FP7 Calls

Objective ICT-2007.4.1 (ICT-2007.4.3): Digital libraries and technology-enhanced
learning
Target outcome
For digital libraries
Medium term:
a) Large-scale European-wide digital libraries with innovative access services that
support communities of practice in the creation, interpretation and use of cultural and
scientific content, including multi-format and multi-source digital objects. They should be
combined with robust and scalable environments which include semantic-based search
capabilities and essential digital preservation features. Particular attention is given to costeffective
digitisation processes and to the use of digital resources in multilingual and
multidisciplinary contexts.
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Longer term:
b) Radically new approaches to digital preservation, such as those inspired by human
capacity to deal with information and knowledge, exploring the potential of advanced ICT
to automatically act on high volumes and dynamic and volatile digital content,
guaranteeing its preservation, keeping track of its evolving semantics and usage context
and safeguarding its integrity, authenticity and long term accessibility over time.
There is a specific focus on the creation of a network of centres of competence for digitisation
and preservation, building upon, pooling and upgrading existing resources in the Member or
Associated States.
For technology-enhanced learning
Medium term:
c) Responsive environments for technology-enhanced learning that motivate, engage and
inspire learners, and which can be embedded in the business processes and human
resources management systems of organisations. They support the transformation of
learning outcomes into permanent and valuable knowledge assets. Focus is on the mass individualisation
of learning experiences with ICT (contextualized and adaptable to age,
situations, culture, and learning abilities), through pedagogically-inspired solutions for
competency, skills and performance enhancement. Activities integrate pedagogical and
organisational approaches and exploit, where relevant, interactivity, collaboration and
context-awareness. Interdisciplinary research should deliver a convincing and
theoretically sound body of evidence as to which approaches are effective and under
which circumstances.
Longer term:
d) Adaptive and intuitive learning systems, able to learn and configure themselves
according to their understanding and experience of learners' behaviour. Cross-disciplinary
research on the synergies between learning and cognition in humans and machines should
lead to systems able to identify learner's requirements, intelligently monitoring progress,
capable of exploiting learners’ abilities in order to let them learn better, and able to give
purposeful and meaningful advice to both learners and teachers either for self-learning or
for learning in a collaborative environment.
Research on both themes of this objective is to be carried out by cross-disciplinary teams and
it should include empirical evaluation studies assessing the broader socio-economic context in
which technology is to be embedded.
Expected impact
• Unlocking people's and organisations' abilities to access content, master it, transfer it to
the desired contexts and preserve it over time. Widespread use of these resources in the
collaborative creation of cultural experiences.
• EU-wide migration of content to digital form involving memory institutions (libraries,
archives and museums), leveraging national initiatives, and resulting in a significant
increase of content available through digital libraries.
• Faster and more effective acquisition of knowledge, competences and skills, increased
knowledge worker productivity, and more efficient organisational learning processes.
Funding schemes
CP, NoE, CSA
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Indicative budget distribution12
ICT Call 1 - 52 M€:
- CP 44.5 M€ of which a minimum of 20 M€ to IP and a minimum of 10 M€ to STREP;
- NoE 5 M€;
- CSA 2.5 M€
ICT Call 3 - 50 M€:
- CP 42.5 M€ of which a minimum of 20 M€ to IP and a minimum of 10 M€ to STREP;
- NoE 5 M€;
- CSA 2.5 M€
Calls
FP7-ICT-2007-1; FP7-ICT-2007-3

Objective ICT-2009.4.2: Technology-Enhanced Learning
Target outcomes
a) Learning in the 21st Century: large-scale pilots for the design of the future classroom
(exploring both technology and teaching practices, for teachers and students, their
orchestration for specific, justified age groupings or subjects), supporting
individualisation, collaborations, creativity and expressiveness in more active, reflective
and independent learning activities. Research should address innovation in learning and
teaching, the underlining change processes, relevant new summative and formative
assessment methods and novel solutions supporting the active participation of a wider
community of stakeholders contributing to a student’s growth.
b) Reinforce the links between individual and organisational learning, and creativity:
innovative solutions embedding learning experiences in organisational processes and
practices, through systems embracing talent, knowledge, workflow, collaborative
innovation and competency management. Solutions should cover effectiveness of learning
content, new forms of collective intelligence and entail deeper understanding of the role of
ICT for creativity, informal learning and collaborations (IP). Research should also address
new ways of combining creative, cognitive and computational processes (STREP).
c) Innovative adaptive and intuitive systems for learning featuring affective and emotional
approaches, including related new forms of assessing learning outcomes as well as
feedback/guidance mechanisms (innovative diagnostic techniques) to the learner and the
teacher. Work may relate to serious games and immersive environments and include
advances in the combination of simulation, story telling, and collaborative learning. The
chosen field should be well justified in terms of learning efficacy.
d) Revolutionary learning appliances (including toys) and advanced cognitive tutors, able
to promote specific cognitive processing or abilities. Proposals should address: specific
social and learning problems; science, technology and maths; or specific tasks that impose
high cognitive demands.
e) Focused interdisciplinary networks on specific emerging trends (e.g. serious
games/mobility and learning), linking a limited set of established excellences and learning
labs, and including appropriate mechanisms for cross-fertilisation between disciplines.
FP7 Cooperation Work Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
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These networks should leverage national research activities and achieve demonstrable
visibility at international level.
f) Awareness building and knowledge management on the results of EU RTD projects in
the field; exploratory/roadmapping activities for fundamentally new forms of learning;
identification of Grand Challenges; socio-economic evaluations (including transfer and
scalability mechanisms, in education and for SMEs); establishment of a pan-European
network of living schools for validations, demonstrations and showcases.
Expected Impact
• More conducive, highly motivating and flexible learning places, supporting better
education, competency development and employability
• Increased empowerment of both learners and teachers through better adaptation to
individual learning needs
• Significant contribution to the global competitiveness of European players in a
consolidating market
• Leading edge research in Europe strengthened through restructuring of the
technology-enhanced learning research landscape. Leveraged impact of research
results.
Proposals must include a methodologically sound evaluation of their expected impact.
Funding schemes
a): IP; b): IP and STREP; c), d): STREP; e): NoE; f): CSA
Indicative budget distribution10
- IP/STREP: EUR 39 million with a minimum of 50% to IPs and a minimum of 30% to
STREPs
- NoE and CSA: EUR 10 million
Calls
ICT call 5

