• Published on 14 Jan 2021
• Events

ECS Brokerage Event 2021: The digital get-together

COVID-19 is still limiting our abilities to meet in real life, but it turned out that with these limitations, new opportunities occurred. On 12 and 13 January the ECS Brokerage Event took place in an virtual environment with more than 600 registrants! Together with AENEAS and EPoSS, we created an online meet-up to help our communities with the preparation of project proposals and provided the opportunity for participants to meet new consortium partners and have live break-out sessions. In these online break-out rooms we tried to provide the facilities that we normally have at live events, by offering the possibility to interact live via video connections and to present more detailed information in smaller groups to constructively build new consortia.

As the three Industry Associations AENEAS, EPoSS and ARTEMIS organised the event, Caroline Bedran officially welcomed all participants in name of the associations. She took the time to present the R&D&I landscape and to explain the role of Industry Associations. Strengthening the European ECS ecosystem and facilitating networking & collaboration opportunities for the research community is one of the most important aspects of the work the associations do. Secondly, theyare highly involved in shaping the future of KDT under Horizon Europe and of the EUREKA Clusters. Last but not least, the associations represent the interests of the ECS community in ECSEL/KDT and in EUREKA and co create and shape the R&D field with the European Commission and National Public Authorities.

The expectations Horizon Europe

Within the European Commission, 2020/2021 is a transition year from Horizon2020 to Horizon Europe. A transition like this is always a big venture, but with the COVID-19 crisis adding up on it, delays were inevitable and made the transition definitely more challenging! Although the follow-up of ECSEL, the Key Digital Technologies (KDT) programme, is a bit delayed, Francisco Ibanez of the European Commission took the time to present the new elements of the new framework programme and the follow-up programme of ECSEL: KDT.

Ibanez kicked of by explaining that the Horizon Europe objectives are to strengthen the European scientific and technological basis, to boost the European innovation capacity, jobs and competitiveness. The European Commission aims to deliver on citizens priorities, sustain our social economic model and values.

He continued with explaining that Horizon Europe will limit the use of partnerships to areas where they will more effectively achieve objectives of the overall programme; This includes that partnerships should engage into a broader set of joint actions beyond joint calls, including those related to market, regulatory or policy uptake. Partnerships contribute very visibly to the further realisation of the ERA – that should be 'showcased' more in the future. They also have the potential to play an important role for 'sharing excellence' and hence contributing to a better openness of the R&I ecosystems in Europe – the European Commission wants to better use this potential.

Destinations in the workplan

Each work programme part within the 'Global challenges and European industrial competitiveness' pillar should be designed around a series of coherent packages of calls and topics aimed at contributing to the expected impacts set out in the Strategic Plan. These packages of actions will be known as destinations.

The destinations will provide the policy narrative for the calls and topics included in the WP, describing the relevant long-term socio-economic needs and problems where R&I investments would have a role to play (including emerging ones from the COVID-19 crisis).

Ibanez explained the concept of destinations and applicants will be required to set out a credible pathway in their proposals for how the project – if successful – would contribute not only to the expected outcomes set out in the relevant topic text, but also to the expected impact of the destination. This will be made clear in the WP text as well as the proposal template and guide to applicants.

To ensure that Europe drives the digital transformation of the economy and society and brings its benefits to all citizens and businesses, Ibanez stressed that it is important to build essential capacities and advanced skills in digital technologies, contributing to Europe’s strategic autonomy and to accelerate deployment and best use in areas of public interest and the private sector.

In conclusion he referred the speakers to the tender and funding portal which you can find here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/home

ECS-SRIA – The guide for many funding schemes

Elisabeth Steimetz kicks of to present the ECS Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda which is a funding programme-agnostic document looking 10 years ahead of time. Steimetz explained the new structure of the book and what updates can be expected.

Based on the feedback provided by EFECS 2020 participants, the final version of the new 2021 Electronic Components & Systems (ECS) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) has been published by the three Industry Associations AENEAS, ARTEMIS-IA and EPoSS on 12 January 2020 during this ECS Brokerage Event! After the first introductions, the ECS-SRA Core team continued to provide insights on the ECS-SRA. This year, a major revision of the document was conducted with the goal of improving alignment in the community to help collaboration along the European value chains and value networks.

Elisabeth Steimetz, Patrick Cogez and Patrick Pype took the time to go trough the changes and new insights. Four key digital technologies describing the foundational technology layers and four cross-sectional technologies, focusing on transversal areas of ECS scientific research and engineering, were covered in their presentation. The innovations generated by these interdisciplinary cross-sectional technologies further fertilise the foundational layers, creating a necessary virtuous cycle that amplifies the effects of innovation and injects them into the key ECS application domains.

Download the full document here 

PENTA – EURIPIDES² programme

Peter Connock, Director of the Penta programme, provided the audience an overview of the funding landscape including national and European funding possibilities. Like the KDT programme, The PENTA programme is guided by the ECS Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), a comprehensive document providing guidance on the challenges and opportunities for innovation along the electronics value chain. Connock explained the audience that the PENTA and EURIPIDES² programmes seek to support the creation of partnerships along the Electronics Components and Systems value chain, enabling the transition from research to commercial exploitation (TRL 2-8).

On the second day, Connock took the lead in the workshop on ‘how to apply for the PENTA and EURIPIDES² call. Together with Patrick Cogez, Wolfgang Dettmann, Patrick Pype and Shéhérazade Azizi specific tools, tips and tricks were presented to create a solid project proposal which should definitely help to enter with a good application!

Last but not least, Connock emphasised once more the timeline and deadline of the call which is 26 February.

Posters and Pitches

Last but not least, we want to inform you that the poster and pitches that were presented during this event are still available in the ECS Collaboration Tool. This tool is available throughout the whole year and new projects ideas are expected to be added in the course of this year as the KDT call will be opened later this year.

The live presentation will only be available for registrants of the ECS Brokerage 2021, who will receive a direct link to these videos.