Horizon 2020 Work Programme 
Information and Communication Technologies

ICT-20-2015: Technologies for better human learning and teaching

Topic Description

Scope:
Specific Challenge: The development and integration of robust and fit-for-purpose digital technologies for learning are crucial to boost the market for and innovation in educational technologies.  This requires an industry-led approach in close cooperation with academia to defining the frameworks and interoperability requirements for the building blocks of a digital ecosystem for learning (including informal learning) that develops and integrates tools and systems that apply e.g. adaptive learning, augmented cognition technologies, affective learning, microlearning, game-based learning and/or virtual environments/virtual worlds to real-life learning situations. This challenge also encourages public procurement of innovative solutions to address the needs of the digital learning ecosystem in making better use of educational cloud solutions, mobile technology, learning analytics and big data, and to facilitate the use, re-use and creation of learning material and new ways to educate and learn online.
Scope: Activities will focus on innovative technologies for learning, on the underpinning interoperability standards and on the integration of different components into smart learning environments. They should combine different technologies (e.g. mobile, augmented reality, natural interaction technologies) and support composing, re-using and distributing interactive educational content and services, with assessment and feedback functionalities.  Based on technological advances enabled by research carried out so far, activities will support networking, capacity building and experimentations in methodologies and tools for data-driven, (including automated measurement of human-system interaction) non-linear approaches to adaptive learning and remediation technologies and cognitive artefacts (including toys) for effective and efficient human learning. Gender differences in ICT-based learning attitudes should be considered.
a.      Research & Innovation actions
Research experimentations on smart learning environments providing students with adaptive and personalised learning and assessment, including through multi-modal/multi-sensory interaction technologies and advanced interfaces. Activities should facilitate networking and capacity building. Research must be inherently multidisciplinary, building on advances on neuroscience, pedagogical and learning theories, educational psychology as well as artificial intelligence. Application scenarios include formal and informal education, including workplace learning.
b.      Research & Innovation actions
Establishing a technology platform to provide a framework and roadmap for stakeholders, led by industry in collaboration with academia, to develop innovative technologies for learning (adaptive solutions, learning analytics, augmented reality, mobile learning, etc.), address  standards for interactive content (covering its composition, re-use and distribution) and its adaptations into learning scenarios.
c.       Innovation actions
Support to large scale pilots (in real settings) that develop and integrate innovative digital educational tools, solutions and services for learning and teaching, and supporting engagement of teachers, learners and parents. They should aim at reducing the current restrictions of time and physical space in learning and teaching. They should foster greater connection between formal, non-formal and informal learning and remove obstacles for ubiquitous learning. The pilots should link all relevant stakeholders in educational technology. As part of piloting scenarios, a specific target group to address are children and adults with mental or physical disabilities who undergo general education, lifelong learning or vocational training. Activities for the latter could include work on skills recognition/validation through smart and business intelligence applications.
d.      Public procurement of innovative devices and software (PPI)
Coordinate the development of joint specifications and procuring innovative devices and software for the application of technology mediated scenarios for learning and teaching in educational settings.
Expected impact:
         Reinforce European leadership in adaptive learning technologies for the personalisation of learning experiences. This must be measured by the number of excellence centres collaborating through specific joint research experimentations and technology transfers programmes.
         Enable faster ways of testing fundamental business hypothesis (including continuous development and testing with users) and increased skills capacity. Facilitate the emergence of new innovative businesses.
         Facilitate the emergence of innovative businesses and create a digital learning ecosystem in Europe.
         Speed up the rate of adoption on technologies for the modernization of education and training.
         Contribute to the objectives of the "Opening up Education" initiative.
         Enhance the development of digital learning and teaching resources, including for children and adults with mental or physical disabilities.
         Increase the number of public-private partnerships addressing technological challenges for modernizing and improving education and training.
Types of action:
a.       Research & Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Small contribution are expected
b.      Research & Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Small contribution are expected
c.       Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Large contribution are expected
d.      Public Procurement for Innovative solutions Cofund actions – Proposals requesting a Large contribution are expected.
Cross-cutting Priorities:
Socio-economic science and humanities
Innovation Procurement
Gender