Objective ICT-2009.1.5: Networked Media and 3D Internet
Target outcomes
a) Content aware networks and network aware applications
- Architectures and technologies for converged and scalable networking and delivery of
multimedia content and services dynamically optimised with policies taking into account the
content and adaptation needs, the user contexts, requirements and social relational network for
a variety of contents, services that may include home management, applications, locations and
mobility scenarios. They enable multiple user roles as content producer, user or manager.
- Maintaining the integrity and quality of media across media life cycle to optimise quality of
experience in collaborative media creation and delivery scenarios, with optimised sharing,
storage, retrieval, fusion capabilities. Open architectures making the most of both the ever
increasing device/edge processing power and network bandwidth, especially for real time
highly demanding immersive collaborative environments (e.g. games). Enhancement of 2D
scalable video coding, multi view point coding, 3D coding that can achieve optimised
network awareness and device delivery are within scope.
b) 3D Media Internet
- Architectures and technologies for Future Media Internet and 3D processing enabling mass
distribution, caching, filtering, aggregation and networking of 3D content and enhanced user
quality of experience with optimised impact on the performance of the underlying processing
and networking platforms. Optimisation of real time rendering of complex scenes from
personalised user perspectives and minimisation of latency experienced through the network
and associated edge processing platforms.
- Technologies for 3D content representation with configuration/adaptation capabilities in
multiple virtual worlds, with user controlled management of ownership, identification,
trading, rights associated to presence in (possibly) multiple 3D domains.
- Architectures and technologies ensuring that 3D augmented worlds are tightly coupled to the
physical world, for commercial or social applications, beyond games.
c) Networked search and retrieval
- Networked technologies and architectures with repositories and cached content optimising
networked search, adaptation and access to relevant multimedia information composed of
several information sources, types and origins, including physical world event information. It
covers interaction with content, media-to-network and to (mobile) device dynamic adaptation,
search capabilities across distributed media systems and P2P networks, and adaptation to
context and to specific application domains.
- Adaptive technologies based on relevance or contextual and user feedback enabling
personalisation of multimedia networked search, as a function of user contexts, perception
and usage profile.
d) Immersive media experiences beyond HDTV and electronic cinema
End to end architectures for next generation multimedia and cinema experiences beyond
HDTV and current electronic and digital cinema with higher than today quality of experience,
based on technologies enabling higher frame rates, wider colour gamut, higher contrast range,
higher screen resolution, advanced version of spatialised sound, 3D capabilities, pervasive
FP7 Cooperation Work Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
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environments, immersive environments, innovative 3D/multi viewpoint coding methods.
Optimised end-to-end architectures should cope with the massive increase of throughput
expected to be created with the above applications.
e) Networks of Excellence to consolidate or establish European leadership in the fields
covered in a).
For b) Support to integration of foundational research capacities to establish forward-looking
3D and Media Internet research agendas. Support to promotion of multidisciplinary education
and sharing of research facilities.
For d) Integration of industry and academia research capacities to establish advanced research
agendas in the field and support the sharing of research facilities.
f) Support measures
i) For a), b) Support to collaboration including with national initiatives and/or third
countries, dissemination, research roadmaps, policy and socio-economic aspects,
organisation of scientific and/or policy events.
ii) For c) support to co-ordination of activities at EU level in the domain of multimedia
search, co-operation with third countries, research roadmaps and organisation of events of
policy or research nature.
Expected impact
• Reinforced positioning of industry in Europe in networking and delivery of
multimedia content and services, in 3D media Internet technologies, and in networked
search. Strengthened European industry in multimedia experiences beyond HDTV and
in electronic cinema.
• Wider uptake of networked and collaborative platforms based on a '3D media
Internet'.
• Global standards and European IPRs reflecting federated and coherent roadmaps.
• Wider market opportunities, including for content-related SMEs, arising from
innovative business and societal applications (e.g. games, entertainment, or education,
culture, and service creations) based on novel networked media technologies and
systems.
Funding schemes
a), b), c), d): IP, STREP; e): NoE; f): CSA
Indicative budget distribution10
- IP/STREP: EUR 70 million of which a minimum of 50% to IPs and a minimum of 30% to
STREPs
- NoE: EUR 6 million; CSA: EUR 4 million
Call
ICT call 4

Objective ICT-2011.1.5 Networked Media and Search Systems
The objective is to develop advanced digital media platforms and technologies that should: a)
overcome the inherent limitations of the Internet as a media delivery platform; b) make
available immersive and interactive media technologies providing users with more
sophisticated forms of media and enhanced experiences; c) empower users to search the
relevant media information corresponding to their usage and context requirements.
Target outcomes
a) Digital Media Delivery Platforms
- Architectures and technologies for networking and delivery of digital media, provided
through open environments enabling personalisation and high user involvement
capabilities.
- Technologies for automatic dynamic media adaptation to delivery platforms, either
network controlled or edge controlled, facilitating just-in-time and ad-hoc media objects
adaptation and fusion. Novel architectures to allow for co-operation between media
overlays delivery and underlying networks, i.e. optimisation of available infrastructure
capacity and of media delivery. Higher quality video/audio to the web relying on
content-aware networking, low latency for real time applications and quality-of-service
guarantees. The work covers fixed and mobile environments as well as a multiplicity of
user contexts, within or outside of the home / office.
- Novel platforms for customised and context adapted hybrid broadcast internet services
enabling new user behaviours.
b) End-to-end Immersive and Interactive Media Technologies
- Immersive media capture, representation, encoding, adaptation to user devices,
production and compression technologies and tools, prosumer-friendly and with
automation and collaboration features. Evolution towards a mix of real and virtual
worlds with improved interaction capabilities as applied in games; increased media
quality as well as multimodality and hypermedia augmentation implemented through
open environments and interfaces
- Technologies and tools to enable end-to-end diffusion and efficient distribution of 3D,
immersive, interactive media over the Internet. Improvement of quality of user
experience: surrounding, immersive and interactive environments on the move, at home
and at work, including quality and resolution beyond the current HD capabilities.
c) Multimedia Search
Scalable, multimodal, real-time media (image, audio, and video including 3D media
objects) search and retrieval technologies deployed over open platforms. Search engines
that facilitate and personalize fast access to web-scale digital media objects, beyond text
based indexing and retrieval capabilities of currently available search technologies.
User-centric semantic search by effective relevance feed back. Dynamic modelling of
digital objects with searchable features, natural interaction and navigation capabilities,
intelligent caching/ storing relying on the sharing of network resources. Integration of
novel search technologies in networked platforms and applications, especially for
mobile, enterprise and location-based search. Fast search targeting virtual information
and information captured from the physical world.
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d) Coordination and Support Actions
- Coordination of related national and EU-wide R&D programmes/activities and
cooperation between the relevant authorities
- Dissemination of results and organisation of scientific and/or policy events.
- Research and technology development roadmaps and stakeholder coordination.
- Analysis of international research agendas and roadmaps, pre-standardisation initiatives
and preparation of concrete initiatives/projects for international cooperation.
Expected impact
• Reinforced positioning of the European ICT and digital media industry, and wider market
opportunities, in particular for technology-providing SME's.
• Digital media/service platforms aggregators provided with innovative offers for
immersive, interactive and personalised digital media.
• Effective contribution to global standards and European IPRs reflecting federated and
coherent roadmaps.
• Greater creativity stimulated through technologies and tools to
capture/produce/search/exchange professional and user generated immersive and
interactive digital media content.
• Education and professional training opportunities enhanced through immersive
environments and interactivity.
• Reduced carbon footprint through use of immersive platforms for online video
applications (e.g. telepresence)
Funding schemes
a), b), c): IP and STREP; d): CSA
Indicative budget distribution10
- IP and STREP: 68 M€ of which a minimum of 50% to IPs and 30% to STREPs
- CSA: 2M€
Call
FP7-ICT-2011-7

