Open & upcoming calls

Expected Outcome: Deliverables The awarded proposals are expected to deliver: • Solutions that allow the collection of large, high-quality data from real industrial environments, from different manufacturing systems/sectors. • Solutions that allow access to these large datasets to train Generative AI models that respond to real-world industrial needs and challenges, preferably relying on trusted third parties hosting data and training compute on behalf of authorized AI developers. • Agreements with specific AI factories providing information on the data sets available and the conditions for using them for training AI models. • Interoperability and governance framework of manufacturing data spaces including from national industrial data spaces to ensure that mechanisms to aggregate data for training AI could be taken up at EU level. Objective: Aligned with the previous WP, this action aims to support the continued uptake and further expansion of the data space for manufacturing. The primary objective is to develop legal, technical and business solutions to pool sufficient data and enable authorized AI developers to have direct or indirect data access to train generative AI models specifically for the manufacturing sector. This initiative seeks to reinforce the role of the data space for manufacturing as a major productivity enhancement and collaboration mechanism within the EU. Scope: This initiative will support up to three data-collection projects, with around EUR 3 million co-funding from Digital Europe each, focused on manufacturing use cases to unlock advanced AI models, for example, predictive maintenance, process automation, supply chain management, product design and development and sustainability in production, and increase productivity in industrial environments such as purchases, logistics, resource planning and production halls. These projects aim to collect massive, high-quality data from real industrial environments, ensuring proper labelling where relevant, that could be used to train or finetune generative AI models for the manufacturing sector. The data collection has to be relevant for developing AI applications that can significantly benefit major EU manufacturing sectors (such as automotive, chemical, aeronautics and energy-intensive industries). The project proposal has to clearly identify the target sectors, the stakeholders, and have preliminary agreements about the intended data exchange. The data-collection projects will develop both technical and business solutions to enable authorized AI developers to have direct or indirect data access and utilize these large datasets while fully respecting the data holders' control over their data. Each data-collection project should propose clear use cases to ensure alignment with real-world needs and challenges. Ideally, the AI developers interested in using such data should be already identified in the proposal. The proposal will also ensure technical and legal solutions to make the generated datasets available to users of AI Factories. This will also enable AI Factories to leverage these datasets for the development of AI applications. To this extent, the inclusion of AI Factories in the project will be considered an advantage. Consortia are encouraged to use data intermediaries, as outlined in Chapter III of the Data Governance Act, or other appropriate mechanisms to manage the secure access to and processing of these datasets. The initiative must also work in close partnership with the Data Spaces Support Centre to ensure alignment and interoperability with the broader ecosystem of data spaces implemented with the support of the Digital Europe Programme. Additionally, the action must coordinate with AI Factories to ensure that the datasets generated can be effectively used in conjunction with data already available facilitating in this way collaborative approaches for the development of advanced AI models. Considering financial sustainability from the outset is crucial in the development of Common European Data Spaces to ensure their long-term viability and effectiveness. By establishing a sound financial model, developers can secure the resources necessary to adapt to evolving technological landscapes and user needs, ensuring that data spaces remain robust and beneficial over time.

Expected Outcome: The action is expected to contribute to the following outcomes: • Improved and professionalised NCP services across Europe, leading to: • Effective and efficient access to Digital Europe Programme calls. • Adapted services to the different Specific Objectives of the programme, including matchmaking activities, online and in-situ meetings as appropriate, and dissemination of information regarding security and ownership control rules in the Digital Europe Programme. • Better participation of new applicants in the programme. • Raising the average quality of proposals submitted. Dissemination and exploitation of results, promotion of the use of the digital capacities and services emerging from the programme, and creation of synergies with complementary dissemination and communication initiatives (including from other programmes). • Optimal trans-national co-operation and exchange of best practices amongst NCPs of the programme. • Possibility for DEP NCPs (one per participating country) to take part in annual meetings among the network and with the European Commission, organised as hybrid events with importance given to physical presence, and supported by a dedicated budget for travel and organisation. • Strengthened outreach through improved tools, platforms, or communication channels as needed to support the visibility of the programme and engagement of stakeholders. Objective: Support the coordination and capacity-building of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Digital Europe Programme, the preparation and execution of actions that maximise awareness of funding opportunities that can boost the implementation of EU digital policies, the visibility and impact of the programme, and the long-term dissemination and exploitation of results. The action should strengthen the capacity of all NCPs to deliver on their mandate, enhance peer learning and knowledge-sharing, and foster the development of an interactive and cohesive community of practice. Particular relevance will be placed on ensuring inclusiveness and comprehensive geographical coverage in relation to membership of the network. The action will thus reinforce the transnational character of network activities, with the aim of further encouraging collaboration among NCPs and potential applicants. Finally, the action will provide support to NCPs in amplifying awareness of the Digital Europe Programme and EU digital policies within their respective domains of competence. The selected project will provide support for all specific objectives of Digital Europe Programme. Scope: Proposals will contribute to the NCPs network for the Digital Europe Programme. Proposals should facilitate transnational cooperation amongst NCPs, encouraging cross-border activities, sharing good practices and raising the general standard of support to programme applicants. The consortium should provide a framework that will support participation in and will maximize overall awareness of the Programme, also facilitating the participation of new applicants. It will provide tailored activities supporting Digital Europe Programme communication (including the organisation of info days for stakeholders), dissemination and exploitation activities, and related material. Special attention should be placed on enhancing the competence of NCPs, including helping less experienced NCPs rapidly acquire the know-how built up in other countries. Where relevant, synergies should be sought with existing networks.