ICT-21-2014 - Advanced digital gaming/gamification technologies

Specific Challenge: Digital games and gamification mechanics applied in non-leisure contexts is an important but scattered industry that can bring high pay-offs and lead to the emergence of a prospering market. Digital games can also make a real change in the life of a large number of targeted excluded groups, enhancing their better integration in society.  This requires however the development of new methodologies and tools to produce, apply and use digital games and gamification techniques in non-leisure contexts, as well as building scientific evidence on their benefits - for governments, enterprises and individuals.
Scope:
a.      Research & Innovation actions: Multidisciplinary research experimentations and collaboration on advanced digital gaming technologies and components (including game engines, emergent narrative, virtual characters, interaction systems and alternative human-machine interfaces, 3D, textures, models for simulations, game design, learner profiles, emotional models, etc.) produced by and for the traditional digital game industry but applied into wider scenario of use in non-leisure contexts. Activities must lead to the creation of a repository of core reusable, open components to enable publishers and game producers as well as user organisations and individual programmers to build specific games applications in non-leisure contexts. Application scenarios will focus on learning and skills acquisition in formal and informal education, in workplace learning and in policy making and collective social and public processes.
b.      Innovation actions: Stimulate technology transfer and new non-leisure applications by SMEs traditionally working on digital games through coordinating and incubating small scale experiments, thus underpinning new market developments on digital games for learning and skills acquisition, and for empowerment and social inclusion. The activities should also allow the accumulation of scientific evidence of the effectiveness of such approaches for specific target groups or problems.
Expected impact:
         Increase the number of collaborations between traditional digital game industry players and a broader research community (neurosciences, educational physiology, pedagogy, etc.), intermediaries (teachers, trainers) and users from a wide area of application contexts.
         Increase the effectiveness of digital games for professionals and researchers, intermediaries and social actors dealing with people with disabilities or at risk of exclusion (socially, physically or technologically disadvantaged groups) and of those who consider themselves unsuited for education.
Types of action:
a.       Research & Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Large contribution are expected
b.      Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Small contribution are expected

ICT-19-2015: Technologies for creative industries, social media and convergence
Scope:
Specific Challenge: The demand is growing for high-quality content and new user experiences. At the same time, thanks to ubiquitous technology adoption, widespread use of mobile devices, broadband internet penetration and increasing computing power the consumption of content anywhere, anytime and on any device is becoming a reality. Consequently, developments related to content creation, access, retrieval and interaction offer a number of opportunities and challenges, also for the creative and media industries. In order to keep pace with the trends and remain competitive, those industries need to explore new ways of creating and accessing content. The opportunity to establish new forms of content and user engagement could be transformative to many businesses in creative and media industries.
Scope: The focus is on research, development and exploitation of new or emerging technologies (e.g. 3D and augmented reality technologies) for digital content creation to support the creative and media industries and for unlocking complex information and media and interacting with them. The topic will be addressed by the following actions:
a.      Research & Innovation Actions:
Research in new technologies and tools to support creative industries in the creative process from idea conception to production. The proposed tools should explore the potential of technology to enhance the human creative process from the expression of ideas to experiment solutions. Where possible, collaboration and user-community interaction should be improved based on research leading to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of co-creative processes. The tools should be cost effective, intuitive, and be demonstrated in real-life environments relevant for the creative industries (such as advertising, architecture, arts, design, fashion, films, music, publishing, video games, TV and radio).
b.      Innovation Actions
Demonstration of the viability of new technologies and validation of innovative solutions through large scale demonstrations, pilots or testing of use cases so as to guarantee sustainable deployment that facilitate convergence and integration between broadcasting, broadband Internet-based services, audio-visual and social media. Multimodal and multidisciplinary approaches for searching technologies responding to the new demands from the content side (3D, user-generated, real-time media, social media,…) and from the user context (context-centric, semantic, relevant community feed-back,…).
This also includes new forms of experiencing environments (immersive, surrounding, multisensory and interactive, in any device, always connected).
c.       Coordination and Support Actions on Convergence and Social Media
         Facilitate research and policy exchange in Convergence and Social Media: increased awareness of latest technological developments and research results among policy stakeholders and increased awareness of current and future policy and regulatory framework among researchers.
         Support R&D programmes/activities, dissemination of results and organisation of scientific and/or policy events in Convergence and Social Media. Analysis and development of research agendas and roadmaps, pre-standardisation initiatives and stakeholder coordination in Convergence and Social Media
Expected impact:
Research & Innovation Actions
         Validated novel ICT technologies and tools supporting the creation process and delivering measurable benefits for the creative industries as regards time and resource investment, and quality of output.
Innovation and Support Actions
         Development of new services as a consequence of the convergence of broadband, broadcast and social media.
         Further development of user experience in immersive environments and social media, especially in any device and mobile environments.
Types of action:
a.       Research & Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Small contribution are expected
b.      Innovation Actions – Proposals requesting a Small contribution are expected
c.       Coordination and Support Actions
Cross-cutting Priorities:
Socio-economic science and humanities

ICT-24-2016: Gaming and gamification 
Specific Challenge: The software games business is growing fast. Its technological and methodological underpinnings have been laid down in years of research and development. At a significantly lower scale, they are now finding their way into non-entertainment contexts, helping deliver substantial benefits, particularly in education, training, research and health. Recent European research projects have identified comprehensive roadmaps and are creating resources and state-of-the-art knowledge for European players to develop applied games more easily, faster and more cost-effectively. The challenge is to mainstream the application of gaming technologies, design and aesthetics to non-leisure contexts, for social and economic benefits. Supporting the expansion of applied gaming and gamification will not only create new solutions and methodologies to address societal issues, but it will also help SMEs to seize new business opportunities. 
Scope: Technology transfer through small scale experiments on developing and validating open gaming technologies and mechanics including from sectors other than the gaming industry into non-leisure situations and scenarios for training and motivational purposes. Actions shall integrate contributions from game developers, researchers from social science disciplines and the humanities, publishers, educational intermediaries and end-users. Activities shall include work on gaming technologies (augmented and mixed reality, 3D audio and video, virtual worlds, interactive storytelling, narratives, modelling and data, etc.), learning and behavioural triggers (pedagogical effectiveness, engagement, creativity, collaborative behaviours, proactive) and social science aspects (potential risks and challenges, privacy, gender and ethical issues etc.). 
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of about EUR 1 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. 
Expected Impact: Increased take up of gaming technologies in non-leisure contexts – and specifically in education and for social inclusion, measured by the number of new businesses and applications generated by the action.

ICT-20-2017: Tools for smart digital content in the creative industries 
Specific Challenge: High quality content is the main source of revenue for the Creative Industries and also instrumental for their competitiveness in a large, international market. The challenge is to maximise the potential for re-use and re-purposing of all types of digital content, for instance, by directly conceiving and creating content usable in different contexts and technical environments; improving its granularity; increasing its ability to dynamically adapt to the users; generating more realistic digital models; embedding semantic knowledge; and other approaches to make content "smarter" thanks to new and emerging technologies. 
Scope: Research and Innovation Actions 
Actions under this topic will explore novel ways of digital content production and management in the creative industries such as advertising, architecture, performing and visual arts, craft, design, fashion, films, music, press, publishing, radio, TV and video games. Proposals should clearly specify which sector(s) of the Creative Industries are being addressed and demonstrate a significant progress beyond the current state of the art in digital content production and management. They should focus on technologies for the production of new content or for the enhancement and (re-)use of already existing digital content of any type, but the production or acquisition of the content itself is not to be financed through these actions.
Consortia should include representatives from the targeted Creative Industries with a leading role in the design of solutions and their validation in real-life environments. Combining research and innovation activities, the actions are expected to achieve results between technologies validated in lab conditions and technologies demonstrated in industrially relevant environments. Proposers should pay attention to cost effectiveness and efficiency increase through the use of ICT in the creative industries and provide corresponding progress indicators and measurable objectives. 
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 and 4 million for a period between 24 and 36 months would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. This does not preclude the submission and selection of proposals with a different budget or duration. 
Expected Impact: It is expected that the set of funded actions will: 
· Increase the potential for re-purposing and re-use of digital content in order to diversify the market and improve the return on investment for producers; 
· Provide significantly improved technologies for digital content production and management in the creative industries; 
· Reduce the costs for the production of enhanced digital content for the creative industries, with the support of leading edge ICT. 

