Want to Get a €3 Million Prize for Your Industrial Tech Project?

As an innovative tech company you aim to grow your business and develop projects. Do you know your ambition can be supported by Europe?

The pillars of H2020 are the foundations of the European strategy for research and innovation policies. They are the directive guidelines to implement the European policy.

Let’s take a look at the second pillar of H2020, the Industrial Leadership, and explain what it is made of and who it is made for. The Industrial Leadership pillar has several objectives, one of them “Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies” ( LEIT).

The funds come from the European pillar “Industrial Leadership”

Support to new and breakthrough technologies, boosting competitiveness in Europe, creating jobs and supporting growth: these are the goals of LEIT.

LEIT is a fund, organized in different strands defined by specific themes and fundings scheme. Each strand addresses the part of Horizon 2020 focusing on new opportunities for industrial leadership in Key Enabling Technologies (KETs), Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and space.

You may wonder if your project meet the priority requirements of this fund?

This pillar covers industrial and commercial sectors. It aims to accelerate the development of technologies and innovations, and help innovative European SMEs to become major players worldwide.

So, to the question “what areas are concerned?”, the answer is: research, industry, innovation, new technologies, economy and finances. It has to be noted that SME support is an important focus.

To the question “who can apply?”, the answer is: research centers, corporations, agencies chambers, SMEs and universities.

And, finally, to the question “who are the countries involved?”, the answer is: European Union, candidate countries, new independent states, members of the European Economic Area, mediterranean countries and Balkans.

Industrial partners and SMEs can get money for biotech, partnerships and IT projects

The lines of actions are themes, in accordance with policy priorities, from which the calls for projects derive. The calls for projects are published on the Website of the European Commission.

In LEIT, the lines focus on different topics:

• Research and innovation to strengthen Europe’s industrial capacities and business perspectives, including SMEs.
• Public-private partnerships.
• Catching the ICT opportunities.
• International cooperation and responsible research and innovation.
• And others.

These are areas of key industrial competences. The European Commission reminds that involvement of industrial partners, SMEs in particular, is crucial to have maximum impact of those actions.

We are know going to take a look at those calls in details.

Nanotechnologies, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing and processing, and biotechnology

LEIT supports the development of research and innovation in technologies across a wide range of sectors such as nanotechnology, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing and processing, and biotechnology.

The aim is to develop European industrial capabilities in KETs. The activities (meaning the themes on which the calls for proposal are based) will address the whole innovation chain.

These activities will have research and innovation agenda defined by representatives from industry and business, together with the research community. The goal is to make the most of private sector investment. Research centers, corporations, agencies chambers, SMEs and universities will be able to participate and apply for funds.

For example, the Horizon Prize for clean air is part of this line of action. It is a €3 million challenge prize that is awarded on January 23th, 2018 and addresses the issue of air pollution in cities. The challenge is to develop innovative, design-driven material solutions. It aims to reduce the concentration of particulate matter in the air.

Contractual public-private partnerships (cPPPs)

It has to be mentioned that PPPs are also useful to implement and deploy the KET. They allow industry to take part directly in the definition and implementation of research and innovation priorities.

Those cPPPs can be implemented either through joint technology initiatives or

through dedicated calls for proposals and topics. Let’s see what that is.

Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI):

• The JTI on electronic components and systems for European leadership.
• The JTI on bio-based industries.

JTIs will develop their own work programs, which will be decided and implemented through their specific governance mechanisms and rules.

Contractual PPPs:

• Energy-efficient buildings.
• Factories of the future.
• Sustainable process industries.

The European Commission represents the public side and the respective industrial research and innovation European association represents the private side of each cPPP. These cPPPs are cross-thematic.

Information and Communication Technologies

The ICT-LEIT Work Program under H2020 aims at new business development, in particular SMEs. It should contribute to boosting competitiveness, creating jobs and supporting growth of course. It addresses different topics and calls such as robotics, photonics and 5G network for example.

There are the six main “activity lines” that guide the themes of the calls for projects in the ICT-LEIT:

• A new generation of components and systems.
• Advanced computing.
• Future Internet.
• Content technologies and information management.
• Robotics.
• Micro- and nano-electronic technologies,
• Photonics.

In addition, this work program features several other topics addressing cyber-security, internet of things and research on a human-centric digital age.

ICT is about innovation and competitiveness across a large range of private and public markets and sectors.

The purpose is first to reinforce medium to long term commitment to industrial strategies. It should provide continuity, stability, flexibility and openness. And also, help develop dynamic eco-systems where innovation is encouraged.

The actors of the projects related to those themes will benefit from support for innovation and international cooperation. And, for SMEs, dedicated action is taken to propose “bottom-up” concepts, using the SME instrument of H2020.

Space

Here is the motto for the EU Space R&D for 2014 to 2020: “Prepare for the increasing role of space in the future and reap the benefits of space now”.

The objective of this line of action is to develop and exploit space infrastructure to meet future European policy and societal needs. This challenge regroups competitive and innovative space industry (including SMEs) and the research community.

This line of actions consider taking on these challenges by:

• Prioritizing the two space flagships of European global navigation satellite system and Earth observation.
• Supporting for the protection of space infrastructure.
• Setting up a space surveillance and tracking system at European level.
• Supporting EU industry competitiveness to meet the objectives defined in the Commission communication on space industrial policy.
• Making sure Europe’s investments made in space infrastructure before are exploited to the benefit of citizens.
• Boosting Europe’s attractiveness as a partner for international space science and exploration.

In this line of actions Member States and European Space Agency will join forces, and research activities, to the teams initiating projects.

It worked for them!

HoloMedical3D

© Sergey Nivens - fotolia.com

3D video device that generates live holograms. The whole thing based on input from computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scanners. Is this the future of medicine?

It is already being developed by a Scottish hard-tech innovative SME named Holoxica. In a few words, it means that doctors would be able to examine three-dimensional representations of scanned organs, in real time.

An EU contribution of € 900 768 on a total cost of € 1 286 812, this project named HoloMedical3D is coordinated by the UK and lasts from December 2015 to November 2017.

This project is part of open disruptive innovation scheme of ICT, and was implemented through the SME instrument.

GENIUS

© Gaia/ESA/DPAC

On 14 September 2016 ESA (European Space Agency) published the first data release of GAIA, the biggest archive of celestial objects of our galaxy ever collected.

The project GENIUS, funded by FP7, plays an important role in the GAIA data exploitation. It will offer the raw database of GAIA to the scientific community in a comprehensible and ordered archive.

The project is coordinated by the University of Barcelona passed its half-life in 2015. The total budget allocated to GENIUS is more than €3 million, with the EU contribution of €2.5 million.

This project is part of the Space line of action of LEIT.

To sum up, LEIT is part of the Industrial Leadership pillar of H2020. It is designed to contribute to boosting competitiveness, creating jobs and supporting growth across Europe. It aims at new and breakthrough technologies.

LEIT supports collaborative research and especially for the Public-Private Partnerships line of action. It encourages academic research labs and SMEs to partner. So, if you are tempted to partner in the framework of Public-Private Partnerships, don’t hesitate to check out Scientist database for finding your partners.