Expected Outcome: • Contributing to European digital sovereignty and open strategic autonomy in the domain of virtual worlds; • Contributing to development of innovative and interoperable virtual worlds solutions; • Contributing to the creation and promotion of EU regulatory sandboxes for virtual worlds. Objective: The main objective is to increase productivity and innovation capacity through state-of-the-art virtual worlds technologies. The Virtual worlds test beds will support testing, experimentation and integration of Virtual Worlds, immersive and extended reality technologies in specific sectors, targeting both industrial and societal applications. The virtual worlds test beds will focus on testing and integrating mature technologies and solutions that have already been tested in the labs with the objective to be validated in real-world environments. They will also cover the aspects of interoperability and transferability between Virtual Worlds. The Virtual worlds testbeds will seek to maximise the uptake of virtual worlds solutions in industrial and societal applications and boost competitiveness of the sectors they are applied. Scope: For this action, support to two world-class sectorial testbeds through two projects is envisaged: one for industrial applications (such as manufacturing, construction or industrial design) and one for societal applications (such as education and training, cultural heritage and other cultural experiences, public administration or healthcare). Each testbed should create a network of facilities with critical mass across at least three different Member States or associated countries. Proposals are expected to focus on either industrial or societal applications. The area should be clearly identified within the proposal. The test beds will provide all necessary expertise and infrastructure for the design and implementation of the testing methodologies, combining physical world and virtual worlds facilities.

Expected Outcome: • 1+MG data storage strategy. • Secure federated data storage and processing capacity for 1+MG data infrastructure. Objective: This action contributes to boosting the capacity of Member States to sequence human genomes through scaling up dedicated secure data storage and processing environments. Data volume is crucial in genomics analytics, and efficient storage and management of large data sets, such as genomics, is essential; to ensure efficient processing, genomic data storage solutions should be flexible and scale with needs. Genomic data, once curated, must not only be stored safely, but also be processed in secure processing environments, which is a particular challenge with the highly voluminous genomic data. This action relates to the potential creation of a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for genomic data (Genome EDIC) and supports the activities related to operating the 1+MG data infrastructure established with the support of Digital Europe under Work Programme 2021-2022 (GDI project), including its alignment with the requirements, technical specifications, and processes established by the EHDS Regulation to ensure a smooth functioning within the HealthData@EU infrastructure. As part of the 1+MG initiative implementation, this action builds on the outputs and results of the 1+MG implementing projects, and will establish a collaboration agreement with the Genome of Europe ( GoE project , supported under Digital Europe Work Programme 2022-2023), to contribute ensuring safe storage and processing capacity for the European reference genome data within the 1+MG data infrastructure. Scope: This action supports the acquisition and set-up of a secure federated data storage and processing capacity for the 1+MG data infrastructure, which is expected to be operated by the relevant EDIC. It should include “hot storage” working in synergy with secure processing environments aligned with the EHDS requirements, such as compliance checks for secure processing environments and detached long-term storage for curated data made available to the 1+MG by the data providers, including the Genome of Europe dataset. The data storage capacity should be designed based on an agreed data storage optimisation strategy, and balancing between storage costs and data depth/breadth/versioning while considering the most appropriate data storage architecture, technology and legal aspects, and ensuring scalability.