Objective ICT-2011.5.5 ICT for smart and personalised inclusion
Target Outcome
a) ICT tools, infrastructures and devices for mainstream accessibility in daily life: The
objective is to support seamlessly accessible solutions and services for persons with
disabilities, in various and changing settings (e.g. home, workplace, public transport,
shops, education or medical centres, other public spaces, both indoors and outdoors). The
research projects should focus on one or more of: 1) Virtual reality and simulation
24 User oriented research approach will validate socio-economic impacts in the concrete application areas. E.g.
for robotics the measure is to demonstrate that robotics assistance can be a cost-effective alternative to
institutionalised care while improving quality of life.
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approaches for developers to design daily life environments and explore potential user
interactions building on previous work on 'virtual user'; and prototypes for ambient
intelligence multimedia infrastructure (supported by networked sensors, terminals, etc)
interacting with users' interoperable and portable IT devices; 2) Personalisable softwarebased
assistive solutions supported through online/cloud-based platforms. This research
should address generic and open solutions responsive to user physical, cognitive and
mental capacities, preferences, and the ICT already available to the user. .
b) Intelligent and social computing for social interaction, user empowerment and
learning or skills acquisition for people at risk of exclusion: Advanced ICT-enabled
solutions -including social, affective and persuasive computing, and possibly serious
games - for the empowerment of people with disabilities or people at risk of social
exclusion, including people with low literacy, cognitively or mentally challenged, or with
anti-social behaviour, which may include young people. This will aim at self-learning ICT
solutions which take into consideration user profiling and feedback, in view to deliver
personalised services and enhanced participation in work, education or training, social
interaction, etc. Special attention will be paid to information representation, information
appropriation and learning by users, and social dynamics, considering also intermediaries
supporting final users.
c) Brain-Neural Computer Interfaces (BNCI) for assisting people with disabilities:
Building on previous research, the BNCI foci now are: adapting BNCI sensor technology
for out-of-the-lab use, fusion of BNCI into multi-sensor and multi-modal interfaces
solutions, and data/pattern analysis for interaction with ICT-enabled devices and
applications. Modularisation, interoperability, and smart processing of BNCI/sensor
inputs for increased efficiency (e.g. through predictive approaches) are expected to be key
aspects. Work on interoperability of BNCI devices, in particular, should consider potential
contribution to standardisation. Research should also explore possible synergies with
mainstream application domains, e.g. in gaming, virtual reality or alternative user-to-ICT
input in complex multi-task settings.
d) Coordination and Support Actions to develop: i) a cooperation framework with Latin
America on ICT for skills and empowerment of disadvantaged social groups and local
communities, and on ICT for improving personal autonomy of people at risk of exclusion.
ii) a cooperation framework at European or international level for promoting the
development of accessibility guidance for advanced technologies, services and contents
(including evaluation methodologies), with special focus on the internet, and for setting
research agendas on e-accessibility.
In a), b) and c) it is essential to thoroughly address user requirements relating to issues such as
privacy and other ethical aspects, safety, security and trust, and identity management. It is
also very important to involve final and intermediary users at all stages of the research (from
design to validation) while, especially for b), facilitating active user participation in any step
of the innovation process.
Projects will consider viable business models and applications with high potential and
measurable impact on individual quality of life and/or on society at large. Strong involvement
of service providers (whether from commercial or public sectors) and other industry is
expected. The projects should take account of existing standards and aim at their further
development.
Projects should include comprehensive expertise while avoiding an excessive number of
partners.
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Expected impact
For a) and b)
• Significant progress on accessibility of ICT, advance human-machine interaction and
intelligent computing by strong involvement of final and intermediary users.
• Increased user ability, notably of persons with disabilities, to carry out daily life activities
and to interact with ICT.
• Improved competitiveness of Europe mainstream ICT industry, including through
appropriate pre-standardisation.
• Higher levels of user empowerment and richer social interactions through personalised
web-based assistive and social computing solutions.
For c)
• More advanced proof of concept of BNCI technologies and reinforced perspectives for
mainstream exploitation.
• Augmented human capabilities through wider use of BNCI.
For objective 5.5.d)
• Reinforced international cooperation on ICT to support social inclusion and development.
• Common strategic visions and RTD roadmaps between relevant key stakeholders in ICT
accessibility.
Funding schemes
a): IP (up to 3 IPs); b): IP/STREP (up to 1 IP and STREPs); c): IP/STREP (up to 1 IP and
STREPs); d): At least one CSA for each area
Indicative budget distribution10
IP/STREP: EUR 33 million with indicative targets of a) EUR 15 million; b) EUR 9 million; c)
EUR 9 million
CSA: EUR 2 million
Call
FP7-ICT-2011-7

