Pilots for the Next Generation Internet (IA)

The aim of this topic is to foster the take up of Next Generation Internet (NGI) technologies and solutions in Europe by integrating them in a variety of industrial and societal use cases, enabling the emergence of internet ecosystems supporting the needs of specific sectors, such as (but not limited to) public services, healthcare and well-being, supply chain management, transport, finance, creative and cultural industries, tourism, energy and ICT.

NGI Pilots will make use of the rich portfolio of technologies and tools developed in the NGI programme in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, and will apply them to real-life use cases with the goal of validating NGI human-centric solutions across value chains, as close as possible to operational conditions, engaging large user groups and proving their socio-economic potential. Pilots will also address sustainability beyond the lifecycle of the project.

Pilots will involve SSH experts and user organisations from vertical sectors, NGI innovators and other digital technology providers. Pilot projects will need to carefully consider the needs and expectations of the end-users as main drivers of the technological developments, as well as energy efficiency requirements. Issues around inclusiveness and gender-sensitivity in the developed solutions should be addressed, where relevant.

Pilots will include development, integration, testing, deployment, uptake and operation activities. Focus will be on open source solutions (both software and hardware) and their integration and adoption in vertical use cases, to ensure replicability of the results and portability in different areas. Proposals should address use cases from at least two different verticals and address their interdependencies.

Proposals should encourage, when relevant, open access to data, standardisation activities, as well as an IPR regime ensuring lasting impact and reusability of results.

Proposals should incorporate third party contributions from NGI open source innovators. A minimum of 15% of the total requested EU contribution should be allocated to financial support to third parties, selected through open calls.

The Commission considers that proposals with an overall duration of typically 24 to 36 months would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other durations. For ensuring focused effort, third parties should be funded through projects typically in the EUR 10 000 to 50 000 range per project, with indicative duration of 6 to 9 months.