European Coordinated Research on Long-term ICT and ICT-based Scientific and Technological Challenges

Project Information

CHIST-ERA IV

Grant agreement ID: 857925

DOI

10.3030/857925

EC signature date 27 November 2019

Start date 1 December 2019

End date 30 November 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)

Total cost

€ 18 716 537,00

EU contribution

€ 6 000 000,00

Coordinated by

AGENCE NATIONALE DE LA RECHERCHE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHIST-ERA IV (European Coordinated Research on Long-term ICT and ICT-based Scientific and Technological Challenges)

Reporting period: 2019-12-01 to 2020-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

CHIST-ERA is a programme for funding research on emerging topics in Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies (ICST), which gathers national and regional research funding organisations in Europe and beyond, with the support of the European Commission through the ERA-NET scheme. After three first ERA-NETs (CHIST-ERA I, II and III) that covered the period from 01/12/2009 to 30/11/2019 and supported Calls 2010 to 2018, CHIST-ERA IV covers the period from 01/12/2019 to 30/11/2024 and ensures three more calls, Calls 2019, 2020 and 2021. The focus of CHIST-ERA is long-term, transformational, multidisciplinary research. Its main objective is to reinforce the transnational collaboration between Member States in the area of ICT and to integrate the related national and regional research communities in Europe through the funding of transnational research projects. While the scientific scope of CHIST-ERA is wide, for each call are selected two focused topics of common interest. CHIST-ERA thus launches each year one call on two different topics. The topics are selected in particular for their potential to lead to significant breakthroughs, and where there is a need to work at a European scale to reach a critical mass.
This goal is served by three operational objectives, namely:
1. Setting the basis for effective and durable coordination and cooperation of the CHIST-ERA partner funding organisations;
2. Identifying and sharing areas of common interest and new ambitious emerging research topics with a potential high impact on future EU industrial research and competitiveness;
3. Launching common calls for research proposals and implementing the follow-up processes.
CHIST-ERA aims at overcoming the fragmentation of long-term ICT research along national lines and thus creating synergies to amplify the activities of the national agencies. It contributes to the development of a coordinated scientific policy throughout the European Research Area, and fulfils the needs and reinforces the strengths of the European ICT research community, so that it can be at the leading edge of world competition.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first reporting period of CHIST-ERA IV, the following activities have been implemented in accordance with the work programme by the funding organisations in the consortium:
• Management of 3 calls at different stages of their lifetime (Calls 2019, 2020 and 2021), covering 6 research topics;
• Evaluation and proposal selection for the co-funded Call 2019 and for the Call 2020;
• Communication and dissemination on Call 2019, Call 2020 and Call 2021;
• Follow-up of the funded projects (under Call 2019);
• Design and implementation of a CHIST-ERA Open Science policy;
• Design and implementation of activities to promote the exploitation of the funded projects research results by industry;
• Design and implementation of activities to promote the participation of Widening Countries in CHIST-ERA;
• Discussion and negotiation of an Open Science Call and a Challenge Call;
• Discussion about CHIST-ERA in the new context of Horizon Europe.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This ERA-NET coordinates the long-term research vision at the national, regional and European level in the ICT and ICT-related areas in order to leverage the research efforts on some strategic topics that will determine the future competitiveness as well as the scientific leadership of Europe. It contributes to making Europe a world leader in the area of long-term multidisciplinary transformative ICT and ICT-related research. It also reduces the fragmentation of long-term ICT and ICT-related research along national and regional lines and thus creates synergy to amplify the action of the national and regional funding organisations, to contribute decisively to the development of a concerted scientific policy throughout the ERA.
The main results are the following:
- A joint vision on long-term ICT and ICT-based challenges between national and regional programme owners from several Member States, sharing and complementing the vision developed by the EC under the FET scheme;
- An efficient network of ICT and ICT-related programme managers throughout Europe sharing view on science management best practices:
°Definition of a methodology and tools to further develop this joint vision in subsequent actions;
°Definition of common practices between the programme owners, allowing to collaborate and to define joint calls;
- A flexible organization, able to react rapidly to the emergence of new promising areas and launch transnational calls, keeping the timing of these calls in a foreseeable horizon;
- The initiation of other large successful initiatives and the coordination with them.
The following impacts related to the research projects are expected:
- Selection and launch of a significant number of research projects contributing to the joint vision developed by the programme owners;
- Strengthen the coordination of different projects and related scientific communities by organizing systematic project assessment conferences;
- Spreading excellence across Europe;
- High impact of research results produced by the projects, leading to EU competitiveness:
°Increased positioning of EU research and researchers on those selected topics, allowing developing future international collaborations where European groups would take the lead
°Experience in collaboration between national programme owners that will pave the way to other joint programming activities where and when appropriate
°Coordinate, interface, and open up mutually the national programmes of its partners in order to enhance collaboration among the national communities and unify the European Research Area in ICT and ICT-related domains
As a constant action, CHIST-ERA wants to collaborate with national and regional funding organisations beyond those present in the consortium, so as to spread the benefits of increased collaboration throughout the European Research Area.

Generic communication actions and dissemination actions have been listed in a call strategic plan template. Dissemination of the call outcomes will facilitate early transformation of research results into future European technologies. The plan of the dissemination and exploitation of results has been respected. Particularly, research collaborations at European level and including Widening Countries have increased considerably and the visibility of CHIST-ERA network and related funded projects has grown up through different communication actions which are listed below in the work carried out under the WP 5.

CHIST-ERA Logo