ECRYPT (European Network of Excellence for Cryptology) is a 4-year European research initiative launched on 1 February 2004.
The stated objective is to, "intensify the collaboration of European researchers in information security, and more in particular in cryptology and digital watermarking.
ECRYPT list five core research areas, termed "virtual laboratories": symmetric key algorithms (STVL), public key algorithms (AZTEC), protocol (PROVILAB), secure and efficient implementations (VAMPIRE) and watermarking (WAVILA).
In August 2008, the network started into another 4-year phase as ECRYPT II.