Proposals should provide concrete individual impact statements guided by the expectations above, including clear qualitative and quantitative objectives and success indicators. 

Type of Action: Research and Innovation action

H2020 SC1 (Societal Challenge 1) Health, demographic change and wellbeing

PHC-26-2014: Self management of health and disease: citizen engagement and mHealth
Specific challenge: Empowering citizens to manage their own health and disease will result in more cost-effective healthcare systems by improving utilisation of healthcare, enabling the management of chronic diseases outside institutions, improving health outcomes, and by encouraging healthy citizens to remain so.
Several clinical situations would be prevented or better monitored and managed with the participation of the patient him or herself. Care sciences may complement the medical perspective without increasing the cost. This requires research into socio-economic and environmental factors, dietary impact and cultural values, behavioural and social models, attitudes and aspirations in relation to personalised health technologies, mobile and/or portable and other new tools, co-operative ICTs, new diagnostics, sensors and devices (including software) for monitoring and personalised services and interventions which promote a healthy lifestyle, wellbeing, mental health, prevention and self-care, improved citizen/healthcare professional interaction and personalised programmes for disease management. Support for knowledge infrastructures is also required, as well as the combination of predictive personalised models with personal health systems and other sources of data.
Scope: Proposals may focus on patients or healthy persons or both. Health management should be addressed in a holistic approach, from healthy lifestyle, dietary habits interlinked with disease management, and adherence to medical plans, placing the patient in the centre and putting increased emphasis on health education, patient empowerment, secondary prevention and self-management of individual conditions, including co-morbidities and frailty. Implementation of programs or applications for different target populations to capture gender- and age-dependent differences in health, behaviour and handling of devices should be included.
Proposals are invited which address this specific challenge by focusing on only one of the two elements below:
(i) citizen engagement in health, wellbeing and prevention of diseases.
Proposals shall enable individuals to become co-managers of their health and wellbeing (including physical and mental wellbeing, equality, health literacy, life style factors such as nutrition and smoking) with the help of ICT, tools and personalised services. The focus should be on the following elements:
The creation of a supportive environment for healthy behaviour including support to behavioural change e.g., mathematical, dynamic modelling of behaviour with quantitative, testable models especially in real world settings and application of the sciences in designing interventions or game based physical training with motion tracking based feedback;
Health promotion, health literacy and disease prevention;
The development of a multi-stakeholder ecosystem (of health and care professionals, patients, nutrition - and pharmaceutical industries, public healthcare authorities, health IT, mHealth actors, health insurers and regulators, etc…) to develop a 'co-production of health' business model – an evidence based, general, alternative way of creating and augmenting personalised health, supported by information exchange and utilisation and;
A migration path towards comprehensive solutions that could be incorporated into health care processes.
(ii) mHealth applications for disease management
Proposals should focus their research on application development for disease management with the following characteristics:
Strong emphasis on co-designing and user needs as a key driver;
Knowledge management systems to analyse and compile the data collected by applications on individuals’ health and activities in order for such information to be used by the persons themselves, health professionals and public health monitoring authorities;
Guidance for patients, care-givers, families and patients' social environment on chronic disease management supported by mHealth;
Patient adherence to and compliance with medical recommendations
Economic aspects of encouraging secondary prevention and addressing avoidable negative health and wellbeing outcomes;
Screening for pre-frailty states
Public health or health promotion interventions addressed to large sectors of population through mHealth applications and;
Co-operative ICTs to support co-operative management of health and disease among patients and eco-health systems.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 and 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected impact: In both cases (i) and (ii)
Improved self-management of health, disease prevention, management of diseases and/or expenditure.
Strengthened evidence base on health outcomes, quality of life, care efficiency gains and economic benefits from the use of ICT in new care models, in compliance with data protection requirements.
Increased confidence in decision support systems for wellbeing and disease / patient management.
Strengthened evidence and improved knowledge about individuals’ behaviour related to wellbeing, disease prevention or management facilitating the creation of new personalised behavioural health interventions.
 
