Policy dossier: Belgium
A one-country brief on Belgium in European quantum technologies for policy makers, built only from data this portal already holds. Every figure names its source and reference date; ratios come with the counts they are made of. Nothing here is a ranking or a composite score: counts describe catalogue coverage, not national capability.
Dossier generated 2026-11-03 18:07:03 (UTC). Missing data is listed under Gaps and caveats at the end.
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1. EU funding absorption
CORDIS covers Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe quantum projects only: no other EU programme, no national or regional funding.
| Country or group | Participations | EU contribution | Population (year) | GDP, current prices (year) | Participations per million inhabitants | EU contribution per inhabitant | Participations per EUR billion of GDP | EU contribution per EUR billion of GDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium (this dossier) | 91 | EUR 60.5 million | 11,955,308 (2026, provisional) | EUR 640.85 billion (2025, provisional) | 7.6 | EUR 5.06 | 0.14 | EUR 94,465 |
| EU27 average (pooled) | 3,714 | EUR 2.28 billion | 451,990,314 (2026) | EUR 18,883.19 billion (2025) | 8.2 | EUR 5.04 | 0.20 | EUR 120,646 |
| Peer group average (pooled: PT, IE, SE, CZ) | 233 | EUR 118.5 million | 38,455,964 (2026) | EUR 1,858.63 billion (2025) | 6.1 | EUR 3.08 | 0.13 | EUR 63,736 |
| Portugal (peer by population) | 52 | EUR 18.0 million | 11,424,031 (2026) | EUR 308.54 billion (2025, provisional) | 4.6 | EUR 1.58 | 0.17 | EUR 58,359 |
| Ireland (peer by GDP) | 48 | EUR 23.4 million | 5,510,565 (2026) | EUR 602.44 billion (2025) | 8.7 | EUR 4.25 | 0.08 | EUR 38,840 |
| Sweden (peer by GDP) | 74 | EUR 49.6 million | 10,605,529 (2026) | EUR 600.39 billion (2025) | 7.0 | EUR 4.67 | 0.12 | EUR 82,530 |
| Czechia (peer by population) | 59 | EUR 27.5 million | 10,915,839 (2026) | EUR 347.26 billion (2025) | 5.4 | EUR 2.52 | 0.17 | EUR 79,212 |
Definitions: Participations by country; Net EU contribution to participants by country; Population, GDP and GERD (Eurostat); Participations per million inhabitants; Net EU contribution per inhabitant; Participations per EUR billion of GDP; Net EU contribution per EUR billion of GDP
Peer group: Portugal (closest in population), Ireland (closest in GDP), Sweden (closest in GDP), Czechia (closest in population). The peers are the 4 EU Member States closest to Belgium in population or in GDP, whichever is closer for each: the smaller of the absolute log ratios of the two figures, latest Eurostat year of each country, ties by country code. Candidates are the Member States with a CORDIS row and both Eurostat figures.
Method: participations and EU contribution are CORDIS totals over all start years in the catalogue; population on 1 January and GDP at current prices are the latest single year Eurostat publishes for each country, so the ratios correct for size, not for time. Group averages are pooled: the group totals divided by the group population or GDP, never a mean of country ratios. The EU27 average pools 27 Member States. A dash means that a figure is not published or that the EU contribution is zero; "less than" marks a positive figure too small to show at this precision.
Source: CORDIS, Publications Office of the European Union, retrieved 2026-10-16, reused under the European Commission reuse notice. Eurostat datasets tps00001 (Population on 1 January, updated 2026-09-30); nama_10_gdp (Gross domestic product (GDP) and main components (output, expenditure and income) - annual data, updated 2026-10-20), retrieved 2026-10-21, reused under the Eurostat copyright notice. The ratios are calculated by this portal; neither source is responsible for them.
2. Specialisation by application pillar
| Pillar | Projects of Belgium | Share of its projects | EU27 projects | EU27 share | Ratio (country share / EU27 share) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantum computing and simulation | 20 | 28.2% | 516 | 48.3% | 0.58 |
| Quantum communication | fewer than 10 | not shown | 116 | 10.9% | not shown |
| Quantum sensing and metrology | 21 | 29.6% | 189 | 17.7% | 1.67 |
| Enabling technologies and supply chain | fewer than 10 | not shown | 49 | 4.6% | not shown |
Definition: Specialisation by pillar against the EU27
Method: the share of the CORDIS quantum projects of the country in each pillar, divided by the same share for the EU27 (projects with at least one participant from a Member State). A ratio above 1 means the pillar weighs more in the projects of this country than in those of the EU27; it says nothing about size or quality. No count, share or ratio is shown from fewer than 10 projects of the country. Pillars follow the portal method (confirmed classification, else the taxonomy rules on the title, else a matched keyword suggestion); a project in several pillars counts in each, and 23 projects of this country are not placed in a pillar.
Source: CORDIS project snapshot, 1,256 projects (Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe), retrieved 2026-10-16; counts computed by this portal on 2026-11-02 14:13:03 (UTC).
3. Collaboration: top partner countries
| Partner country | Shared projects |
|---|---|
| Germany | 45 |
| France | 35 |
| Italy | 35 |
| Austria | 26 |
| Netherlands | 26 |
| Spain | 26 |
| Denmark | 21 |
| United Kingdom | 20 |
| Poland | 16 |
| Switzerland | 15 |
Definition: Top partner countries
A project is shared when organisations of both countries take part in it; this shows co-participation, not the strength of a relationship. Counts cover CORDIS quantum projects only (Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe).
Source: CORDIS, Publications Office of the European Union (CORDIS), retrieved 2026-10-16, reused under the European Commission reuse notice (Decision 2011/833/EU); shared projects counted by this portal.
4. National programmes and public investment
- Belgian-QCI (BE-QCI), Belgian quantum communication infrastructure · National strategy or programme · 2022-2025 · as announced: EUR 2,970,876 (Budget listed by BELSPO for the project; the page does not say whether this is the total or the BELSPO share) · checked 2026-10-21 · official source
Source: the public investment registry of this portal, compiled 2026-10-27 from official announcements; amounts are as announced, not disbursed, in the currency of the source, and are never added up. The registry is not exhaustive.
Definition: National programmes and public investment
National sources and cohesion funding on this portal
No national open-data source or national funder of this country is connected to the portal yet.
| Source | Publisher | Licence | Last read (UTC) | Published on this portal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kohesio (EU cohesion policy projects) | European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) | CC0 1.0 (Cohesion Open Data Platform, dataset 2014-2020 Kohesio projects) | 2026-10-28 | 2 projects located in this country |
Definition: Records of connected national sources
Counts of records published on this portal at the time of the dossier, with node access; open notices only for procurement sources. Cohesion projects (Kohesio, EU cohesion policy, managed by national and regional authorities) are located in the country by the source; they are not in CORDIS and not part of the absorption figures. The record at each source is authoritative.
5. Infrastructure
EuroQCI: yes. EuroQCI projects located in this country in the catalogue: BE-QCI (Belgian-QCI).
| Entry | Kind | Status | Programmes | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE-QCI (Belgian-QCI) | Quantum communication network project | Project period ended, per the source | EuroQCI, National programme or platform | BELSPO: impulse actions, list of projects (retrieved 2026-10-22) |
Definition: Infrastructure catalogue entries in the country
Source: the infrastructure catalogue of this portal, compiled 2026-10-27 from official programme, government and host pages; a referral list, not confirmed by the providers.
6. Post-quantum cryptography readiness
National guidance status: National guidance or roadmap found (checked 2026-10-21). National agency whose pages were checked: Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB).
The telecommunications regulator BIPT sets minimum requirements and a sector roadmap: inventory and risk analysis by 2027, planning by 2028 and implementation by 2030. The CCB site answered with an access denied page (HTTP 403), so CCB pages could not be checked.
Signed the EU joint statements on post-quantum cryptography of: 2024-11-27, 2025-06-27.
Source: the PQC guide of this portal, compiled 2026-10-27 from official national pages; a status, not a legal or compliance assessment.
7. Approved evidence from published reports
- approximately 0.4% in 2015 to 1.1% by 2023 Quantum's share of public R&D project funding in the OECD Fundstat database rose from about 0.4% in 2015 to 1.1% in 2023, after a peak of 1.2% in 2022. Reference period 2015-2023; 19 OECD countries and EU programmes in OECD Fundstat; Observation; checked 2026-10-22. OECD and European Patent Office, Mapping the global quantum ecosystem (December 2025). Printed page 23, PDF page 23, Executive summary, 6. R&D-focused public policies, Figure E11 and its notes.
Values as the publisher states them, each with its edition and page. Groups of countries are named in full; a figure about a group is not a figure about this country alone. Estimates of different publishers are never added up or averaged.
Definition: Approved evidence from published reports
8. Gaps and caveats
- Specialisation: 2 of 4 pillars have fewer than 10 projects of this country: their share and ratio are not shown.
- National programmes: No national open-data source or national funder of this country is connected to the portal.
- Always: CORDIS covers Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe quantum projects only, found by the word quantum in their title, acronym or topic; it is catalogue coverage, not a census. National budgets, private investment and other EU programmes are not in the absorption figures.
- Always: no league table or composite score is computed; a ratio is only as good as its counts, which are shown next to it.