Annex 5
Scoping Paper for
Information and Communication Technologies
Important Notice: Working Document
This paper is a working document. It is sent to the Programme Committee for the Horizon 2020
Specific Programme for discussion in the context of the preparation of the Horizon 2020 Work
Programme 2016-2017. As such, information and descriptions of activities indicated in this
document may not appear in the adopted Work Programme 2016-2017, and likewise, new elements
may be introduced.
1
Context
Process
The orientations outlined below were identified during the course of a three-month period in
the second quarter of 2014 with the following inputs:
 the draft reports of the CONNECT Advisory Forum covering general Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) orientations for Work Programme 2016-2017 and
the strategy on Internet of Things;
 a broad range of consultations of external stakeholders including industry (Technology
Platforms, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) associations, Electronics Leaders Group
etc.), the research community and civil society;
 the results of the first Horizon 2020 calls;
 a communication on Big Data (COM(2014)442 - Towards a thriving data-driven
economy - 2 July 2014).
As consultations are still ongoing, the orientations provided below may still be modified and
refined.
Current context and objective
Digital technologies are changing the world by empowering the end-users and customers,
enabling innovative business models and modifying the value chains and networks in all
sectors. President Designate J.C. Juncker has announced that he wanted to be "Europe’s first
digital Commission President to bring about a digital single market at the service of Europe’s
citizens and of growth and jobs for the whole continent".
There is a general sense that we are only at the start of the digital and hyperconnected era and
that we must make better use of the great opportunities offered by digital technologies. Big –
technology and usage-led – changes are yet to come as the pace of technologies and service
innovation accelerates. New opportunities brought by the bridging of the physical and virtual
worlds, through the "Internet of Things" (IoT), High Performance Computing (HPC), Big
Data, mobile connectivity or robots and cyborgs are examples of such tech-driven
transformations.
The objective for Work Programme 2016-2017 is to accelerate this transformation by
investing in world-class research and innovation in the field and by promptly transforming
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knowledge assets into business successes and responsible solutions for Europe's most urgent
sustainability and societal challenges.
Areas covered in the previous Work Programme 2014-2015
The work programme part on 'Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies Information and Communication Technologies' (LEIT-ICT) in 2014-2015 has provided
support to four contractual PPPs (cPPP) (in 5G communications, Robotics, Photonics and
Factories of the Future (FoF)), one Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) in 'Electronic
Components and Systems' (ECSEL – so-called "Airbus of Chips").
Beyond these major initiatives, research and innovation activities for Cyber-Physical Systems
and Micro- and Nano-Electronics and Organic and Printed Electronics have complemented
the higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL) activities of the JTI ECSEL and new strands
have focussed on low-power computing.
In the Future Internet area, beyond the 5G PPP, research and innovation activities have
spanned from networking, to cloud computing, to activities to enhance distributed software
development, to the provision of experimental facilities for testing and validation of new
solutions, to the innovative use of social platforms and the support to web entrepreneurs.
In the Content area, Big Data has started to consolidate, with other actions focusing on the
support to technologies for content generation, learning and teaching including gamification,
multilingual translation and new ways for human-computer interactions.
Additional activities of more cross-cutting or horizontal nature have also been included such
as research on digital security and on the IoT. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
and Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) aspects have been thoroughly included in all
relevant areas with a hub in the "Human-centric Digital Age" topic.
Activities have been organised around two main calls, one in 2014 and one in 2015. These
have been supplemented by two calls for cooperation with Japan and Brazil and one for
support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) via the SME Instrument targeted at
Open Disruptive Innovation (ODI) in ICT.
2
Strategic orientations for 2016-2017
In the next programming period, the work programme part on LEIT-ICT will:
Consolidate the innovation drive
Pursuing the change initiated under Work Programme 2014-2015, it will continue to
promote a more innovation-oriented mind-set among participants. This will be done
through three major axes:
a) Supporting core ICT industries through roadmap-based PPPs
The work will contribute to maintaining and developing the technology leading
edge in key areas such as electronics, photonics, embedded systems, computing,
robotics or network technologies and systems, in which the EU has and should
keep major strengths.
The ECSEL Joint Undertaking on electronic components and systems and the
contractual PPPs (on 5G Infrastructure, Robotics, Photonics, Manufacturing
technologies /FoF) will continue to be cornerstones for this strategy. A new cPPP
on Big Data is expected to be launched during October 2014.
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Work on advanced computing and relevant parts of the work on photonics and
components and systems will be tightly coordinated with developments on HPC
carried out under the Excellence pillar (FETHPC) and in particular with the HPC
PPP.
b) Facilitating disruptive innovation
The innovation capacity will be further supported through a strengthening of the
'Open and Disruptive Innovation' topic directed towards SMEs (up from 5% to 8%
of the budget for the two years) and through the new open call on 'Fast Track to
Innovation' (FTI). All available demand-side instruments and some accompanying
measures will continue to be exploited in order to reinforce the involvement of end
users, support digital entrepreneurship, strengthen support to start-ups and SMEs
and as a result more effectively embed innovation in LEIT-ICT.
c) Introducing new cross-cutting actions and reinforcing large scale piloting in realworld environments
New cross-cutting initiatives combining different technologies such as internet,
components, big data, cloud or advanced computing and linking them up to use
cases in societal challenges will create major opportunities for innovation, help
develop new industries and ensure greater impact of EU action.
They should both facilitate the integration of various technological building blocks
to establish new value chains and enable validation of technologies in particular
contexts, demonstrating their added-value. The resulting transversal projects will
be an effective way to better bridge the LEIT, excellence and societal challenges
parts of Horizon 2020.
Creativity is a vertical goal under Horizon 2020, but is emerging as a success
factor in many fields of innovation. Working at the nexus between Technology,
Innovation, Science, Art, Design and Architecture, we begin to see opportunities
for piloting collaboration across many PPPs and other fields.
A Focus Area is proposed addressing 'Internet of Things' which is at the
intersection of the networking/computing/data infrastructure, critical to the
transformation of all sectors.
Ensure the supply of future technological building blocks
Roadmap-based PPPs will be complemented by more exploratory research activities
within each area. This will include advanced research in areas of next generation of
components and systems not yet mature enough to be picked up by the ECSEL Joint
Undertaking, the HPC cPPP or the Photonics21 cPPP and on micro- and nanoelectronics
research at lower TRLs.
It will also cover Advanced Computing and aspects of Future Internet R&I not covered
in the 5G PPP such as disruptive research and support to innovation infrastructures,
cloud computing and software.
Finally, in the content and knowledge area, additional measures will complement the Big
Data cPPP with the development of novel technologies for the creative industry and the
learning sector.
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Embed security and responsible innovation in all activities
Digital security and privacy as well as RRI are aspects which have to be taken into
account throughout LEIT-ICT. They both need to respond to the specific requirements of
each area and to address more generic aspects.
Reinforce the international dimension of the LEIT-ICT
In addition, LEIT-ICT will contribute to a focused international strategy through a
limited number of coordinated calls with Brazil, Japan and South Korea on a set of
specific topics, a targeted call to the developing countries in Africa and the ASEAN
group, as well as support actions.
The main areas for investment in 2016-2017 are:
2.1
A new generation of components and systems
Electronics (including Organic and Printed Electronics), microsystems and cyberphysical systems underpin innovation and value creation across the economy. This ICT
challenge is driven by the "Smart Everywhere" vision: core ICT devices that were so far
confined to boxes (PCs, smartphones, tablets, etc..) are increasingly embedded in all
types of artefacts, making our homes, offices, factories, cars, trains, public spaces, cities
and also our clothes "smarter".
A critical path in future developments will be the "co-design" approach across vertical
value chains from nano-electronics and smart integrated systems up to embedded
software and cyber-physical systems.
This ICT challenge focuses on two high level objectives:
a) Building the basis for the next generation of components and systems supporting the
"Smart Everywhere" vision through advanced research in emerging fields and in
areas along the full computing continuum not yet mature enough to be picked up by
the ECSEL Joint Undertaking. Activities may include advanced cyber-physical
systems, wearables, thin, organic and printable electronics as well as micro-nanobio-systems including micro-robotics smart systems integration and high
performance computing.
b) Supporting the organic growth of the "Smart Everywhere" ecosystem building on a
tighter integration of competences across the full electronics components and
systems value chain. This may include the establishment of "reference zones" for
large scale testing of components and systems technologies in "Smart Everywhere"
applications.
2.2
Advanced computing and Cloud Computing
A. Advanced Computing: the move towards low-power consumption for embedded
systems, mobile devices, desktops or even data and supercomputing centres is a
key and structural evolution of computing. The demand for low-power scalable
micro-server systems built on heterogeneous many-core chips is intensifying
across all computing market segments and it will underpin progress across the
whole computing spectrum. Europe's potential is particularly high in embedded
computing and we need to turn it into a concrete success on the market. The work
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will be closely coordinated with relevant activities on FETHPC. The key
challenges to be addressed are:
a) Supporting research and innovation at the level of scalable low power microserver systems, which could also be clustered at large scale to become a
supercomputer or a Cloud;
b) Providing the most important European application communities with
innovative customised self-contained and integrated software environments
supporting higher programming productivity and better optimisation along
parameters like energy, performance, reliability, price and better balancing
computing power, data efficiency and network connectivity;
c) Stimulating innovation through the adoption of emerging advanced computing
technologies in novel cyber-physical systems applications in emerging “Smart
X” (Houses, Factories, Cities ….) markets.
B. Mastering the evolution of Cloud Computing is essential to achieve a connected
Digital Single Market. A recent trend in cloud computing is the move towards new
paradigms (heterogeneous, federated, distributed clouds) as opposed to the current
centralised model, with tight interactions between the computing and networking
infrastructures. This "inter-cloud" model responds to the high performance
requirements posed by challenging new domains, such as: large-scale IoT systems,
big data and software-defined data-centres.
Key activities to be addressed are:
a) Supporting the European Cloud Computing Strategy, the focus is on fostering
innovation through an increased take-up of cloud computing services by two
strategic target communities: SMEs/start-ups and public administrations (at
national, regional and municipal levels).
b) Experimentation facilities for cloud testing, validation and demonstration, in
particular with a view to contributing towards interoperability and
standardisation of the "inter-cloud" model.
c) The evolution towards New paradigms: fog computing – deployment and
management of decentralised cloud infrastructures, densely interconnected.
2.3
Future Internet
Internet has become an engine for innovation, economic growth, job creation and social
progress. It is accelerating innovation, reshaping established industries, facilitating new
ways of doing business, and transforming social behaviours. At the same time, this
increasing diversification of usage patterns and of applications, is posing stronger
requirements on the underlying networking and computing infrastructures.
The aim is to provide an integrated response to the technology challenges and to the
innovation needs, in order to position Europe at the forefront of the Internet
developments.
The Future Internet challenge focuses on four complementary and interrelated areas:
a) Networks, where the 5G PPP industry roadmap is the European response to the 5G
research that has emerged as a global issue for industry competitiveness over the
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last year. The work will facilitate early deployment by reinforcing demonstration
and validation aspects of the research work supported under the current Work
Programme. This may be complemented by disruptive research and support to
innovation infrastructures.
b) Software Technologies, responding to the need for more flexible, reliable, secure
and efficient software.
c) Experimental in large-scale or real-life environments, infrastructures for validating
Future Internet technologies, products and services and their application to related
areas.
d) Innovation, supporting the emergence and nurturing of innovation ecosystems
supporting Web entrepreneurship, bottom-up innovation and social collaboration.
2.4
Content
The challenge is to develop solutions to improve creation, management and use
(distribution and consumption) of data, content and knowledge for all. In addition to the
promising area of Big Data, the development of novel technologies for the creative and
media industry and the learning sector should be further supported, so that Europe can
seize the opportunities offered by the evolution towards a knowledge economy and
society. Important benefits are expected both in terms of wellbeing of citizens and
socio-economic progress through new business opportunities and through more
innovative public services.
The support to the area of content technologies and information management will be
structured around three value chains:
a) The data value chain, with research and innovation activities in the areas of Big
Data, implementing the cPPP proposed by the Commission, and machine
translation; the work will be coordinated with relevant activities on FETHPC. The
cPPP on Big Data will address research and innovation on a broad range of
scientific and technical aspects related to Big Data, such as analytics, software,
hardware, security, privacy, interfaces and data management, as well as the
integration, validation, demonstration and deployment of Big Data technologies
through large-scale pilots in candidate sectors selected by the industry.
b) The content value chain, which covers technologies for digital content creation and
management, the issue of accessibility to digital content for all as well as the nexus
of creativity-enhancing practices around innovative design, architecture, arts and
technology.
c) The knowledge value chain, aiming at developing advanced knowledge and learning
technologies, including gaming and gamification.
2.5
Robotics and autonomous systems
The aim is to endow robots and artefacts with additional perception, learning,
adaptation, manipulation and autonomy capabilities enabling them to achieve a wider
range of tasks and functionalities and to interact and collaborate more safely and easily
with humans be it in the factory, at home, in hospitals, on the road or any other location.
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This should allow Europe to maintain and strengthen its position as leading provider of
industrial and professional service robotics (with 35% and 65% of market shares as
target) and to regain position in the emerging market of domestic service robotics. It
will also ensure the wider use of robotics across many economic sectors. This is crucial
to maintain and grow in Europe a competitive manufacturing sector employing millions
of people. Further progress in robots is also essential to offer new and unique solutions
to societal challenges ranging from ageing to health, security, transport, energy and
environment.
The support to the area of robotics will follow the Strategic Research Agenda defined
under the SPARC cPPP. It will cover industrial and service robotics and underpinning
cognitive systems research for autonomous systems. Actions will address technology
progress and its exploitation in innovative robotics products and services as well as
support to the wider uptake of robotics and autonomous systems. Usability issues as
well as ethical, legal and social aspects will be addressed.
2.6
ICT Key Enabling Technologies
Micro & nano-electronics and photonics, the two ICT key enabling technologies
(KETs) provide, with the other KETs (nanotechnology, biotechnology, advanced
materials and advanced manufacturing), the basis for innovation in a wide range of
products across all industrial sectors.
The objective is to maintain and increase Europe's position at the forefront in the
design, technology development and manufacturing of these technologies and to
strengthen the competitiveness and market leadership of the related industries.
A. The focus for micro- and nanoelectronics is on advanced explorative research at
lower TRLs to stay at the forefront of industry-relevant state-of-the-art
technological developments and provide users (including SMEs in all sectors,
whether low or high tech) and researchers with access to world-class design and
production infrastructure. The work may include:
a) the development of new approaches to scale functional performance of
information processing substantially beyond Moore's Law predictions
("Beyond CMOS");
b) the development of the "More than Moore" technology track to increase
functionalities and capabilities;
c) technologies for further miniaturisation.
Coordination with the ECSEL JTI will be ensured as the results of the projects will
provide the essential basis for further development towards market-readiness
within the context of later ECSEL projects. Work will also be coordinated with
relevant activities on FETHPC.
B. Photonics will focus on improving the technological and manufacturing
capabilities and the innovation potential of the photonics industry in Europe. The
support to the area will follow the Strategic Research Agenda defined under the
Photonics cPPP, based on 8 years of a well- structured community and close
cooperation between industry, research and academia. The main objectives for
2016-2017 are:
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a) improving the technological and manufacturing capabilities and the innovation
potential of photonics companies with special emphasis on SMEs (both
technology providers and end-users);
b) fostering the wide diffusion of photonics technologies in many industry
sectors, such as high performance computing and extending the range of
markets;
c) developing new integrating activities across the value chain for specific
targeted applications, in particular with end-users in order to more rapidly
deliver innovative solutions to societal challenges and to the market place (to
bridge the "valley of death");
d) providing access to photonics expertise, capacities and production facilities to
a broad range of players, in particular SMEs;
e) encouraging the wide deployment of intelligent lighting systems in EU cities
and the broad penetration of SSL in Europe and contributing to an energyefficient Europe.
2.7
Manufacturing (Factory of the Future)
Manufacturing is still the driving force of the European economy. Manufacturing
activity in Europe provides about 20% of all jobs (more than 30 million persons) in 25
different industrial sectors and over 2 million companies, largely dominated by SMEs.
Advanced Manufacturing technologies have been identified as a priority action of the
EC industrial policy to foster competitiveness and economic growth.
This area is part of the cPPP FoF, which is co-managed by LEIT-ICT and 'Leadership
in enabling and industrial technologies - Nanotechnologies, Advanced materials,
Biotechnology, Advanced manufacturing and processing' (LEIT-NMBP).
Since the potential of digitalisation to accelerate growth is expected to come primarily
from the use of ICT technologies by industries in the non-ICT sector, the objective is to
support the widespread use of ICT-based solutions for manufacturing across the
economy. This includes:
a) advances in simulation and data analytics;
b) cyber-physical systems, control, and the IoT;
c) high performance and cloud computing;
d) smart sensor and advanced laser technologies;
e) robotics.
These are the key enablers for Europe to be able to address the challenges related to
customised mass production, including through additive manufacturing, 'servitisation',
energy efficient production, highly dynamic innovation cycles, volatile consumer
demand and increased competition from low cost manufacturing countries.
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2.8
Cross-Cutting activities
2.8.1 Internet of Things
Projections indicate that more than 50 billion humans and objects will be connected to
the Internet by 2020. This activity aims at overcoming the fragmentation of verticallyoriented closed systems, architectures and application areas, and move towards open
systems and platforms that support multiple applications.
This activity should include targeted actions for standardisation, interoperability and
federation around IoT architectures and platforms, supporting innovation and
deployment, developing policies, avoiding fragmentation and engaging in an
international dialogue.
In addition to components and networking aspects relevant to IoT, research and
innovation actions will also focus on important areas like security and privacy by
default, semantic inter-operability, semi-autonomous object behaviour and interfacing
(including with augmented reality) and improving energy efficiency. Social
implications of a wide diffusion of IoT based systems will also be addressed.
2.9
Horizontal activities
The themes identified in this section cover activities that either provide additional
support to all LEIT-ICT areas or are, due to their nature, mainstreamed throughout all
activities.
a) Support to innovation
In addition to the innovation actions integrated in the thematic areas there will be
actions of more horizontal nature. In particular, the ODI and the FTI schemes will
be continued and actions directly supporting the take-up of innovation will be
included in the work programme. These actions can take the form of support to
Public Procurement of Innovation, still not widely used, the support to digital
entrepreneurship, the networking of innovators and a better use of Prizes.
b) Security
Specific digital security and privacy issues will be included in selected topics
focusing on embedding security and privacy within environments with particular
functional requirements such as low computing power, size, energy efficiency,
interconnectivity, or the volume of data. Security and privacy issues will be notably
covered in IoT, Big Data, Software Engineering and Cloud Computing.
