors and sectors that paly active role in cybersecurity, and to help develop secure technologies, products and services across the European Union (EU).

The EC also set out different measures to tackle what it described as the fragmentation of the EU cybersecurity market, including a possible European certification framework for ICT security products and a network of computer security incident response teams across the EU to be established under the new Network and Information Security Directive.

Member States are being urged to make the most of the new mechanisms and strengthen coordination when and where possible.

The commission said it will propose how to improve cross-border cooperation when a major cyber-incident takes place.