Expected Outcome: • Tools to perform automated data and metadata curation / inclusion / minimisation by data providers, foster data quality assurance and enable compliance checks and risk/security management developed, tested and deployed in the 1+MG data infrastructure in alignment with agreed 1+MG requirements and related standards and procedures, as well as with the legislative and technical framework of the European Health Data Space and European Digital Identity Framework. • Tools, APIs and interfaces developed, tested and deployed in the GDI, covering well documented needs of users from research, healthcare and public health policy, in alignment with the European Health Data Space. • Citizens’ portal, allowing at least management of GDPR rights of citizens and citizens’ engagement, to be established and operational at month 12 at the latest. Objective: This action aims to enhance the European genomic data infrastructure by supporting the deployment of advanced tools for data curation and use and its alignment with the European Health Data Space (EHDS). Data quality and volume are key success factors for health data infrastructures supported under the Digital Europe Programme, such as the one developed by the Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) project implementing the 1+ Million Genomes (1+MG) initiative of the Member States. The availability of thoroughly curated genomic data and related clinical and phenotypic information is a prerequisite for accelerating the move to the next level of multi-modal data modelling and deployment as well as health sector innovation in Europe. 1+MG and the projects implementing the initiative have worked and agreed on common data standards and ontologies, data quality criteria and thresholds, data inclusion policies and the necessary standard operational procedures. On that basis, data holders will need to quality-check and curate the datasets that they will be making available to 1+MG and EHDS (HealthData@EU) to ensure their interoperability and high value for users. Wide accessibility of the data and user-friendliness of the tools and services facilitating the access to data are critical success factors of the 1+MG data infrastructure. While such functionalities for research purposes have been already largely covered in the deployment project GDI, application in other use scenarios, in particular healthcare and public health policy, requires additional tools, application programming interfaces (APIs) and interfaces to address the corresponding specific user needs and requirements. The citizen perspective must be also factored in to ensure, through appropriate IT tools, full compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules regarding citizens’ rights on personal data protection. This action relates to the potential creation of a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for genomic data (Genome EDIC) and supports the activities related to operating the 1+MG data infrastructure established with the support of Digital Europe under Work Programme 2021-2022 (GDI project), including its alignment with the requirements, technical specifications, and processes established by the EHDS Regulation to ensure a smooth functioning within the HealthData@EU infrastructure. Scope: Data tools for the 1+MG data infrastructure should be based on common standards and as automated as possible, and should enable data quality check at source, benchmarking, annotation and enhancement on the data provider end and by the operator of the data infrastructure, as appropriate. This covers the whole process of data inclusion, integration and access provision, as well as compliance assessment, risk management and data security assurance on the side of data infrastructure. All steps and functionalities should be designed to support the needs and requirements of three main use scenarios, i.e. research (largely already covered by the GDI project), and clinical care and public health policymaking. They should follow and implement the standards and procedures agreed within the 1+ Million Genomes initiative (1+MG Framework) and be compliant with the EHDS Regulation. For example, data curation tools should facilitate the description of datasets using a metadata standard compatible with the one required for the EU Dataset Catalogue of the EHDS (Health DCAT-AP), including its data quality and utility label as defined in the project QUANTUM . Metadata should also cover information about legal conditions and enablers for sharing the respective dataset. Moreover, the action should leverage best practices and strategies for linking clinical and genomic data at individual level, within the framework of EHDS where appropriate, to maximise access to data while preserving the security and privacy of data subjects (e.g. sampling, anonymisation and pseudonymisation techniques, data gap filling). Data minimisation tools should support compliance with the respective GDPR rules. Moreover, this action covers piloting and the deployment of tools, APIs and interfaces to provide high quality data services to the users of the 1+MG data infrastructure for healthcare and public health policy purposes as well as addressing any remaining user needs in research not yet covered by other projects. For example, APIs and interfaces for data discovery, and federated analysis and modelling in a secure processing environment will enable users to find, access and integrate the data at the required level of data protection safeguards to serve their projects, clinical questions or policy development. Adequate data de-identification/synthetisation methods and support to multi-modal data discovery and analysis across the data infrastructures (e.g. linking up with the Cancer Image Europe and HealthData@EU infrastructures) should also be considered and implemented. The tools delivered and deployed should be user-friendly and clearly support high uptake of the data infrastructures and their services. Furthermore, the action is expected to establish a citizen portal for 1+MG enabling citizens to exercise their GDPR rights, such as obtaining information about their data inclusion / processing and their legal basis, manage the consent, requesting data access, rectification or erasure. All solutions deployed by the project should be compatible with the Simpl middleware platform , where appropriate, and ensure interoperability with the HealthData@EU infrastructure. Tools related to authentication should be eIDAS-compliant. While fully respecting the prerogative of participants within the 1+MG data infrastructure to determine who can access what data and under which conditions, suitable links to the AI Factories should be envisaged. The project should include a description of data access and usage arrangements.