Objective ICT-2011.8.1 Technology-enhanced learning
Target outcomes
a) Technology Enhanced Learning systems endowed with the capabilities of human
tutors. Research should advance systems’ capabilities to react to learners’ abilities and
difficulties, and provide systematic feedback based on innovative ways of interpreting the
user's responses - particularly in relation to deep/shallow reasoning and thinking. Research
should advance systems’ understanding and use of the appropriate triggers (praise,
constructive comments, etc.) influencing learning. The systems shall improve learners’ metacognitive
skills, understand and exploit the underlying drivers of their learning behaviours.
Solutions should exploit advances in natural language interaction techniques (dialogues), in
rich and effective user interfaces and should have a pedagogically sound, smart and
personalised instructional design (STREP).
b) Educational technologies for science, technology and maths: (b1) Supporting students
to understand and construct their personal conceptual knowledge and meaning of scientific,
technological and/or mathematical subjects. Technological solutions should take the learners
through the complexity of a subject, activating and feeding curiosity and reasoning, and
support the creative applications of the theory. (STREP; NoE) (b2) Supporting Europeanwide
federation and use of remote laboratories and virtual experimentations for learning and
teaching purposes. The service shall enable online interactive experimentations by accessing
and controlling real instruments, or using simulated solutions. Open interfacing components
for easy plug-and-play of remote and virtual labs should be made available to stimulate the
growth of the network of labs. Research shall include work on the user interfaces that mediate
the complexities of creation and usability of experiments, for specific pedagogical contexts in
primary and secondary schools and higher education, including at university level. This part
of the target outcome should be pursued by IPs that include large scale pilots.
c) Advanced solutions for fast and flexible deployment of learning opportunities at the
workplace (targeting, in particular, SMEs): enable faster, situated, just-in-time up-/reskilling,
and lower the costs/efforts of developing and maintaining quality instructional
material to be used in continuing education and training processes. Solutions should aim at
creating a networking environment that fosters cross-organisational learning and that will help
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SMEs to adopt and sustain effective learning attitudes. Proposals must include research on
novel business training models, and on how to overcome organisational, inter-organisational
and individual barriers to widespread adoption of the developed technologies. This target
outcome focuses specifically on the needs of SMEs in sectors without an established tradition
in the adoption of learning solutions and facing innovation and competitiveness challenges
deriving from efficiency needs or new processes/products development. Proposals should
include SMEs and relevant professional associations. SMEs shall also be the final users of the
solutions, and be actively involved in clearly justified, representative and sizeable pilots. (IP)
d) Computational tools fostering creativity in learning processes: innovative tools
encouraging nonlinear, non-standard thinking and problem-solving, as well as the exploration
and generation of new knowledge, ideas and concepts, or new associations between existing
ideas or concepts. The aim is to support people’s learning as well as the formation and
evolution of creative teams by developing technological solutions that facilitate questioning
and challenging, foster imaginative thinking, widen the perspectives and make purposeful
connections with people and their ideas. (STREP)
e) Exploratory activities for fundamentally new forms of learning through ICT;
establishment of a pan-European network of living schools for validations, demonstrations
and showcases. (CSA)
For all target outcomes, projects should include a scientifically sound evaluation component.
Expected impact
• Unlock the potential of the individual by a stronger and smarter adaptation and
personalization of educational technologies.
• Significantly higher level of effective, personalised, ICT-based tutoring, leading to its
wide-spread penetration in schools and at home.
• Higher level of engagement of youngsters in science, technology and maths, through
novel educational software and opening up opportunities to access and use of laboratory
equipments and virtual experiments.
• Faster, more timely and more cost-effective up/re-skilling through learning technologies
and their sustained adoption by SMEs.
• Emergence of new learning models, including models invoking creativity
Funding schemes
a) STREP; b) STREP/NoE (b1) and IP (b2); c) IP; d) STREP; e) CSA
Indicative budget distribution10
Call
FP7-ICT-2011-8

Objective ICT-2011.8.2 ICT for access to cultural resources
Target outcomes
a) Technologies for creating personalised and engaging digital cultural experiences:
research should address adaptability of systems for personalised interaction with users.
Research should investigate technologies that add value and new meaning to cultural
digital artefacts and improve user engagement with cultural resources, for example through
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smart, context-aware artefacts and enhanced interfaces with the support of features like
story-telling, gaming and learning.
b) Open and extendable platforms for building services that support use of cultural
resources for research and education: research should explore seamless and universal,
but also customisable access to digital cultural resources across a wide range of technical
formats (sound, image, 3D, text), including cultural resources/objects with diverse
characteristics (e.g. languages, temporal, spatial). Usability should be demonstrated
through large scale pilots and specific contextual use cases (e.g. functionalities that support
active research, creation of new knowledge, meaning extraction...).
c) Improved and affordable technologies for the digitisation of specialised forms of
cultural resources, including tools for virtual reconstructions: the focus is on
innovative approaches for capturing, imaging, 3D (including movement) modelling,
resulting in enriched virtual surrogates which convey and embed knowledge beyond the
original object.
d) Awareness raising of research results through road mapping and support to validation
and take up of such results in practical settings.
Expected impact
• Affordability and widespread availability of tools and services for releasing the economic
potential of cultural heritage in digital form and for adding value to cultural content in
educational, scientific and leisure contexts;
• Wider range of users of cultural resources in diverse real and virtual contexts and
considerably altered ways to experience culture in more personalised and adaptive
interactive settings;
Funding schemes
a) STREP/IP b) IP c) STREP d) CSAs
Indicative Budget distribution10
Call
FP7-ICT-2011-9

Objective ICT-2011.1.5 Networked Media and Search Systems

The objective is to develop advanced digital media platforms and technologies that should: a)
overcome the inherent limitations of the Internet as a media delivery platform; b) make
available immersive and interactive media technologies providing users with more
sophisticated forms of media and enhanced experiences; c) empower users to search the
relevant media information corresponding to their usage and context requirements.
Target outcomes
a) Digital Media Delivery Platforms
- Architectures and technologies for networking and delivery of digital media, provided
through open environments enabling personalisation and high user involvement
capabilities.
- Technologies for automatic dynamic media adaptation to delivery platforms, either
network controlled or edge controlled, facilitating just-in-time and ad-hoc media objects
adaptation and fusion. Novel architectures to allow for co-operation between media
overlays delivery and underlying networks, i.e. optimisation of available infrastructure
capacity and of media delivery. Higher quality video/audio to the web relying on
content-aware networking, low latency for real time applications and quality-of-service
guarantees. The work covers fixed and mobile environments as well as a multiplicity of
user contexts, within or outside of the home / office.
- Novel platforms for customised and context adapted hybrid broadcast internet services
enabling new user behaviours.
b) End-to-end Immersive and Interactive Media Technologies
- Immersive media capture, representation, encoding, adaptation to user devices,
production and compression technologies and tools, prosumer-friendly and with
automation and collaboration features. Evolution towards a mix of real and virtual
worlds with improved interaction capabilities as applied in games; increased media
quality as well as multimodality and hypermedia augmentation implemented through
open environments and interfaces
- Technologies and tools to enable end-to-end diffusion and efficient distribution of 3D,
immersive, interactive media over the Internet. Improvement of quality of user
experience: surrounding, immersive and interactive environments on the move, at home
and at work, including quality and resolution beyond the current HD capabilities.