For (i) only
Validated programmes for health promotion and disease prevention
Ecosystem and new business models for promotion and co-production of health
 
For (ii) only
Improved service offering and business concepts and models
Impact in several of the following facets of mHealth e.g., patient safety, contribution to or revision of (guidelines of) relevant legal frameworks, medical guidelines, harmonisation (across borders), standards, co-ordination of therapies, recognition of mHealth as a reimbursable cost, improved accessibility, liability, inter-operability, more reliable connectivity, patient empowerment, improved patient-health professional interaction, maturing personalised health systems, sustainability, usability and user-acceptance.
Improved interaction between patients, their relatives and care givers, facilitating more active participation of patients and relatives in care processes.
Improving the management of disease by reducing the number of severe episodes and complications.
Increased level of education and acceptance by patients and care givers of ICT solutions for personalised care.

PHC-20-2014: Advancing active and healthy ageing with ICT: ICT solutions for independent living with cognitive impairment
Specific challenge: Citizens in an ageing European population are at greater risk of cognitive impairment, frailty and social exclusion with considerable negative consequences for their independence, quality of life, that of those who care for them, and for the sustainability of health and care systems. The challenge is to deploy innovative and user led ICT pilot projects in support of independent living with cognitive impairments and translate promising results into scalable practice across Europe.                                                                                             
 
Scope: Pilots should build on common, flexible and open ICT solutions which can be adapted to specific users' needs, allowing them to live independently for longer while experiencing cognitive impairment. Pilot deployment across Europe should develop best-practice and viable business and financing models, as well as evidence for potential return on investment. Gender and ethical issues should be paid due attention.  
Proposals should focus on innovation in organisational and business models for service delivery, as well as standardisation and interoperability work on required ICT platforms, services and data sources. The number of users involved should be sufficient to ensure statistical significance in impact analysis, with a minimum of 4 pilot sites in 4 countries.
 
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 and 3 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.           
Expected impact: 
Based on quantitative and qualitative output indicators and impact data, each pilot is expected to demonstrate relevant contributions to the following expected impacts:
Clear evidence on return of investment, both for the private sector and in terms of societal benefits from ICT based solutions for cognitive impairments of older people;
Best practice for viable business and financing models which are scalable across Europe;
Clear evidence on the improvements of efficiency of health and care systems
Clear evidence of improvements to quality of life and active ageing for involved users and carers;
Contribution to the competitiveness of the European ICT industry in the domain, through enhanced interoperability and scalable markets;
Type of action:  Innovation actions
Cross-cutting Priorities:
Gender
Socio-economic science and humanities

PHC-30-2015: Digital representation of health data to improve disease diagnosis and treatment
Specific challenge: Digital personalised models, tools and standards with application for some specific clinical targets are currently available. There is however a need for greater integration of patient information, for example of multi-scale and multi-level physiological models with current and historical patient specific data and population specific data, to generate new clinical information for patient management. Any such integrative digital representation (Digital Patient) must also allow meaningful knowledge extraction and decision support.
Scope: Proposals should focus on new decision support systems (DSS) based on a complex integration of heterogeneous data sources and subject-specific computer models. This should enable an integrated data analysis, and should present a highly visual data representation, using user-friendly interactive exploratory interfaces in order to assure usability and acceptability.
Proposals should enable the use of DSS by healthcare professionals for personalised prediction and decision in prevention, diagnosis or treatment and should take into account data protection and ethical considerations, as well as those pertaining to the inherent uncertainties and limits of prediction. The models should be already available, multi-level and multi-scale and will be integrated with the individual and population data relevant for the targeted clinical situations, e.g.  the required molecular and cellular data, including genomics and epi-genomics, in vivo and in vitro imaging data, or data on administration of therapeutics and on nutrition/exposure to environmental factors and will be linked when relevant with computer models of personalised physiology, functional disorders and other diseases. The proposed systems should take advantage of the personal medical data accumulated over time. Proposals should include the standardisation of data formats. The integration of data coming from other new technologies for e.g. key-enabling technologies should be considered. Gender and ethical issues should be duly considered.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 and 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected impact:
Better coherent use of health data available for a subject in conjunction with the existing medical knowledge in clinical decision making
Design of predictive and therapeutic interventions
Better management of complex clinical situations.
Enabling use of the same information by different medical services and the other relevant healthcare professionals.
Better control and inter-service coordination in the management of the patient health.
Providing a consistent view of a patient's care needs.
Type of action: Research and innovation actions
Cross-cutting Priorities:
Cross-cutting Key-Enabling Technologies (KETs)
Gender

Mobility for Growth (H2020-MG-2016-2017) 

MG-4.5-2016: new ways of supporting development and implementation of neighbourhood-level and urban-district-level transport innovations

Specific Challenge:
People oriented transport and mobility encompasses both new ways of translating people's (both passenger and freight) needs into mobility solutions and new ways of delivering (co-creating) these solutions. Despite the huge diversity in cultural backgrounds, demographic developments, economic potential and social conditions, neighbourhoods and urban districts[1] could be an appropriate scale to pilot mobility innovations that address some common sustainable urban mobility issues. These could include improving access to mobility solutions, to healthcare, education, jobs and for businesses and sustainable lifestyles; behaviours, reducing greenhouse emissions from mobility, reducing noise, increasing the use of alternative fuelled vehicles and public/shared transport and safety issues. Also, new uses of public space for different mobility users could be developed and tested at neighbourhood level.
Scope:
Actions should include the development, testing and comparison of initial results of sustainable mobility solutions that are targeted to at least five European neighbourhoods or urban districts. The neighbourhoods could be located in urban areas of different densities and sizes, such as in small towns, peri-urban areas or scarcely populated urban neighbourhoods. In order to meet this challenge, proposals should include all the following types of innovative approaches:
―New approaches to involve end-users, consumers and citizens, both women and men, to validate the needs of the neighbourhoods involved, to assess the potential impact of the solutions, and to better understand the needs and preferences of the end-users whose problems are meant to be solved in the project.
―New types of innovations (technological and non-technological) such as: social innovation, workplace innovation, design, creativity, public sector innovation, open innovation or co-creation or gamification processes.
―New forms of tools and approaches for measuring take-up, support, and impact of the innovative approaches so that results can be scaled up and disseminated to address common issues in neighbourhoods located in other EU countries.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 to 4 million each would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected Impact:
Actions will lead to new innovation processes, new organisational and governance concepts, changes in planning processes, that result in new forms of urban mobility solutions at neighbourhood or urban district level.
Actions will implement a strategy to create scale and visibility, and to measure impacts of the innovative approaches, and how these can be embedded and mainstreamed in practice amongst providers, funders and policy-makers across Europe.
Cross-cutting Priorities:
Open Innovation
Gender
Socio-economic science and humanities
[1]The neighbourhood or district level comprises an urbanised area that is part of a city.