Expected Outcome: • Strategic roadmap for digital technology developments for automotive, including software, hardware, AI models and solutions and autonomous driving technologies, across different projects and initiatives; • Definition of agreement on high-level architectures and interfaces for software, hardware, AI models and solutions and autonomous driving technologies; • Nurturing of a dynamic ecosystem of contributors and participants adopting the initiative’s outcomes; • Operational digital platform(s) supporting joint developments under the initiative; • Definition and implementation of processes, agreements and roles ensuring a clear pipeline for building blocks from relevant projects funded at EU and national level towards integration by companies in series production, leveraging organisations like ECLIPSE SDV, COVESA, or alike. • Establishment of a sustainable organisational and governance structure. Objective: The action will help reinforce the competitiveness and innovation leadership of the European automotive sector and accelerate its digital transformation. It will contribute to the implementation of the Industrial Action Plan for the European Automotive Sector. It will support the objectives of the announced European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA), which focuses on the following key areas: • Developing a software platform for software-defined vehicles (SDVs); • Developing an in-vehicle computing architecture for software-defined vehicles; • Developing innovative AI solutions for the automotive industry; • Creating a large-scale distributed pilot facility; • Accelerate the transition towards autonomous driving. The action will build on the ongoing industry-driven collaboration on a European software-defined vehicle initiative and expand into the other areas of the ECAVA, supporting concrete collaborations building on the strategic guidance and advice from the ECAVA. The action will coordinate and steer relevant projects and initiatives in the area of software, hardware, AI and autonomous driving technologies. It will drive alignment on common standards and interfaces. It will contribute to the management of a strategic industry-driven collaboration in these areas, by incubating, orchestrating and helping maintain joint developments. It will provide a collaborative digital platform to support efficient common development and promote the broad uptake of the initiative’s outcomes. It will lay the basis for a sustainable industry-driven collaboration. The collaboration platform aims at consolidating existing coordination mechanisms in an inclusive way and expanding them by supporting the role of a maintainer for emerging open-source building blocks and software stacks as well as sustainability of the ecosystem. Scope: The action will implement the following activities: • Support the management and coordination of joint developments under the ECAVA by: • Steering, coordinating and supporting research, innovation and deployments projects, including EU-funded (e.g. under the Chips JU, CCAM and 2ZERO Partnerships, potential future Joint Undertakings), national-funded and industry-driven projects and initiatives (e.g. projects under the Eclipse SDV Working Group, AUTOSAR, COVESA, ...). Consolidate or orchestrate existing coordination mechanisms under FEDERATE, Eclipse SDV, Autosar, COVESA, etc.. • Defining and supporting key roles and responsibilities for project management, including a high-level ambassador to ensure dialogue and exchange with senior automotive decision-makers in companies; a team of chief operations officers and a team of chief architects to ensure coherence and alignment. • Drive the alignment and consensus on common technology platforms: • Define and update a long-term strategic roadmap and vision across companies’ initiatives for joint, largely open-source, developments. • Support the alignment across companies on common high-level architectures, building blocks, standards, interfaces and tools for key digital technologies in the scope of the Alliance. This shall include software, hardware, and interfaces with cloud infrastructure. • Help identify and define non-differentiating areas for beneficial collaborations regarding automotive AI development, including approaches for data sharing and pooling to support joint AI development. • Follow and contribute where relevant to standardisation activities including at international level. • Support the incubation of joint developments, notably by: • Supporting the rollout of the common strategic roadmap, providing a drumbeat to ensure speedy implementation, and an efficient transfer of outcomes from relevant projects, aiming towards rapid integration in series production. • Setting up certification and labeling processes for the outcomes of joint developments under the initiative. • Disseminating outcomes and help to build a dynamic ecosystem, based on an open-source plan and leveraging existing communities. • Support the integration and maintenance of core joint developments based on a collaborative digital platform: • Supporting the operation of a repository and developer platform for jointly developed building blocks, interfaces, tools, models, etc. and of a digital platform for collaboration, building as far as possible on existing mechanisms, which support Europe’s strategic autonomy. • Supporting, where relevant, the maintenance of common stacks by relevant organisations(s), such as ECLIPSE SDV, for instance through reference implementation and pre-integrations.

Expected Outcome: The Secretariat of the ECAVA will support the successful operation of the ECAVA, assisting the European Commission and the ECAVA’s members in making the Alliance a sustainable stakeholder platform. It will deliver on the following outcomes: • Development and promotion of the ECAVA’s Strategic roadmap. • Organisation of the annual ECAVA General Assembly and Forum, as well as of the meetings of working group and Steering Committee, in close collaboration with the European Commission. • Promotion of the Alliance’s outcomes, including through the operation of a website and by creating and publishing relevant communication content. Objective: The action will help reinforce the competitiveness and innovation leadership of the European automotive sector and accelerate its digital transformation. As part of the Industrial Action Plan for the European Automotive Sector[1], the action will support the objectives and activities of the announced European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA) by acting as its Secretariat. The purpose of the ECAVA is to provide a discussion and advisory forum to coordinate and accelerate technological developments and investments in software-defined, AI-powered, connected and autonomous vehicle technologies. It will bring together a critical mass of Original Equipment Manufacturers, automotive suppliers, technology and tool providers, start-ups, academia, research and technology organisations, as well as relevant industrial associations active in the sector. The Secretariat will contribute to the success of the ECAVA by allowing it to function smoothly and effectively. Scope: The Secretariat shall support the effective set-up, functioning and day-to-day work of the ECAVA. It should function in an agile and efficient way, with clear processes and roles and a capacity to adapt to evolving circumstances. It will work with the members and participants of the Alliance and with the European Commission. The tasks of the Secretariat will notably include: • supporting the organisation and work of its General Assembly, working groups, Steering Committee, Alliance Forum and other meetings, including by editing the documents produced. • Supporting the administrative processes of the ECAVA, notably by assisting the European Commission in the management of applications. • Disseminating outcomes of the Alliance, notably through the creation and maintenance of a website, and building a dynamic ecosystem. • Supporting the members of the Alliance in the development and update the ECAVA’s yearly roadmap. • Providing the needed expertise, for instance legal expertise on competition rules. The Secretariat will work in close collaboration with the action on the “Collaboration Platform for the European connected and automated vehicle of the future” (see section 2.2.2.9 of the Digital Europe Work Programme). While the Secretariat will focus on facilitating the organisation and processes of the Alliance, the Collaboration Platform will focus on coordinating joint developments in the area, driving the alignment on common technology platforms, and supporting the incubation, integration and maintenance of joint developments. The Secretariat shall agree on working arrangements with the Collaboration Platform.