c) Multimedia Search
Scalable, multimodal, real-time media (image, audio, and video including 3D media
objects) search and retrieval technologies deployed over open platforms. Search engines
that facilitate and personalize fast access to web-scale digital media objects, beyond text
based indexing and retrieval capabilities of currently available search technologies.
User-centric semantic search by effective relevance feed back. Dynamic modelling of
digital objects with searchable features, natural interaction and navigation capabilities,
intelligent caching/ storing relying on the sharing of network resources. Integration of
novel search technologies in networked platforms and applications, especially for
mobile, enterprise and location-based search. Fast search targeting virtual information
and information captured from the physical world.

d) Coordination and Support Actions
- Coordination of related national and EU-wide R&D programmes/activities and
cooperation between the relevant authorities
- Dissemination of results and organisation of scientific and/or policy events.
- Research and technology development roadmaps and stakeholder coordination.
- Analysis of international research agendas and roadmaps, pre-standardisation initiatives
and preparation of concrete initiatives/projects for international cooperation.
Expected impact
• Reinforced positioning of the European ICT and digital media industry, and wider market
opportunities, in particular for technology-providing SME's.
• Digital media/service platforms aggregators provided with innovative offers for
immersive, interactive and personalised digital media.
• Effective contribution to global standards and European IPRs reflecting federated and
coherent roadmaps.
• Greater creativity stimulated through technologies and tools to
capture/produce/search/exchange professional and user generated immersive and
interactive digital media content.
• Education and professional training opportunities enhanced through immersive
environments and interactivity.
• Reduced carbon footprint through use of immersive platforms for online video
applications (e.g. telepresence)
Funding schemes
a), b), c): IP and STREP; d): CSA
Indicative budget distribution10
- IP and STREP: 68 M€ of which a minimum of 50% to IPs and 30% to STREPs
- CSA: 2M€
Call
FP7-ICT-2011-7

Objective ICT-2013.1.6 Connected and Social Media

This objective focuses on the development of advanced digital media access and
delivery platforms and related technologies supporting innovation in the digital media
sector. The aim is to develop a new generation of media clouds and Internet-based
applications and services using intuitive and innovative ways of interacting with
networked multimedia devices, applications and services (e.g. through enhanced
immersive and interactive experiences).
Target Outcomes
a) Connected Media
Architectures, technologies for the end-to-end coordination of user terminals
(e.g. smart phones and smart devices), home-gateways, networks and cloud
infrastructure for delivering highly interactive, personalised and shared media
experiences. The work should link cloud-based applications, content delivery
networks, peer-to-peer networking and media processing capabilities with
content-aware and information-centric networks to allow flexible control over
content storage, distribution and processing in an open networked platform.
• Novel platforms for customised and context-adapted hybrid broadcast-Internet
services supporting the evolution of broadcasting media towards more
interactivity, connectivity and integration with virtual, mixed and augmented
realities, including next-generation multisensory games. The combination of
multiple screens (of different types) and spatialised audio to augment user
interaction, enhance flexible access and enable non-linear play-outs of
interactive and user-centric media should be explored.
• Improvement of Quality of Experience by providing surrounding, immersive,
multisensory and interactive, always connected and seamless environments on
the move, at home and at work. Development of natural user-interaction
interfaces and contextual adaptation techniques through smart profiling to
provide dynamic user experiences. Increasing quality, frame rates, resolution
and dynamic range for more plausible digital media experiences, integrating,
notably by means of augmented reality, natural and computer generated AV
content.
b) Social Media
• Technologies for intelligent dynamic media adaptation by delivery platforms,
beyond the transcoding of individual streams, according to the context of
individual consumers and social communities.
• Simplification of access to networked media services in order to broaden the
involvement of social communities in crowd sourcing. Seamless and userfriendly
interactive media experiences.
• Development of community-focused interactive media systems that facilitate a
range of social interactions supported by user- , community-, network- and
context-centric search based on effective relevance feedback and real-time
social recommendation.
• Optimisation of media exchange according to community usage and
interaction patterns extracted from the analysis of relationships and shared
activity in social networks.. Extraction and mining of data from social
networks, for indexing and searching user-generated content and for research
on human behaviour and social activity.
c) Co-ordination and Support Actions
Coordination of stakeholders, and projects, identification of related policy measures to
support open innovation, transfer from research to innovation and novel products to
drive growth and jobs in Europe. This includes the development of integrated research
and innovation roadmaps leading to the creation of business ecosystems.
Expected Impact
• Reinforced positioning of the European ICT and digital media industry and
increased market opportunities, leveraging new constituencies, in particular
technological innovative industry and SMEs.
• Stimulation of demand for high-performance, bandwidth-hungry media
applications and services. Demonstration of the viability of new technologies
and validation of innovative solutions through large scale demonstrations,
pilots or testing of use cases as to guarantee sustainable deployment.
• Development of a true horizontal market and ecosystem for connected TV,
interactive media applications and networked games, avoiding market
fragmentation and locking-in of users and applications.
• Further development of social TV and social networks, especially in mobile
environments, leveraging mixed (real and virtual) media as an enabler of a
new generation of Internet-based applications and services.
• Greater creativity stimulated through technologies and tools to capture,
produce, search and exchange professional and user generated immersive and
interactive digital media content.
Funding Schemes
a), b): IP, STREP
c): CSA
Indicative budget distribution
• IP/STREP: EUR 32 million, with at least 70% for STREPs
• CSA:

Objective ICT-2013.4.1 Content analytics and language technologies

Target Outcomes
Due to the combined effect of globalisation and European integration, there is a
growing need for effective solutions that support multilingual business and interpersonal
communication, and enable people accessing digital services in Europe's
many languages.

a) Cross-media content analytics
Innovative methods and tools for mining unstructured information embedded in text,
speech, audio and video for the purposes of context-aware interpretation, correlation,
aggregation and summarisation, turning information into usable understanding and
actionable knowledge. Special emphasis is placed on social and collective intelligence
from multilingual sources. Projects shall achieve broad coverage with efficient
semantic interpretation. Of specific interest is the ability to capture sentiment and
represent concepts and events, identify relations and similarities, interpreting time and
space, within and across individual media, thus increasing our ability to detect and
exploit otherwise hidden meaning across a range of applications.

b) High-quality machine translation
Advancing machine translation (MT) by pushing the research frontier and bridging
relevant disciplines. Emphasis is placed on high-performance and easily configurable
MT yielding high-quality translations suitable for publication with little or no human
intervention. Expected innovations include effective hybridization of existing and
emerging solutions, the ability to autonomously learn from use and human feedback,
and to adapt to new situations with high portability and scalability. Work should cope
with everyday language and with the need to compile translation resources dynamically from the web or enterprise repositories. Projects are expected to
demonstrate the successful integration of MT within larger systems.

c) Natural spoken and multimodal interaction
Speech-enabled interfaces based upon multimodal verbal and non-verbal
communication. Projects shall address autonomous human-like social agents that can
handle conversational speech; learn from interaction and react proactively to new
communicative situations; recognize and generate social cues. Systems should be able
to cope with spontaneous dialogue and exhibit adequate communicative, affective and
cognitive (e.g. question answering) capabilities in relation to the domain/task under
consideration and the needs and abilities of the user. Technologies should be designed
to match multiple delivery platforms, from virtual assistants e.g. for customer service,
through smartphones to games.
For each of the target outcomes (a), (b) and (c), the call invites
(i) a few ambitious R&D projects investigating new approaches and research avenues
well beyond the current state of the art; projects will be centred on cross-disciplinary
approaches and partnerships, and address multimedia content and multimodal
interaction; they will encompass everyday language as found in e.g. consumergenerated
content, cover multiple languages, and cater for written and/or spoken
language as appropriate; technologies shall be adaptive, cope with massive volumes
of content, and have a clear potential to support real-life processes;
(ii) one broad-based support action designed to establish a unifying roadmap in each
of the domains under consideration, developing a compelling research and innovation
agenda until and beyond 2020, centred on close collaboration between research
centres and commercial players (particularly SMEs), and based upon agreed reference
architectures, common resources (standards, software, data), and shared development
and evaluation facilities.

d) Developing joint plans and services
The call invites one support action intended to design and lay the foundations of a
scalable platform for the joint development/enhancement and hosting of (multi-)
language data sets, processing tools and basic services. The action will build upon and
extend existing and emerging collaborative infrastructures. The aim is to create over
time a comprehensive online repository of reusable modules and components, in the
broadest possible range of EU languages, underpinning research, technology transfer
and industrial development efforts.
Expected Impact
- Strong participation of private-sector players, including SMEs, well above the FP7
ICT average.
- A unifying research roadmap aggregating the vision of more than 200 centres; a
common innovation agenda based on the business strategy of more than 100
companies.
- Technological leadership and increased innovation capacity as a result of widely
accepted roadmaps encompassing presently fragmented communities.
- A European open-source MT system becomes the most widely adopted
worldwide; post-edited MT becomes the standard mode of translation within 5
years, increasing significantly (> 25%) the efficiency of human translation.

Funding Schemes
a), b), c): STREP, CSA
d): CSA
Indicative budget distribution
- STREP: EUR 21 million
- CSA: EUR 6 million
Call:
FP7-ICT-2013-10

Objective ICT-2013.5.3 ICT for smart and personalised inclusion

This activity is a continuation of the previous Objectives on "ICT for smart and
personalised inclusion" in the ICT WP 2011-12 and on "Accessible and Assistive
ICT" in the ICT WP 2009-10. It bridges to Horizon 2020. Projects are addressing
advanced research, integrating and further developing where necessary recent results
from e-inclusion/e-accessibility domain and from interaction, enhanced learning and
information management domains.

Target Outcomes
(a) Accessible and intuitive solutions for personalised interfaces to smart
environments and innovative services designed for all, including people at risk of
exclusion - notably persons with disabilities, with low levels of digital literacy/skills,
and older persons.
The focus is on delivering accessible and usable ICT solutions in a portable and
pervasive manner, encompassing devices, applications, services and smart
environments. Potential application domains are, education, health, home and leisure,
work, mobility and communication activities. The proposed work will include (i)
principles, frameworks and architectures to deliver global inclusive services and
environments through different infrastructures, personal devices and applications; (ii)
repositories of population representative user profiles and innovative mechanisms for
interface adaptation, to address personalised accessibility and usability; (iii)
development tools to facilitate the integration of inclusive solutions in everyday life
applications.
Emphasis will be given on the development of innovative interaction techniques
based on technologies such as serious gaming, virtual/mixed augmented reality,
crowd-sourcing, ambient intelligence, persuasive and affective interfaces. End-user
support may integrate real-time monitoring of user needs to improve the user
experience and learning potential and adapt contents and interfaces. The overall
approach should allow the creation of an accessibility and usability ecosystem linking
interface developers, device makers, service providers, environment designer and user
communities.
Interoperability is essential and infrastructure specifications and related
standardisation initiation are expected.

(b) Coordination and Support Actions:
b1) The work should focus on consolidation of recent results in Brain Neural
Computer Interaction (BNCI) and on investigating new BNCI activities and synergies
with relevant fields leading to enhancement of human functions in relation to motor,
sensory, cognitive and mental disabilities. It should build on past and current
roadmapping activities in BNCI.
b2) Industrial strategies and valuation of potential markets for eInclusion components
and services, in particular for the web (including connected DTV), the telecom, and
public interactive terminals.
b3) Coordination and harmonisation of development, evaluation and monitoring
approaches for e-accessibility (including design-for-all and usability), targeting the
web and the audio-visual media. Methods and techniques should include crowdsourcing
of content repair, re-usable components production and large scale automatic
surveillance.
Expected Impact
Each proposal will present quantitative indicators or measures of success to quantify
potential impact along the points listed below for the target outcome concerned.

For target outcome a):
• Novel accessibility solutions for user groups at risk of exclusion.
• Enhanced quality of life for people at risk of exclusion, including people with
disabilities, older people and people with low digital literacy and skills.
• Strengthened possibilities of employment to non highly specialised professionals.
• Improved competitiveness of European ICT industry in the field of inclusive
smart environments and services.
• Wider availability and effectiveness of developers’ tools for creating inclusive
smart environments (targeted to SMEs, key mainstream industrialists, open-source
developers, and other less technical developers).

For target outcome b):
• Synthesis of results in the area of Brain Computer Interaction in EU and beyond,
and provision of ideas for the future activities that could be supported by Horizon
2020 and that will position the EU researchers and industry in a leading role in
this area.
• Industrial and economic strategies for eInclusion and design for all. Value
demonstration and good-practice for public and private stakeholders to embrace einclusion.
Enhanced policy strategies towards the adoption of e-Accessibility
practices, and the production of components, tools, compatible
infrastructures/architectures, and integrating services by the market, in particular
for new technologies and channels (web on mobile, DTV, public terminals, etc).
• Empowerment of policy makers to monitor and of communities to participate in
achieving accessibility and inclusiveness of information and public services.

Funding Schemes
a): IP/STREP; b): CSA;
Indicative budget distribution
IP/STREP: EUR 16.5 million, with the objective to support at least one IP
CSA: EUR 2.5 million. For each topic, up to one CSA will be selected with maximum
duration of 24 months and maximum EC funding of EUR 1.0 million for b1), EUR
0.5 million for b2), and EUR. 

