Horizon 2020 ICT&FET Calls for Proposals

What is Horizon 2020 and why you should care?

Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market. By coupling research and innovation, Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve this with its emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges. The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science, removes barriers to innovation and makes it easier for the public and private sectors to work together in delivering innovation.

If you ever wanted to apply with an awesome project, the good news is that Horizon 2020 is open to everyone, with a simple structure that reduces red tape and time so participants can focus on what is really important. This approach makes sure new projects get off the ground quickly – and achieve results faster.

Here we have gathered the most eye-catching Topics from ICT industry that are waiting to win and be funded.

TOPIC 1 : ICT-10-2019-2020

Robotics Core Technology

Specific Challenge:

Autonomy in robotic systems is built on a combination of four core technologies:

AI and Cognition: AI provides tools to make systems cognitive. Cognition equips robots with the ability to interact with people and environments, to learn and to categorize, to make decisions and to derive knowledge.

Cognitive Mechatronics: Mechatronic systems where sensing and actuation are closely coupled with cognitive systems are expected to deliver improved control, motion, interaction, adaptation and learning, and safer systems.

Socially cooperative human-robot interaction: Cooperative human-robot interaction is critical in many work environments from collaborative support, e.g. passing tools to a worker, to the design of exo-skeletons able to provide motion that is sympathetic to the user.

Model-based design and configuration tools: Deploying robotics at scale in application areas where tasks need to be defined by the user requires easy-to-use configuration tools. Embedding and sharing of knowledge between tools is essential, as is standardization across the interfaces to connect systems and modules (taking into account cyber-security issues, including security by design and data integrity).

Expected Impact:

• Improved technical capability in each of the core technologies over the current state of the art.
• A greater range of applications in the prioritised application areas that can be demonstrated at TRL 3 and above.
• The lowering of technical barriers within the prioritized applications areas.

TOPIC 2 : ICT-25-2018-2020

Interactive Technologies

Specific Challenge:

Interactive technologies such as Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are set to transform the ways in which people communicate, interact and share information on the internet and beyond. This will directly impact a larger number of European industries ranging from the cultural and creative industries, manufacturing, robotic and healthcare to education, entertainment and media, enabling new business opportunities. The challenge is to forge a competitive and sustainable ecosystem of European technology providers in interactive technologies.

Expected Impact:

a) Establish a sustainable competitive ecosystem of European technology and solution providers for interactive technologies.

b) Strengthening European research and industrial capacities to develop future interactive devices.Preview Changes (opens in a new window)

TOPIC 3: DT-ICT-01-2019

Smart Anything Everywhere

Specific Challenge:

“Smart anything everywhere” stands for the next wave of products that integrate digital technology. The challenge is to accelerate the design, development and uptake of advanced digital technologies by European industry – especially SMEs and mid-caps – in products that include innovative electronic components, software and systems, and especially in sectors where digital technologies are under-exploited.

Expected Impact:

Proposals should address all of the following impact criteria, providing metrics to measure success when appropriate.

• Attract a significant number of new users of advanced ICT in the manufacturing sector, and more innovative technology suppliers, in particular SMEs and mid-caps.
• Creation of a sustainable network of Digital Innovation Hubs, providing European added value to investments done at national and regional level in Digital Innovation Hubs.
• Availability of Digital Innovation Hub services across Europe and its regions with strong industrial capacities

TOPIC 4: ICT-01-2019

Computing Technologies and Engineering Methods for Cyber-Physical Systems of Systems

Specific Challenge:

Cyber-physical Systems of Systems (CPSoS), like transport networks or large manufacturing facilities, interact with and are controlled by a considerable number of distributed and networked computing elements and human users. These complex and physically-entangled systems of systems are of crucial importance for the quality of life of the citizens and for the European economy. At system level the challenge is to bring a step change to the engineering techniques supporting the design-operation continuum of dynamic CPSoS and to exploit emerging technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence. At computing level the challenge is to develop radically new solutions overcoming the intrinsic limitations of today’s computing system architectures and software design practices.

Expected Impact:

Proposals should address one or more of the following impact criteria, providing metrics to measure success where appropriate:

• Availability of innovative technologies supporting compute-intensive applications in industrial and professional domains, demonstrating significant and measurable improvement over the state of the art.
• Availability of engineering practices and tools for CPSoS, resulting in a demonstrable improvement in quality and cost of development and operation for large SoS.
• Increased synergies and collaboration between industrial and academic communities; dissemination of high-quality road map for future research and innovation activities in the relevant areas.

TOPIC 5: ICT-06-2019

Unconventional Nanoelectronics

Specific Challenge:

The challenge is to maintain Europe’s position at the forefront of advanced nanoelectronic technologies developments. This is essential to ensure strategic electronic design and manufacturing capability in Europe avoiding critical dependencies from other regions. Advanced nanoelectronics technologies enable innovative solutions to industrial and societal challenges.

Expected Impact:

Proposals should address one or more of the following impact criteria and provide metrics to measure and monitor success.

• Identify applications likely to benefit from the intended approach with indication of key parameters (power, energy-efficiency, size, frequency, and cost) and quantitative targets to be achieved (figures of merit).
• Contribute to the mid-term viability of the European Nanoelectronics industry ensuring that new technologies with high potential for computing emerge in time to be taken up by industry.
• Sustain the technological integration requirements by focussing on challenging 3D integration issues as well as for electronics at cryogenic temperature.
• Contribute to the European industry capability to design advanced circuits for its needs.

You can visualize the comprehensive list of all the ICT&FET Calls for Proposals by downloading this PDF file.

If you have an innovative idea for a project you can always contact us for mentoring and support for every step of your application process.

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Elena ZAMSA
NCP Topic: ICT
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