Expected Outcome: Each EDIH will support the digital transformation of SMEs, mid-caps, and public sector organizations within its geographical area and area of expertise, while also aiming to extend its impact beyond its immediate region. An EDIH can select to focus on specific group(s) of clients (e.g. mainly SMEs or mainly public sector). Each selected project will provide the four core types of services (testing before investing, training and skills development, support to find investments, networking and access to innovation ecosystems) covering a wide range of digitalisation needs, from mainstream technologies and AI capacities to specialised technologies. The services will be provided seamlessly, through proxies when required, maintaining consistency and accessibility for stakeholders. EDIHs complement and build synergies with existing regional and national initiatives, collaborate with the EU AI Innovation infrastructures and will become a central point for companies and public sector ensuring a flexible and seamless digital journey and referring them to the services provided by these AI innovation infrastructures where appropriate. All together, EDIHs will contribute to consolidation of a balanced network of EDIHs, ensuring the broadest coverage of regions in Europe, addressing the needs of public and private sectors across all economic sectors, fostering cross-regional collaboration and resource sharing and offering a wide range of digitalisation services, from mainstream to specialised technologies. Each EDIH will carry out Digital Maturity Assessments for their clients, using the tools provided by the Commission and DTA, and deliver services leading to greater digitalisation of their clients as well as to their adoption of AI. While not all services need to be preceded by a Digital Maturity Assessment, EDIHs are encouraged to use it as often as practically possible. Objective: The objective of this call is the consolidation of the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) aiming to cover all regions of the European Union and Associated Countries by strengthening its performance and capacity to meet local, regional, national and European digitalisation needs. With increased experience and capacities, the EDIHs will continue providing the complete set of services of an EDIH, including the necessary infrastructure, focusing primarily on specific geographical areas and covering the digital transformation needs of local SMEs, mid-caps and/or public sector organisations. Considering the transformation potential of AI technologies, these will be a reinforced focus of EDIHs’ operations under this call. The consolidation of the EDIHs network will be pivotal in supporting the wide deployment and uptake of European AI technologies, solutions and tools and in promoting the adoption of other crucial digital technologies, while upholding Union values and human-centric perspective. Furthermore, the network will harness the potential of green digital technologies, advancing Europe’s collective climate and environmental goals. This approach not only enhances the resilience of Europe’s industry but also boosts its strategic autonomy. With its enhanced presence in countries associated to Digital Europe, the EDIH network will help bridge technology gaps, and support competitiveness and economic convergence. Scope: Each EDIH will provide services based on a specific focus and expertise, which will support the local private and public sector with their digital transformation with particular focus on support to development, training deployment and uptake of European AI. This specialisation can be strengthened over time and should make use of existing local competencies in this area. The EDIH network is dedicated to promoting and facilitating the digital transformation of SMEs and public services through four types of services: • Test before invest : providing access to technical expertise and experimentation facilities, in particular to AI-related services. • Training and skill development : offering training sessions to SMEs and public services for upskilling and reskilling of the workforce, including on the adoption and use of AI technologies. • Support to identify and facilitate access to potential financing sources to support digital transformation. • Foster an innovation ecosystem and networking opportunities Each EDIH is expected to provide all four types of services. They can however have different weights in the overall services portfolio. The services will be provided on an open, transparent and non-discriminatory basis and will be targeted mainly to (1) SMEs and mid-caps and/or (2) public sector organisations conducting non-economic activities. Each EDIH will act as an access point to the European network of EDIHs, helping local companies and/or public actors to get support from other EDIHs in case the needed competences fall outside their remit, ensuring that every stakeholder gets the needed support wherever it is available in Europe. Reversely, each EDIH will support the companies and public actors from other regions and countries presented by other EDIHs that need their expertise. The EDIHs will also serve as contact point for the AI innovation infrastructures as described above, notably the AI factories, AI-on-demand platform and TEFs, and offer a first-line AI help desk to businesses and public sector organisations, including basic information on compliance with the AI Act as well relevant sources of further information and ensuring a broad adoption of strategic technologies supporting the development of an AI continent and implementing the Apply AI strategy. These helpdesks by EDIHs shall further coordinate with the DTA on replies and new questions on the AI Act. Each EDIH will make available the relevant experimentation facilities and demonstrators related to its specialisation. SMEs, mid-caps and the public sector will be able to demonstrate, prototype and test the technologies proposed, including where relevant their environmental impact, and the feasibility of applying these technologies to their business before further investing in it. Likewise, EDIHs will harness the potential of green digital technologies, advancing Europe’s collective climate and environmental goals. EDIHs will also provide access to finance services including providing information and facilitating access to public and private funding sources as well as to public and private investors.

Expected Outcome: Deliverables: • Well defined, up to date and relevant challenges that will serve as the challenges for the European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions • Competitions rule book for participants and jury • Competitions implementation roadmap • Implementation and roll-out of the six competitions • Sustainability plans for the proposed competitions after the end of the project Objective: The European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions will serve as catalysts for engaging young European people in cutting edge digital technologies. They will support their creativity, exposing them to project-based research and training, and connect them to the wider community of research organisations and industry players. Each competition will centre around a challenge addressing a highly relevant societal or industrial challenge that has been developed by a consortium of Europe’s most prestigious research institutes and industry partners. The consortia will work in close cooperation with the respective Sectoral digital skills academies and Initiatives to ensure buy in and support from the relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem. The competitions will take place in the EU. To launch the competitions, teams of students will compete in six digital areas, represented by the newly established Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth initiative and an additional area to be chosen by the consortium. Furthermore, it is expected that the competitions will lead to greater innovation, which will allow to measure and compare progress towards the ambitious goals set under each challenge. Scope: The scope of this topic is to develop six challenges for the European Digital Skills Competitions in the four digital areas corresponding to the Sectoral digital skills academies (Quantum, GenAI, Chips, Virtual Worlds), the Destination Earth Initiative (see topic 4.2 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) and one additional area to be developed by the consortium. The challenges will be designed to target three clear objectives: each will address a European societal-, technological or industrial-relevant challenge, attract a large participation of students and help them develop their skills, and raise their awareness and understanding of team and project-based work as well as applied research and innovation in the respective digital technologies. Special attention will also be given to design local and major tournaments. The consortium will also design attractive prize schemes and award for the best challenges from the six areas. The selected project will cooperate closely with the Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth sectoral Initiative and the respective industrial communities for the design of the competitions. It will as well collaborate with the European League of Advanced Digital Skills Academies (see section 4.3 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) for dissemination, communication and public relations purposes concerning these competitions. Synergies should also be sought with other relevant initiatives, e.g. the Digital Education Hackathon.

Expected Outcome: • Contribution to the replication and scalability of piloted GenAI solutions across public administrations and Member States, demonstrated through the ability to adapt them to new users, administrative levels or service areas. This contribution will be supported through concrete tools such as starter kits, a repository of replicability assessments as well as tailored guidance, documentation and outreach. • Targeted support to national procurement processes, where relevant, possibly by a helpdesk. • Pooling of demand for European GenAI solutions by public administrations in the form of among others technical benchmarks. • Bringing together public administration and start-ups based on common needs and capabilities as defined in technical benchmarks etc. • To complement the outreach strategy of the pilot projects, support to outreach and awareness-raising activities by public administrations, including communication materials. • Strengthened integration of public administrations into the broader European AI ecosystem, through synergies with the AI-on-Demand Platform, EDIHs, the AI Factories and other relevant initiatives as well as ensured synergies with Commission-led initiatives that support AI adoption in public sector. Objective: Broadly speaking, the objective of this action is to coordinate and support the pilot projects delivering Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) solutions fully integrated into the operational workflows and IT systems of participating public administrations. First, this action should prioritise to enhance the scalability and replication of successful GenAI pilot solutions. This includes the projects' capabilities to be duplicated by other public administrations and to adjust efficiently to a growing number of users, public administrations, or application areas. Second, it will identify common needs from public administrations for GenAI solutions “Made in Europe”, facilitating the pooling of demand at EU level for European start-ups. As a result of these efforts, the action will deepen collaboration among public administrations across Member States, laying the foundation of a sustainable GenAI community. Through the dissemination of knowledge, tools, and mutual learning experiences, this community will help accelerate adoption and reinforce trust in European GenAI solutions. Scope: The selected consortium will be responsible for enhancing the scalability and replication of successful European GenAI pilot solutions, through activities that foster knowledge sharing, community building, and capacity development. Such activities could consist, for example, in implementing software documentation best practices, facilitating peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and experience exchange, deploying targeted training and support programs, and establishing a community of practice. A helpdesk can be set up to support pilot projects and other interested public administrations on technical, organisational and legal – such as procurement – matters. Importantly, the CSA will seek to identify common needs with the overarching goal of pooling demand from public administrations for GenAI solutions “Made in Europe”. Towards that end, the CSA will define benchmarks and minimum requirements at the technical level. It will work closely with and contribute to the innovation procurement hubs initiative[1], in particular to public procurement of innovation (PPI) and pre-commercial public procurement work strands. Furthermore, the CSA will raise awareness among European start-ups for its demand-pooling exercise through outreach activities targeted to start-up communities in Europe, conducting where relevant matchmaking exercises between public administrations and European start-ups. The CSA will play an important role in ensuring the pilot projects have a European dimension. This will be done by supporting the pilot projects with scalability and replicability. They will complement their planned actions with additional measures to maximise the reach and impact. Moreover, the European dimension will also be ensured by reporting on the pilot project’s activities, aggregating their KPIs and relevant figures to provide an overview on the use of GenAI by public administrations in Europe.

