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Call key data

Open innovation: Addressing Grand challenges in AI (AI Data and Robotics Partnership)

Funding ProgramHorizon Europe - Cluster 4 - Destination 6: A Human-centred and Ethical Development of Digital and Industrial Technologies
Call numberHORIZON-CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-04
deadlinesOpening
08.12.2022		Deadline
29.03.2023 17:00
Funding rate100%
Call budget € 4,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per projectaround € 4,000,000.00
Link to the callec.europa.eu
Link to the submissionec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

Open innovation challenges can foster broad and robust progress on generic AI research challenges. The resulting scientific progress resulting such challenges will contribute to the robustness of AI systems in general, enabling a multitude of different applications across many sectors.

Call objectives

AI is a general-purpose technology that is expected to substantially contribute to all sectors and applications. AI technologies have demonstrated great value and potential in areas as diverse as healthcare, supply chain logistics, space-based imagery analysis, cybersecurity. However, there are challenges that AI technologies are facing. When it comes to deployment of AI technologies, reliable performance is required. Despite its huge potential and its ability to cut down on tasks and costs, AI faces trust issues with humans. At the same time, the failure modes of AI technologies are poorly understood.

Open innovation challenges can foster broad and robust progress on generic AI research challenges. The resulting scientific progress resulting such challenges will contribute to the robustness of AI systems in general, enabling a multitude of different applications across many sectors.

Proposals are expected to organize open innovation challenges aiming to bring the best research teams across variety of public and private organisations that try to tackle and crack major S&T challenges in AI by benchmarking different solutions. The open innovation challenges will be bootstrapped by engaging EU funded projects to participate. Newcomers, rising stars and the wider AI community should be able to join the challenges, giving them the opportunity to benchmark against prestigious teams. The best performing team(s) should be awarded with either with monitory prizes, which industry can co-sponsor, and/or non-monetary prizes, e.g. co-authorship of a paper in a prestigious scientific journal, internship in prestigious labs or companies.

Proposals should address the delivery of open innovation challenges with the aim to

  • Attract outstanding talent and the best research teams to tackle key scientific and technological AI challenges, of relevance to industry.
  • Drive substantial and broad scientific progress in key AI areas with the aim to reinforce the research excellence in Europe.
  • Prepare at least three open innovation challenges addressing challenges in collaboration with the projects funded under the following topics: CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-3, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-01 and CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-02 focusing on optimisation, explainability, robustness, natural language understanding and interaction, and collaborative intelligence respectively. The projects funded through these calls should participate in the respective open innovation challenges, and can receive rewards, but will not be eligible to receive prize money as they are already funded.
  • Enable strong cooperation and co-creation between academia and industry and establish a continuous interaction
  • Attract industry and business interest in demonstrating advanced performances meeting the needs of user industry, in view of fostering deployment and business opportunities in Europe.
  • Define a process that fosters the uptake of developed algorithms/solutions across Europe

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Expected effects and impacts

Proposals are expected to

  • Provide a sound methodology for the design of AI challenges as open innovation challenges and/or benchmarks, including the definition of challenges to be addressed, representative of common needs for a vast adoption in a broad set of industrial and public sectors; as well as the definition of evaluation method and criteria. This involves mobilisation of prestigious scientists and industries (incl. start-ups and SMEs) to select the data/problems that will drive substantial scientific progress and be help reinforcing the reputation of Europe, contributing to build the European AI lighthouse. This task will involve financial support to parties, in line with the conditions set out in part K of the General Annexes..
  • Provide a convincing approach to attract the best teams from academia and industry, incl. start-ups and SMEs, students, rising stars and newcomers, to participate in the open innovation challenges and benchmark their different solutions to tackle the AI challenges.
  • Address all aspects of running open innovation challenges and best exploit them to maximise the visibility of AI to the wider audience.
  • Mobilise external partners (incl. from industry) in sponsoring and setting up the open innovation challenges and engage sponsors to contribute/offer money prizes or other attractive rewards to the top performing teams (e.g. co-authorship of papers in prestigious journals, internships in prestigious labs or companies etc.). Reward and competition schemes should provide equal access for everyone to participate and encourage diversity among the participating teams.
  • Collaborate with the AI on Demand Platform, the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership, the Networks of AI excellence centres[6], projects funded under CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-03, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-01 and CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-02, as well as other relevant initiatives.

All proposals are expected to embed mechanisms to assess and demonstrate progress (with qualitative and quantitative KPIs, benchmarking and progress monitoring), and share results with the European R&D community, through the AI-on-demand platform, public community resources, to maximise re-use of results, either by developers, or for uptake, and optimise efficiency of funding; enhancing the European AI, Data and Robotics ecosystem through the sharing of results and best practice.

Furthermore it is expected that the participating teams will make their algorithms and methods available and re-usable (e.g. through the AI on Demand Platform) to ensure scientific and technological progress.

Financial support to third parties: A minimum of 50% of the EU funding requested by the proposal should be allocated to the purpose of financial support to third parties.

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Expected results
  • Demonstrate and reinforce Europe’s research excellence in AI by driving substantial scientific progress in the following major scientific & technological AI areas: optimisation, explainability, robustness, natural language understanding and interaction, and collaborative intelligence
  • Develop prestigious AI open innovation challenges that will mobilise wide participation of top scientists from academia, industry including start-ups and as well as young teams and rising stars from all over EU and Associated countries.
  • Substantially increase interest from industry in AI (incl. SMEs and start-ups), in particular from key socio-economic sectors for Europe. Therefore contributing to uptake of research results by industry

Regions / countries for fundingEU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Island (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), Morocco (المغرب), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entitiesEU Body, Education and training institution, International organization, Natural Person, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnershipNo
Project Partnership

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:

  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States
  • third countries associated to Horizon Europe - see list of particpating countries

Applications may be submitted by one or more legal entities, which may be established in a Member State, Associated Country or, in exceptional cases and if provided for in the specific call conditions, in another third country.

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.

A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.

Specific cases:

  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
  • Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
  • Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
  • Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)— Where provided for in the specific call conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner, and would accede to the consortium as a member.
  • Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible
other eligibility criteria

Activities are expected to start at TRL 2-3 and achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project.

For the Technology Readiness Level (TRL), the following definitions apply:

  • TRL 1 — Basic principles observed
  • TRL 2 — Technology concept formulated
  • TRL 3 — Experimental proof of concept
  • TRL 4 — Technology validated in a lab
  • TRL 5 — Technology validated in a relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
  • TRL 6 — Technology demonstrated in a relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
  • TRL 7 — System prototype demonstration in an operational environment
  • TRL 8 — System complete and qualified
  • TRL 9 — Actual system proven in an operational environment (competitive manufacturing in the case of key enabling technologies, or in space)

Additional information

Topics
Competitiveness of Enterprises, Employment/Labour Market, SME & entrepreneurship, 
Digitalisation, Digital Society, ICT
Relevance for EU Macro-RegionEUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
Additional Information

All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents, e.g. plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results including communication activities, etc.

The application form will have two parts:

  • Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions;
  • Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.

Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the submission system and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system).

The limit for a full application (Part B) is 30 pages.

Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP).

The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of prizes.

The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 500.000 to address open innovation challenges on key important S&T challenges and drive general progress on important tasks through a common challenge/benchmark problem.

FSTP should be eligible to third parties from academia and SMEs in Member States or Associated Countries, but exclude third parties that receive funding under ongoing projects of the following topics: CL4- 2023-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-03 CL4-2024-HUMAN01-01, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-02.

Call documents HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 4, Destination 6 (799kB)
ContactNational Contact Points for Horizon Europe
Website

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