Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NGI Sargasso (Unique collaborative ecosystem and programme for promoting the transatlantic cooperation in NGI technologies)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-01-01 bis 2024-06-30
NGI Sargasso’s mission is to catalyse transatlantic collaboration, via distribution of cascade funding, with calls focusing on the development and experimentation of new ideas, implementation of prototypes, and contribution to standards and open-source communities on technology trends with the potential to reshape tomorrow’s NGI technologies and services. The particularity of the NGI Sargasso is that it mandates collaboration between EU teams and US and/or Canadian teams in its projects.
Led by the European Science Foundation (an EU association with a network of over 40,000 experts across all scientific disciplines and over 83 countries), supported by MWCB (an ecosystem builder driving the digital advancement of society), SPLORO (whose team has been part of different NGI projects, including the EU-US fellowship programme NGI Explorers), and AUSTRALO (leader of the community building in NGI Explorers and Think NEXUS), the Consortium is working in harmony and is having weekly meetings to keep track on the day-to-day workload, solving issues together and being aware of each other deadlines.
As a cascade funding project, the main work of NGI Sargasso is the distribution of the cascade funding to its projects (grantees), with robust submission and evaluations procedures. The NGI Sargasso project also offers support to its projects and works closely with industry “mentors” that are offering their services to the grantees.
Led by the European Science Foundation (an EU association with a network of over 40,000 experts across all scientific disciplines and over 83 countries), supported by MWCB (an ecosystem builder driving the digital advancement of society), SPLORO (whose team has been part of different NGI projects, including the EU-US fellowship programme NGI Explorers), and AUSTRALO (leader of the community building in NGI Explorers and Think NEXUS), the Consortium is working in harmony and is having weekly meetings to keep track on the day-to-day workload, solving issues together and being aware of each other deadlines.
As a cascade funding project, the main work of NGI Sargasso is the distribution of the cascade funding to its projects (grantees), with robust submission and evaluations procedures. The NGI Sargasso project also offers support to its projects and works closely with industry “mentors” that are offering their services to the grantees.
The project started with the preparation of the Project Management Handbook by the coordinator to guide the consortium (D1.1); a mapping of the current NGI Technology challenges and priorities (D2.1) in order to define the challenges of our Open Calls; Finally, the Data Management Plan (D1.2) was created.
In parallel, NGI Sargasso's communication, dissemination, and exploitation strategy was defined, the website and social media channels were created (D5.1; D5.2).
The preparation of the Open Calls themselves has been the main focus in this period: the process itself, the documentation and guidelines (D3.1); and the implementation of the brokerage system (D2.3) to facilitate the matchmaking (D2.4) and collaboration between US and Canada, an effort to bring together US/Canada/EU teams with common ideas and complementary skills.
As of July 2024, at the middle of the project’s lifetime, we opened and closed 3 Open Calls, and the 4th Open Call is currently running. We plan to open the 5th Open call in September and close it by the end of the year.
For the calls that are already closed, the applicants went through the evaluation process, and the selected ones had to sign a sub-grantee agreement with the coordinator (D3.2 D3.3 D3.4).
In addition, the OnCampus programme, an incubation programme designed to support the commercialization and operational advancement of the future grantees, was being designed (D4.1).
The consortium was in constant exchanges with the beneficiaries, but also with other actors of the NGI and in the US and Canada. A policy brief (D5.3) has been prepared to report on the various discussions and exchanges we had, as well as an exploitation and sustainability plan (D5.4) intended to detail how the tangible and intangible outcomes of the project can be exploited and further used after the end of the project itself.
Finally, a global monitoring report on the status of the Smart Objectives and KPIs of the project has been produced (D1.3)
In parallel, NGI Sargasso's communication, dissemination, and exploitation strategy was defined, the website and social media channels were created (D5.1; D5.2).
The preparation of the Open Calls themselves has been the main focus in this period: the process itself, the documentation and guidelines (D3.1); and the implementation of the brokerage system (D2.3) to facilitate the matchmaking (D2.4) and collaboration between US and Canada, an effort to bring together US/Canada/EU teams with common ideas and complementary skills.
As of July 2024, at the middle of the project’s lifetime, we opened and closed 3 Open Calls, and the 4th Open Call is currently running. We plan to open the 5th Open call in September and close it by the end of the year.
For the calls that are already closed, the applicants went through the evaluation process, and the selected ones had to sign a sub-grantee agreement with the coordinator (D3.2 D3.3 D3.4).
In addition, the OnCampus programme, an incubation programme designed to support the commercialization and operational advancement of the future grantees, was being designed (D4.1).
The consortium was in constant exchanges with the beneficiaries, but also with other actors of the NGI and in the US and Canada. A policy brief (D5.3) has been prepared to report on the various discussions and exchanges we had, as well as an exploitation and sustainability plan (D5.4) intended to detail how the tangible and intangible outcomes of the project can be exploited and further used after the end of the project itself.
Finally, a global monitoring report on the status of the Smart Objectives and KPIs of the project has been produced (D1.3)
At this point (review period 1), the NGI Sargasso funded projects are still to be finalised. The first cohort of projects are delivering their final results but there was no time for analysis. OC2,3,4,5 cohort still to finalise. Results will be available in the next review.