Expected Outcome: • New data services and user tools for the Cancer Image Europe platform covering data curation / inclusion by data providers, data quality assurance and compliance checks, and risk/security management in alignment with agreed standards, procedures and requirements, including the framework of the European Health Data Space. • Multi-centre validation of AI-driven solutions in the field of medical imaging, including also evidence generation for clinical utility and cost efficiency. • Deployment of multi-modal, cutting-edge AI-driven solutions in the field of medical imaging in healthcare and research settings, leveraging different types of data (at least one imaging modality and one other data type e.g. genomics, other omics, laboratory results, real-world data etc.) and building on the achievements of the Cancer Image Europe platform. • Training and upskilling of medical imaging personnel and/or healthcare professionals for the deployed technology and further use. Objective: • Accelerate the uptake of EU AI-driven solutions that are ready to be deployed in healthcare settings for patient care and for research purposes. This will facilitate the paradigm shift in the digital transformation of healthcare towards personalised medical solutions; • Facilitate the deployment of EU cutting-edge AI-driven solutions in medical imaging, combined with other health data, for increased efficiency and better patient outcomes, leveraging the Cancer Image Europe platform; • Further develop the data, testing and validation services and user tools of Cancer Image Europe platform in alignment with the legal and technical framework of the European Health Data Space, also towards supporting the development and uptake of EU cutting-edge multi-modal AI-based solutions in medical imaging (including Deep learning and Generative AI solutions) for healthcare; • Ensure alignment and inter-operability of the Cancer Image Europe platform with the HealthData@EU infrastructure of the EHDS; • Conduct multi-centre validation studies of promising medical imaging-based and multi-modal AI solutions for screening, early detection, diagnosis and care, generating evidence for clinical utility and cost effectiveness of tested solutions. Scope: By building on, extending and leveraging the Cancer Image Europe platform, this action is expected to facilitate the uptake of EU AI-driven solutions in medical imaging (including Machine Learning and Generative AI), towards their deployment in clinical settings. It should also include upskilling of healthcare professionals and evidence generation to evaluate the performance of the deployed AI-driven solutions and engage patients. The action should also contribute to upgrading and enhancing the uptake of the Cancer Image Europe platform through deployment of tools, application programming interfaces (APIs) and interfaces enabling high-quality data services for the users of the Cancer Image Europe platform. The solutions should cover, at least, data quality assessment, including security, data access and analysis, as well as services for AI developers supporting their regulatory compliance pathway, including the EHDS Regulation, if applicable. Moreover, data services will cover comprehensive data quality assessment—including security, data access, and analysis. Specifically, tools will be deployed to ensure that datasets federated in Cancer Image Europe are fully compliant with EHDS, utilizing Health DCAT-AP for metadata descriptions and adhering to the data quality and utility label standards set by the EHDS Regulation. Moreover, the action should consider synergies and cross-fertilisation of tools with other relevant health data infrastructures: HealthData@EU, 1+Million Genomes (1+MG), Intensive Care Unit data infrastructure, the European Virtual Human Twins Initiative, and UNCAN.eu platform to further facilitate the integration and processing of different types of health data. Also, the outcomes of EU-funded projects dealing with other imaging modalities, such as digital pathology (e.g. BigPicture project), should be considered. Finally, synergies with the ongoing AI related activities of the Health Data Access Bodies (HDABs) in the EHDS, the SHAIPED project and the TEF-Health project should be leveraged.

Expected Outcome: Deliverables EDMO will continue to maintain and further support a platform for joint activities to analyse and respond to the phenomenon of disinformation. EDMO will be carrying out and coordinating various activities in this field, including investigations, targeted research, monitoring as well as media literacy and communication activities throughout Europe and across the national/multinational research hubs. Objective: The EU supports the capacity of a multidisciplinary community to understand, monitor and counter disinformation. The objective of this topic is to maintain and further develop a platform supporting the operations of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), as well as deepening the language coverage and operational capacity of fact-checking in Europe. In particular, the topic will support the operational cooperation between fact-checkers, researchers and media literacy practitioners across the EU through EDMO and support fact-checkers, with the aim to contribute to the fight against disinformation, to gain further insight on disinformation, monitoring of the disinformation space, debunking disinformation through the network of fact-checkers, and increasing the resilience of media professionals and citizens to disinformation. Scope: The funding will support further consolidation of EDMO’s role as a key player in the fight against disinformation in Europe, in particular: • operation of a platform composed of a set of tools and services responding to the needs of the EDMO community composed of researchers, fact-checkers, media literacy practitioners and other relevant stakeholders, including services and actions to support and protect these communities when carrying out their work; • fostering and coordinating research activities and open-source investigations on disinformation at European level focused on detecting and analysing, in an agile and practice-oriented way emerging and prominent issues related to the disinformation landscape; • carrying out activities for monitoring disinformation trends and narratives across the EU, including through pre- and debunking; • investigating and fostering the development and use of novel tools such as Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI to respond to addressing current challenges in the disinformation landscape, including AI-generated disinformation and deepfakes, and in this respect also collaborate with ongoing Horizon Europe projects working on AI-tools to fight disinformation; • monitoring and reacting to disinformation threats related to crisis situations and elections – including by pre- and debunking - as well as to emerging disinformation waves, including giving assistance to neighbourhood countries through dedicated actions, targeted communication and awareness raising campaigns; • supporting targeted activities to facilitate access to data for researchers to allow conducting research activities on disinformation; • supporting activities related to the implementation of the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation; • coordinating and carrying out tailor-made media literacy activities and campaigns at European level, targeting both the general public and vulnerable groups; • carrying out proactive communication and outreach activities through various channels (including by traditional and online media, podcasts, social media etc.) to a broad audience, including the general public, to increase societal resilience to disinformation; • conducting targeted communication campaigns about EDMO’s activities.

to bolster France’s global position in the area of innovation and research. To confirm its position at the highest international level, France is investing massively across the entire value chain, from fundamental research to innovation and experimentation. To remain competitive, it is putting in place the resources needed to innovate, transform, promote and attract or retain the best international talents in France. The aim of this chairs of excellence programme, for top-level researchers and engineers working abroad, is to offer funding to leading researchers to undertake new major projects in France over a 3-year period . These chairs will be only open to researchers and engineers working abroad who wish to create a team or join a research structure in France . They will enable them to develop their research programmes and serve as a springboard for applying for major European tenders. Universities, schools and research organisations will, with this in mind, identify international researchers who are willing to move to Europe. The researchers identified will be invited to develop a research project. This initiative is open to all disciplines and research field, from STEM to humanities and social sciences, specifically regarding the priority themes promoted by program agencies: Health research Climate, biodiversity and sustainable societies Digital technology and artificial intelligence Space research Agriculture, sustainable food, forests and natural resources Low-carbon e

EIC Accelerator New Defence challenge deadline.

First EDF FSTP cascade sub-call under the MaJoR (Maintenance, Joining and Repair) project. Seeks up to 30 innovative SMEs and start-ups as technological solution providers for defence maintenance, AI, sensors and structural monitoring across air, sea and land domains. Over 200 proposals received; new rounds expected.

Cross-sector and cross-border resilience stress tests of critical infrastructure

Seeking low-collateral solutions to counter hostile Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS), used for contraband delivery, surveillance near prisons and sensitive sites Introduction This UKDI (UKDI) competition is run on behalf of Ministry of Justice (MOJ), His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Home Office, Police, Innovate UK and wider UK security stakeholders. It is seeking proposals that offer innovative, low-collateral solutions to counter or defeat hostile drones targeting secure sites and locations. Drones, or ‘uncrewed aerial systems’ (UAS), pose a growing challenge when used for contraband delivery, surveillance and disruption near prisons, sensitive sites or critical national infrastructure, including in congested urban areas. The end-users for the solutions would include HMPPS security teams , MOD, police, law enforcement agencies, and operational staff, these groups need solutions to work alongside existing ‘last line of defence’ technology that are activated when other mitigation measures fail. This competition focuses on two competition challenge areas: Challenge 1: Higher TRL Solutions must reach technology readiness level(TRL) 7 by the end of the project. maximum project length is within 3-6 months Challenge 2: Medium TRL Concepts for Future Capability must reach TRL 4 or 5 maximum project length 12 months Competition key information Key Information Competition Details Submission deadline 12:00 Midday on 31 March 2026 (BST) Total funding available Up to £1.85m (excluding VAT). A number of proposals may be funded. Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Challenge 1 must reach TRL7 and Challenge 2 must reach TRL4 or 5 Contract start month Aim to start Early Aug 2026 Project duration Equal to or less than 12 months Cyber Risk Assessment (CRA) number and risk level RAR-LJCLJ3E, Cyber Risk Profile – Level 1 Feedback release date 24 June 2026 Pre-sift criteria See Section 8 Pre-sift Criteria UKDI Webinar: Countering Illegal Use of UAS Around Prisons and Sensitive Sites

Strengthening the CER framework

Scope: Military operations require higher flexibility and mobility to gain and maintain the initiative. A collaborative, more efficient and digitised secure, cyber-resilient battlespace across land, air, maritime and space domains is key for information superiority, future mission management, spectrum dominance and smart decision support. The development of a common shared information space with a ‘cloud of clouds’ approach, leading to multi-domain operations cloud services, is therefore needed. The objective of this topic is to follow on and complement previous activities in the field of multi-domain operation cloud services and combine actual existing and future multi-level community-of-interest (COI) and COI-enabling services into a federated, multi-national service mesh. The aim is to enable and support multi-level situational awareness and command and control capabilities for multi-domain operations, therefore providing the capability for an improved battle rhythm for military operations in collaborative multi-domain warfare. Beyond defence technologies, this topic also contributes to the STEP objectives as defined in the STEP Regulation in the target investment area of deep and digital technologies. Targeted types of activities: Studies, design, system prototyping, testing and qualification, not excluding upstream and downstream activities eligible for development actions. Indicative budget: EUR 40 000 000 for this topic under the EDF-2026-DA call. Indicative number of proposals to be funded: One proposal is to be funded for this topic. However, depending on the quality of the proposals submitted and the budget available, more than one proposal may ultimately be funded for this topic.

DIANA's targeted challenge seeking high-maturity (TRL 7+) AI, machine learning, and related software solutions to improve NATO's operational planning and execution through enhanced modelling and simulation, wargaming, and decision-making capabilities. Selected innovators receive €100,000 in contractual funding to integrate and demonstrate their solutions in a cloud environment simulating NATO's AI-enabled digital warfighting platforms, with potential follow-on contracts through DIANA's Rapid Adoption Service.