NESSIE (
New European Schemes for Signatures, Integrity and Encryption) was a
European research project funded from 2000–2003 to identify secure
cryptographic primitives. The project was comparable to the
NIST AES process and the Japanese Government-sponsored
CRYPTREC project, but with notable differences from both. In particular, there is both overlap and disagreement between the selections and recommendations from NESSIE and CRYPTREC (as of the August 2003 draft report). The NESSIE participants include some of the foremost active
cryptographers in the world, as does the CRYPTREC project.