Besides, dedicated actions will provide for fundamental security and privacy
building blocks (technologies or processes) which constitute a common requirement
in several LEIT-ICT objectives. The scope should be industry-driven and the
expected impact of the actions should focus on enabling the LEIT-ICT objectives'
own goals. One such dedicated action will address metrics, assurance and
certification of security and/or privacy requirements.
Last but not least, proper coordination will be done with the activities included in
the Societal Challenge 'Secure societies – Protecting freedom and security of Europe
and its citizens', where validation and piloting will be done across several
environments or use-cases.
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c) Responsible Research and Innovation, Social Sciences and Humanities and
Creativity
The development and deployment of ICTs induce pervasive and radical changes in
our lives. SSH - spanning economic to social and creative expertise - are critical to
explore these technologically-induced changes.
Specific attention is to be given to RRI if we want the results of research and
innovation programmes to lead to a sustainable development and a human-centric
society. In our hyper-connected era, RRI fosters innovation by pro-actively
addressing risks and opportunities flowing from the synergies between societal and
technological innovations.
SSH are expected to contribute to R&I activities by addressing ethical, legal,
human, and social issues related to technological developments and by reframing
and updating the concepts, meanings and expectations arising from the deployment
of ICT technologies.
The approach for the Work Programme 2016-2017 is to continue to mainstream
both SSH and RRI aspects in relevant areas, like Big Data, IoT, Robotics, Photonics
and Cyber-security.
3
Translation into calls 2016-2017
Proposed Focus Area:
- Internet of Things
Priorities reflected in ICT calls:
- A new generation of components and systems
- Advanced computing and Cloud Computing
- Future Internet
- Content and Big Data
- Robotics and autonomous systems
- ICT Key Enabling Technologies
- Horizontal activities
Contribution to other Focus Areas or cross-challenge activities:
- Digital Security: Cyber security activities in LEIT-ICT
- Smart Cities: The Future Internet platform (FI-WARE), Smart Lighting1
- Automated road transport: Autonomous Vehicle / Robotics1
- Industry 2020 and Circular Economy: LEIT-ICT contribution to FoF
1
Contribution to these areas will relate to the need to ensure sufficient leverage and critical mass.
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Focus Area: Internet of Things
The Internet of Things constitutes the technological building block that can transform existing
industries and provide new innovative solutions in a number of societal challenges. Therefore,
in addition to the activities covered within LEIT-ICT (see section 2.8.1) cooperation with
other Priorities, and especially with Societal Challenges, is sought.
The establishment of a Focus Area will allow complementing technology developments with
large-scale pilots, thus demonstrating actual IoT solutions in real-life settings and making it
possible for providers to test user needs, user acceptance, business models and integration
modalities through direct experimentation and for users to innovate their services,
applications and solutions.
Potential integration environments for IoT include without being exhaustive:
- Smart living environments for ageing well
- Wearables
- Smart Energy, smart grid
- Smart Transportation and Mobility
- Smart Production Environments
- Connected hospital and smart operating rooms
- Smart Farming
- Autonomous vehicles
- Environmental monitoring and management
FI-WARE, developed in the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for
research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) within the ICT
Theme and now ready to be deployed is one of the candidate reference implementations that
could be exploited in these integration environments.
Confirmed commitments: LEIT-ICT, Societal Challenges 'Health, demographic change and
well-being' and 'Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials'
Main ICT calls
In addition to the call covering cross-cutting actions in Focus Areas, two major ICT calls one per year - will be organised. These two calls will cover the key orientations as identified
in section 2.
Other activities included in the calls will build on the first Research and Innovation actions
and the Co-ordination and Support Actions launched in 2014-2015. They will be organised
around priorities areas as in 2014-2015 according to the outline given in Section 2.
The support to the ECSEL JTI will continue.
Factory of the Future Call
The cPPP FoF call will continue on a yearly basis.
Coordinated calls with third countries
Coordinated calls with Brazil, Japan and Korea will be launched. Other targeted activities
with third countries may be launched as well.
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