Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.
Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.
The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
This action will help define what the ‘CitiVerse’ means for Europe building on the smart communities’ data infrastructure that is developed under WP2021-22 and WP23-24. The objective is to bring EU CitiVerse industry, including SMEs, together in developing the different layers of VR/AR worlds useful for local authorities and citizens.
Detailed Call Description
The objective is to bring EU CitiVerse industry, including SMEs, together in developing the different layers and technical components of virtual worlds useful for local authorities and citizens.
Τhe action will:
- Develop open solutions for a CitiVerse to offer interoperable and sustainable services, ranging from concrete technologies and platforms to use cases for citizens, businesses, and community planners.
- Take into account the European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC).
- Be compatible with the evolving framework for Living-in.eu Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms MIMs Plus and reuse the blueprint of the Data Space for Smart and Sustainable Cities and Communities (DS4SSCC), the Local Digital Twins (LDTs) Toolbox, and other technologies and components developed by relevant projects around smart communities and local digital twins.
- Ensure that EU values such as openness, inclusion, accessibility, privacy and sustainability are preserved by the proposed solutions.
- Test the open solutions through a series of real-life use cases. To this end, the project(s) will develop and roll-out concrete CitiVerse use cases (and combinations of them).
- Cover areas described above and ensure citizens participation through virtual world technologies such as eXtended Reality (including VR/AR). Use cases could also cover the pilot areas detailed in the call text from the deployment of the Data space for smart communities.
- Develop or exploit existing AI algorithms to improve the CitiVerse ecosystem at any level, such as but not exclusively to improve immersive experience, latency, users’ operation and 3D simulation and modelling.
- Apply complex algorithmics (based on complexity science modelling) where relevant, e.g., for use cases involving long-term policy testing with the active participation of citizens.
- Engage with relevant EU industrial partners, including SMEs, in Member States to provide technology capacity for the CitiVerse, including but not limited to the VR/AR Industrial Coalition and the New European Bauhaus initiative.
- Exploit the long tradition of Europe in cultural and media content, involving European content creators, in particular SMEs, in the design of engaging in immersive CitiVerse environments.
- Work towards policy recommendations for a robust, open, and interoperable CitiVerse legal framework compatible with EU values and laws.
- Include security by design for the CitiVerse solutions and their application in real-life use cases.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
50%
Maximum grant amount per project: between €2 000 000 and €5 000 000 per project, although other amounts up to €15 000 000 are also possible
Thematic Categories
- Environment and Climate Change
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
- Small-Medium Enterprises and Competitiveness
- Urban Development
Eligibility for Participation
- Educational Institutions
- NGOs
- Non Profit Organisations
- Other Beneficiaries
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Eligibility For Participation Notes
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) established in EU Member States or listed EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme.
Entities must not be directly or indirectly controlled from a country that is not an eligible country. All entities have to fill in and submit a declaration on ownership and control.
Moreover:
- participation in any capacity (as beneficiary, affiliated entity, associated partner, subcontractor or recipient of financial support to third parties) is limited to entities established in eligible countries.
- In addition, in order to be eligible, all participants from associated countries (except EEA countries) and all entities established in the EU or EEA territory but controlled by a third country or third country legal entities (including DEP associated countries), have to present an adequate guarantee approved by their eligible country of establishment, to comply with the conditions set out in the Work Programme Annex 3.
- project activities (included subcontracted work) must take place in eligible countries (see section geographic location below and section 10)
Targeted stakeholders
The consortium should include representatives from the EU public sector at local level and industry. Academia, civil society, and citizens (for example through Citizen Science) are also welcome.
The consortium should include signatories of the Living-in.eu declaration and find synergies with beneficiaries of relevant EU missions in Horizon Europe.
Consortium composition:
- A consortium of at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) and which complies with the following conditions:
- minimum 3 independent entities from 3 different eligible countries
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
National Contact Point(s)
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
Directorate of Research and Innovation
Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy