Objective 1
The Think NEXUS team linked with experts and representatives of public agencies from both sides of the Atlantic for identifying gaps, priorities, and entities to be associated with the NGI strategic roadmap. These developments allowed to organise a workshop that took place in Washington DC in July 2019, exchanging directly upon EU-US priorities with 41 experts including representatives from the NIST, NSF, EU Delegation in the US.
Think NEXUS team organised 3 additional workshops held online allowing to identify the key priorities on both sides and to discuss and present the different collaboration opportunities and funding schemes.
These activities allowed the release of various insight papers (notably 6 policy brieds, 6 white papers and D1.6) developed jointly by US and EU experts.
Additionally, the “Future Trends & Collaboration Roadmap” (D2.7) connected the gaps and priorities with future trends and the new policy background that will influence on the EU-US collaboration in the next years.
Objective 2
The key first steps were to mobilise the ‘influencers’ from various backgrounds and entities who can provide key information, analyses, contents and outlooks for building a coherent view on the states of the arts and to create a Think Tank. To ensure an alignment of Think NEXUS developments with ‘external events’ and ensuring its relevance, partners have continuously been identifying relevant stakeholders, thematics and priorities that are to be discussed and invited them to the workshops.
Prior to the final workshop, GAC consulted 7 strategic members of the Think Tank to discuss the think tank's sustainability. As a result, project partners have setup an MoU to continue animating the Think Tank through a dedicated NGI Transatlantic Thematic group on ENRICH GLOBAL. Some experts of the Think Tank have already secured their interest and willingness to take part in this group.
Objective 3
Think NEXUS regularly participated in meetings and events hosted by the NGI Outreach Office, as well as other NGI projects.
Beyond EU ecosystems, Think NEXUS enabled US stakeholders to bond over common thematics and further deepen US-EU interactions between stakeholders in the Think tank. The different workshops allowed discussions on different thematics and on how to support collaboration and on the EU and US funding programmes inviting high-profile and senior speakers from NSF to present the current and future status and to discuss further steps and collaborative funding opportunities.
In addition, Think NEXUS linked with other EU and US NGI related initiatives: NGI Explorer, TETRA, NGI Atlantic, NGI Outreach Office, Cyber and EU-US innovation projects (e.g. AEGIS project, ENRICH IN THE US, IoT Week, etc…). Project partners co-organised a session at the NGI Forum with NGI Atlantic and NGI Explorer.
Objective 4
Think NEXUS has contributed to widely diffuse the priorities of the NGI vision among the NGI community but to the outer ICT community, notably through the chapter “The Next Generation Internet Initiative” in the book “ICT Policy, Research, and Innovation: Perspectives and Prospects for EU‐US Collaboration” (Wiley, November 2020).
Moreover, a significant series of insight papers (policy briefs, white papers & studies) were published, and several events were hosted to trigger the exchange of knowledge, encouraging debate about technology and policy-oriented strategic lines of action. These activities were highly oriented to identify the existing gaps and potential untapped synergies of a Transatlantic collaboration. Think NEXUS contacted and interacted with NSF representatives and invited them to the workshops.