7.8 Challenge 8: ICT for Creativity and Learning

The culture and creative industries are a powerful motor for jobs, growth, exports and
earnings, cultural diversity and social inclusion, representing 4.5% of total European
GDP and accounting for 3.8% of the workforce. European industries, in particular
small and medium enterprises, are increasingly faced with the need to be more
productive, innovative and dynamic in responding to the changing market needs.
This challenge calls upon research and industry to unite their forces to produce more
powerful and interactive tools for creative industries, enhance the creativity of
workers pursuing different professions, and anticipate future trends in research and
innovation by encouraging interaction in and between different segments of the
creative industries.
One goal is to create a vibrant creative technology ecosystem and increase the
innovation capacity of European industries and enterprises by providing them with
better tools, capabilities and foresight. A further goal is to enhance, develop and
encourage creativity as an essential 21st century skill in professional contexts.
Education is a strong prerequisite for economic growth. Europe must support national
efforts to help students to learn better, teachers to teach better, and school systems to
become more effective. We need customised learning systems that can adapt to
effective use in a wide variety of diverse contexts. This is key for a successful
modernisation of educational and training systems in Europe.

Objective ICT-2013.8.1 Technologies and scientific foundations in the field of Creativity

Target Outcomes
Research under this objective will address creativity and the tools and environments
in which it takes place. Research activities will contribute to equipping different
industries with more effective creative tools, expand the potential of technology in the
human creative processes and advance the scientific understanding of creativity
thus providing the basis for future innovative technologies. This will be
complemented by support activities that promote ways of closer interaction and
networking within and between different segments of creative industries.
a) Creative experience tools that make use of all our senses and allow for richer,
more collaborative and interactive experiences: real time simulation and
visualisation, augmented reality, 3D animation, visual computing, games
engines, and immersive experiences. The tools created should be cost
effective, with special attention to users like SMEs and individual creators,
intuitive, and be demonstrated in real environments for the creative and
cultural industries (such as advertising, architecture, arts, crafts, design,
fashion, films, music, publishing, video games, TV and radio etc.).

b) Intelligent computational environments stimulating and enhancing
human creativity: Multi-disciplinary research (e.g. computational creativity,
brain-based research, cognitive and learning sciences, HCI) should explore the
potential of technology to enhancing human creative processes. Research
should address individual and/or collective creative processes in professional
contexts involving domain-specific skills (in e.g. creative industries,
engineering, medical professions). Work should establish theories and models
for hybrid (human-computer) systems to be demonstrated by fully functional
prototypes of computational environments. Proposals need to address the
balance between scientific insights, technological innovation and practical
application to the domain. Proposals should include sound methodology for
the assessment and measurement of creative performance.

c) Progress towards formal understanding of creativity with a view to
advancing the measurable capability of computers to produce results assessed
by humans as useful, original and surprising. Proposals should contribute to
technological and theoretical insights on creativity, incorporating progress in
relevant areas such as AI, psychology, sociology, neuroscience and cognitive
science. Proposals should demonstrate how the theoretical insights gained in
the project will contribute to the understanding of human creativity.
Technological advances should be validated as proofs of concept in innovative
autonomous creative systems aiming to rise above the level of pastiche
(mimicry).

d) Roadmaps for future research and innovation in the creative industries;
proposals should target cross- and inter-cluster support activities to boost
creative competitiveness in sectors such as advertising, architecture, arts,
crafts, design, fashion, films, music, publishing, video games, TV and radio.

Expected Impact

• Improved efficiency of creative processes by two fold at least as regards time and
resource investment, and quality of output.
• Improved competitive position of the European cultural and creative industries
through the provision of cost effective, innovative and high-value products and
services.
• Better understanding of the potential of technology in human creative processes
leading to enhanced domain-specific human creative performance.
• Deeper scientific understanding of creativity, fostering the synergy between
understanding and enhancing human creativity, and new technologies for
autonomous creative systems.
• Better coordination of European and national efforts, closer dialogue between
research and industry, better understanding of user requirements, more innovation
and technology uptake.
Funding Schemes
a) IP/STREP
b) and c) STREP
d) CSA

Objective ICT-2013.8.2 Technology-enhanced learning

Target Outcomes
Research under this objective targets tailored, scaled and tested R&D for stimulating
the take-up of learning technologies in different learning contexts, reinforces the
evidence-base of effectiveness of learning technologies and encourages their
innovative use.

a) ICT-enabled learning environments: joint pre-commercial procurement (PCP) of
innovative solutions for teaching national curricular topic(s) in primary and/or
secondary education, based on latest advances in pedagogical, cognitive and other
relevant scientific disciplines.

These solutions should:
• combine, and operate across different digital media and devices and stretch the
boundaries of place, time, type and styles of active learning in the digital age;
• include rich and intuitive interfaces for teachers and students and simulations and
representations for teaching, learning and communicating about the topic;
• adapt to different teaching practices and learning methods (e.g. collaborative,
inquiry-based and personalised learning and 1:1 tutoring) and provide efficient
support for the teacher in planning, monitoring, assessment and in the management
of classroom activities.

The participatory design of the systems should involve all key stakeholders in the
value chain, e.g. public authorities, researchers, developers and end-users, through
iterative processes and take into account contextual variables that affect learning in
particular contexts (e.g. local, regional and/or national situations, learner and teacher
profiles, types and styles of learning). The proposed solutions should aim for wide
adoption at local, regional or national level and their relevance and effectiveness for
learning should be demonstrated by appropriate evaluation methods and
Benchmarking.

PCPs shall be implemented according to the conditions outlined in objective 11.1 and
Appendix 6 and cover the full PCP life-cycle encompassing solution design,
prototyping, and original development of a limited volume of products/services in the
form of a validated test series. They should seek to contribute to standards in digital
educational solutions.

b) Learning analytics, educational data mining: tools and processes for collecting,
storing, exploring and reasoning on large-scale educational data to better understand
learners' knowledge, assess their progress and evaluate environments in which they
learn. These tools and processes should aim at improving learning and teaching
(including 21st century skills) for students and instructors. These tools should be
equipped with intuitive interfaces for visualizing and interacting with the data in order
to ease their integration into the practice of teaching and learning. Cognitive models
of learning styles should be provided and tested against actual data sets that record
inputs, behaviour and assessment outcomes. They should aim to use and develop
standardised nomenclature and categorization for effective comparison of aggregate
information from different sources.

c) Holistic learning solutions for managing, reaching and engaging learners in the
public administrations.

These systems should:
• provide flexible and cost-effective solutions for adaptation to rapidly changing
external/internal environment, changing task/competence requirements;
• support the development of performance culture, engaging the entire organisation
at all levels, providing an efficient measuring method based on clearly defined
performance metrics;

• aim to develop critical skills, including transversal skills such as effective
communication, collaborative building of knowledge resources, critical thinking,
Self-management.

The solutions should be validated in public administrations. The use of open
education resources as well as open source learning and rapid application
development tools is encouraged.

d) Support for organising competitions for breakthroughs in the successful adoption
and scaling-up of the use of innovative learning technologies in formal learning
contexts for raising awareness at European level about effective methods and
technologies for learning.

Expected Impact
• Broaden use of ICT in education in at least one curricular topic leading to wider
take up by end-users;
• Effective public-private partnerships for providing digital learning solutions in
Europe;
• Stronger growth of the European ICT-enabled learning markets;
• More efficient use of ICT for learning through the exploitation of learning
analytics tools;
• More timely and effective acquisition of skills/competences through learning
technologies, in public administrations, indicated a.o. through % of decrease in
time to proven competency and in time to carry out the tasks, and % of savings in
study time;
• Increased awareness on the benefit of the adoption of learning technologies.
Funding Schemes
a) CP-CSA, b) STREP, CSA, c) IP/STREP d) CSA (CA only).
Indicative budget distribution
CP-CSA, IP/STREP: EUR 22 million, of which a minimum of 25% allocated to
CP-CSA (max 25% for the CSA part), a minimum of 40% to IPs and 30% to
STREPs;
􀂃 For outcome b) : 1-2 STREPS to be funded
􀂃 CSA: EUR 3 million
Call:
FP7-ICT-2013-11

7.9 Future and Emerging Technologies

Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) fosters exploratory research to open up new
avenues across the full breadth of future information and communication technologies.
It supports new and alternative ideas, concepts or paradigms of risky or nonconventional
nature. FET aims to go beyond the conventional boundaries of ICT and
ventures into uncharted areas, often inspired by and in close collaboration with other
scientific disciplines.

Radical breakthroughs in ICT increasingly rely on deep synergies with other
disciplines (for instance, biology, chemistry, nanoscience, neuro- and cognitive
science, ethology, social science, economics) and with the arts and humanities. This
requires new attitudes and novel collaborations between a broad diversity of actors in
research. In this respect, FET is the home for transformative research that can lead not
only to a range of exceptional and unprecedented outcomes in science and technology,
but can also create new practices, paradigms and reshape disciplines.
FET Open scheme: challenging current thinking and attracting future potential
FET-Open is a light, topic-agnostic and deadline free scheme specifically designed
to be open and continuously responsive to novel and fragile ideas that challenge
current thinking, whenever they arise and wherever they come from. It aims at
foundational breakthroughs that can open radically new directions for information and
communication technologies in the future. FET-Open also aims to increase the role of
young researchers and high-tech research intensive SMEs in its cooperative research
to further enhance their disruptive innovation potential and to unlock longer-term
scientific and industrial leadership.

Because of its foundational nature, FET research is especially well placed for global
collaboration. This work programme provides opportunities to extend on-going FET
projects28 through new collaboration components (top up) involving the best
researchers worldwide, so as to create global interest and raise the level of ambition
around research avenues incepted within FET.

FET Proactive scheme: tackling targeted transformative research

FET Proactive supports foundational, high-risk research, supporting the design and
development of emerging research avenues with the aim of creating novel areas and
themes and bringing together emerging communities. In each of these high-risk and
high-potential, innovative themes a number of projects are supported, in combination
with community building actions that foster activities such as joint events,
development of new curricula and research roadmaps. Such clusters of projects
spearhead transformative research and enhance Europe's innovation potential around a
number of fundamental long-term challenges in ICT, building towards new topics for
industrial research agendas.

FET Flagship Initiatives
Complementing these two schemes, FET Flagship Initiatives are visionary, science driven,
goal-oriented, large-scale, multidisciplinary research initiatives nucleated from research on ICT future and emerging technologies. They are envisioned to be long
term programmes on a scale much beyond existing initiatives. Activities in this work
programme build on earlier actions and will enable the selection of two such
initiatives in 2013.

FET Open scheme

Radically new ideas can come anytime, from anybody and from anywhere. FET-Open
is specifically designed to be open and responsive to such fresh thinking. It aims to
give promising but still fragile ideas the opportunity to mature into a credible and
well-founded new direction of research.

What is common to all objectives under FET-Open is that they seek proposals on
radically new concepts and visions of the nature and use of information and
information technologies, grounded in scientifically plausible and often interdisciplinary
ideas on how to achieve them. In spite of the high risk of failure, FETOpen
projects can be the first step on the way towards future European scientific and
industrial leadership in areas that today simply do not exist yet.

Objective ICT-2013.9.1 Challenging current Thinking

Target Outcome
This objective supports the exploration of new and alternative ideas that, because of
their risky or non-conventional nature, would not be supported elsewhere in the ICT
Workprogramme. It seeks:
• foundational breakthroughs as crucial steps towards radically new forms and uses
of information and information technologies within a clear long-term vision that is
far beyond the state of the art;
29 With the exception of Objective ICT-2013.9.4 on International cooperation on FET research.
Page 88 of 170
• ambitious proof-of-concept and its supporting scientific foundation, where novelty
comes from new, high-risk ideas rather than from the refinement of current ICT
approaches;
• new inter-disciplinary collaborations, possibly with prominent and internationally
recognized non-EU research teams where these can provide a significant added
value.
This objective also supports Coordination and Support Actions for creating the best
conditions within which FET research can flourish and achieve the transformative
impacts that it aspires to. These activities may be, for example:
• actions, including networking and dissemination activities, aiming at the
emergence of new research communities or collaborations involving a broad
diversity of disciplines and actors into FET research;
• actions towards the increased active involvement of high-tech research intensive
SMEs in exploratory research directions relevant to future ICT markets;
• actions that stimulate excellence and future leadership of pioneering teams of
young researchers along new, exploratory research directions relevant to future
ICT;
• actions aiming to strengthen the international dimension of FET.
Expected Impact
For STREP projects:
• opening new avenues of research towards future ICT that may be radically
different from present day ICT;
• strengthening the future potential for high-risk / high-impact research and
innovation;
• new research alliances in transformative research, exploiting synergies in the
global science and technology scene for increased impact and excellence.
For CSA actions:
• catalyse transformative effects on the communities and practices for high-risk and
high-impact research and on the mechanisms to support the global nature of such
research;
• new, engaged and risk-taking research communities prepared to develop new and
non-conventional approaches for addressing future challenges in science and
society.
Funding schemes
STREP, CSA
Indicative budget distribution
EUR 34 million30, out of which a maximum of EUR 3 million for CSA.
Call
FP7-ICT-2013-C31