The GENDEX mission consists of the development of the Pilot Innovation Gender and Diversity Index, providing consistent information (currently missing or fragmented) to startups, scaleups, corporates, the EIC, other investors and funding bodies, market actors and policy makers across Europe. The overall aim is to improve the availability of all talent, particularly female talent, to the EIC portfolio of projects and companies and the EU innovation ecosystem. For the first time ever, a G&D Index will be elaborated including a wide range of indicators related to gender but also to diversity factors covering all European Member States plus the U.K. GENDEX will review the existing baseline and access a high number of data sources, but it will bring a unique value by carrying out additional primary research both at quantitative and qualitative levels. Data sets will be assessed, gaps will be identified, a more standard-based approach to data will be suggested, all resulting in a richer definition of indicators and hence a G&D Index that will become a reference in Europe supporting evidence-based decision-making. A full report on the Index will be released with complementary material, including a web-based interactive dashboard that will enable smart data visualizations and a widget that will be used for company self-assessment and as a potential data collection tool. A wide dissemination, communication and awareness campaign will be implemented to ensure engagement and maximize the adoption of the G&D Index. The GENDEX consortium comprises a complementary set of recognized partners that includes IDC, European Women in VC and BluSpecs, authors of some of the key works in the field and also a guarantee of the best possible networks for stakeholder engagement. Such engagement will ultimately lead to maximization of the use of the G&D Index and hence, of its impact. GENDEX will also run a 2-phase validation with an experts’ group composed of at least 18 senior leaders.

Data-driven innovation is deeply transforming society and the economy. Although there are potentially enormous economic and social benefits this innovation also brings new challenges for individual and collective privacy, security, as well as democracy and participation. The main objective of the CSA e-SIDES is to complement the research on privacy-preserving big data technologies, by analysing, mapping and clearly identifying the main societal and ethical challenges emerging from the adoption of big data technologies, conforming to the principles of responsible research and innovation; setting up and organizing a sustainable dialogue between industry, research and social actors, as well as networking with the main Research and Innovation Actions and Large Scale Pilots and other framework programme projects interested in these issues. It will investigate stakeholders’ concerns, and collect their input, framing these results in a clear conceptual framework showing the potential trade-offs between conflicting needs and providing a basis to validate privacy-preserving technologies. It will prepare and widely disseminate community shared conclusions and recommendations highlighting the best way to ultimately build confidence of citizens and businesses towards big data and the data economy.

Global5G.org addresses the ICT-07 call as the EU led project dedicated to international technology advances in 5G, with a focus on: standardisation, regulations, & market verticals & identifying existing gaps in technology. A Collaboration web platform will showcase & monitor EU & international initiatives and joint R&I programmes with regard to 5G capabilities, standardisation, verticals, & related spectrum. Global5G.org analyses the sustainability strategies and identifies new business models, considering also private & public investments through pragmatic engagement drivers. Global5G.org will report on research findings taken to standardisation, testing validation to market uptake with a close eye on the vertical markets selected and mapping them into the right stakeholder groups. The Global5G.org consortium is domain-skilled & complementary. Trust-IT: Expert SME in communicating ICT innovation, engaging in ICT standards activities, developing ICT tools & go-to-market strategies. Aalto university: A Finnish multidisciplinary university takes an active role in shaping the 5G research agenda; IDC: Premier global provider of market intelligence, consumer technology market research, with over 1,100 analysts across the world; inno TSD: Experts in innovation management & technology transfer, international cooperation & EU & US focus on 5G key to involving multiple stakeholder groups. An influential External Advisory Group (EAG), passionate and competent around 5G technology supports the consortium. Main Outputs: Continuously updated technology radar & online catalogue & experimental platforms 5G PPP results through a collaboration web platform, a permanent international multi-stakeholder group, 3 market gathering workshops, 3 int. satellite events, 6 webinars, Roadmap on Int. cooperation & standardisation, 3 Strategic Research Agendas; a Common Reference Model for regulations, a sustained, international Business oriented Working Group.

Almost everyday we witness the rise of new cloud technologies, services and solutions. Despite the existing gap, with the US giants the European Cloud Community (ECC) is growing and leading the creation of Single Digital Market in Europe. Still, to strength such market, its fragmentation needs to be reduced. Beyond that, European market is largely dominated by SME that are struggling to adopt cloud services (beyond email and cloud storage) to innovate their business due to the lack of “cloud-culture” and trust toward cloud services. European Commission is leading a number of key actions (e.g. GDPR) to overcome these and other barriers, but it requires the help and the support of the ECC, in terms of a common technology vision, policies and recommendations. While strengthening the Digital Market is beyond the capabilities of European research funding programmes, a clear mandate is to lead the definition of the Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda for Cloud Computing that should provide recommendations and strategies to guide the future of European Cloud services and their market regulations. H-Cloud addresses this challenge by creating a sustainable forum of stakeholders representing the Cloud Computing research, industry and users with the aim to define a common vision for the future of Cloud Computing in Europe. Based on the outcomes of previous actions, H-Cloud will establish the ECC forum as a live community of organisations and individuals that will collaborate around different themes with the aim of addressing challenges and opportunities at research, technological, policy, standardisation and organisational level. The creation of a common vision on Cloud Computing, will be the key to unlock the potential of Cloud Computing to support the creation of a Digital Single Market. Through an open governance model and valuable incentives, H-Cloud will ensure that ECC Forum will outlast the project duration, becoming a valuable asset of the whole ECC.

UNLOCK CEI’s ambition is to UNLOCK the potential for accelerating the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT (CEI) computing continuum in Europe by focusing on the demand-side drivers and challenges to identify technology-driven innovation and business opportunities driving demand value chains. The project represents the CEI demand constituency; provide insights and guidance to the Horizon Europe R&D projects in this domain; and contribute to a proactive dialogue with the supply stakeholders to encourage the development of an open European CEI ecosystem. It focuses on emerging value chains where investment is needed to foster the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT continuum through the forthcoming CEI large scale pilots. This will ultimately foster European autonomy in the digital economy. The workplan is designed to provide early results to feed into the development of the HE Work Programme in 2023-24 based on the ongoing dialogue with the stakeholder ecosystem. The project pays specific attention to data governance issues, leveraging the relationship with industry-driven initiatives such as Gaia-X and CCAM (Connected, Co-operative & Automated Mobility) partnership. UNLOCK carries out a systematic assessment of the state of the open European CEI ecosystem and develop future market scenarios and related market pathways for the development of the open European CEI ecosystem. It will engage with industry stakeholders representing the most relevant industry value chains in Europe for CEI potential demand and develops a productive and effective interface between the demand constituency and the supply side, including the coordination of HE projects resulting from CL4-2021-DATA-01-05, CL4-2022-DATA-01-02, and CL4-2022-DATA-01-03 and Cluster 3 cybersecurity projects. It finally designs and implement a coordinated communication and dissemination strategy running throughout the lifetime of the project to create awareness about the whole of the European demand-side landscape.