EU funding opportunities in AI and robotics

CALL: AI, DATA AND ROBOTICS FOR INDUSTRY OPTIMISATION (INCLUDING PRODUCTION AND SERVICES) (AI, DATA AND ROBOTICS PARTNERSHIP) (IA)

Topic ID: HORIZON-CL4-2022-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02-05

Link to the EU Funding portal: click here.

Quick facts
Budget	EUR 3 million or 5 million
Deadline	16 Nov 2022
Type of Action:	Innovation Action
TRL scope:	Start at TRL 3-5 and achieve TRL 6-7 by the end of the project
Consortial:	Yes, minimum 3 Partners from 3 different eligible countries.

In a nutshell: Proposals should demonstrate how major European industries (covering all the sectors, from production to services) can substantially benefit from optimising AI, data and/or robotics to maximise such benefits. Proposals are expecting to focus on specific use-cases to demonstrate such benefits, cross-sector use-cases are encouraged. In all proposals user industries are expected to play a major role in the requirement and validation phases. Two types of proposals are expected:

1. Type 1 Projects: Focused projects involving the user industry and technology provider(s), not expected to involve the use of financial support to third parties.
2. Type 2 Projects: Projects involving the use of financial support to third parties, where a number of companies in a given application sector will identify in the proposal common challenges and use-cases, and organise competitive calls for AI, data and robotics solution providers to address such challenges, specifically from startups.

Expected outcome:

• Advancing AI, data and robotics, and automation for the optimisation of production and services value-chains, optimisation of products, services, processes, to increase competitiveness, improve working conditions, and environmental sustainability, and supporting the European Economy using AI, data and robotics technologies.
• AI or learning systems (including, but not limited to self-learning, continuous and transfer learning, self-configuring systems) adapting production or services workflows to changing environments, dynamic and unpredictable resource constraints and to the capabilities and restrictions of humans and transferring results from one domain to another.

CALL: PUSHING THE LIMIT OF PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE AND PERFORMANCE (RIA)

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL4-2022-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02-06

Link to the EU Funding portal: click here.

Quick facts
Budget	Max EUR 7 million
Deadline	16 Nov 2022
Type of Action	Research & Innovation Action
TRL scope	Activities are expected to start at TRL 2-3 and achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project.
Consortial	Yes, minimum 3 Partners from 3 different eligible countries.

In a nutshell: Proposals are expected to focus on technology and systems that significantly extend the physical capability of robots beyond the state of the art. Proposals should investigate novel scientific approaches or push the limit of existing ones to improve physical capabilities of robots relevant to industry and service needs in sectors where this is a barrier to uptake, such as innovative actuation principles (such as soft robotics, reconfigurable, hyper-redundant, modular robotics), or advance the field of miniaturised robotics, advanced control, improved hardware and increased trustworthiness and dependability (e.g. building on the latest results in mechatronics, advanced sensing and actuation, advanced materials, integrated and embedded systems for AI at the edge, neuromorphic computing).

Expected outcome:

• Robots with advanced physical functionalities, capabilities and efficiency (faster, safer, more agile and precise, etc.), to achieve wider variety of tasks efficiently. This includes beyond human capabilities (e.g. very large and very small scale capabilities or beyond human precision, or beyond human perception and decision making, for example by using multi-modal sensing).
• Robots with greatly improved intrinsically safe and efficient human-centric human-robot and robot-environment/objects physical interaction capabilities, at natural human speed or more.
• Robots with improved abilities and robustness, allowing them to adapt to changes in the environment, and making them more energy efficient in order to run autonomously for longer periods of time while maintaining trustworthiness and dependability.

CALL: INCREASED ROBOTICS CAPABILITIES DEMONSTRATED IN KEY SECTORS (AI, DATA AND ROBOTICS PARTNERSHIP)

Topic ID: HORIZON-CL4-2022-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02-07

Link to the EU Funding portal: click here.

Quick facts
Budget	Max EUR 9 million
Deadline	16 Nov 2022
Type of Action	Innovation Action
TRL scope	Start at TRL 3-5 and achieve TRL 6-7 by the end of the project.
Consortial	Yes, minimum 3 Partners from 3 different eligible countries.

In a nutshell: Proposals will integrate novel robotics technologies into solutions that are capable of autonomously taking over dangerous, dull and dirty jobs, or that are capable of achieving tasks beyond human capabilities, in a range of innovative applications. This topic will support innovation proposals, expected to exploit the latest robotics advances and demonstrate at TRL6-7 use-case scenarios considering end-user needs and expectations, in highly realistic operating environments.  The focus should be on real-world scenarios which can benefit in short term from the technology and demonstrate substantial impact on the chosen application, also taking into account the maturity of the technologies which can solve the problems at hand. The involvement of the user industry and the workers, possibly also the social partners, would be key to drive the proposals, not only to identify the needs and the application scenarios, but to be involved in the testing of the solutions and providing feedback to adapt the solutions to optimise the working conditions and performances. 

Expected outcome:

• Demonstrators able to show the added value of robotics and their performances in addressing challenges in major application sectors, or in dangerous, dull, dirty tasks or those strenuous for humans or in extreme environments.
• Systems able to demonstrate beyond human performance in complex tasks, with high impact in key sectors, that show extended levels of adaptation and flexibility.
• Systems able to show high levels of reactivity and responsiveness and intelligibility when performing human-robot and robot-robot interactions in major application sectors.

 

Here at Tiko Pro, we can support you in your role as a coordinator by providing proposal writing services or in acting as Work package leader. We spent last 12 years developing our public funding expertise, as well as in building an extensive partner network in Central Europe. As a female-driven, Slovenian project partner, we provide the expertise and diversity your consortium might be looking for. Contact us at info@tiko-pro.si and our EU funding experts will be in contact with you shortly!