2nd 6G-XR Open Call - Stream B enablers

Description

The purpose of the second Open Call is to validate, test, and/or incorporate enablers coming out of Horizon Europe SNS JU Stream B thematises. Out of the thematises, in particular proposals on the topics and subtopics on the following AREAS (and 6G-XR Infrastructures) are requested: 1.Reflective intelligent surfaces a. 150 GHz Reflective Intelligent Surface (RIS) [Node: North; RI: UOULU 5GTN; Mentors: IMEC, UOULU] 2.Deterministic communications a. Implementation and verification of wireless deterministic communication links on 3D digital twin use case [Node: North; RI: UOULU 5GTN; Mentor: UOULU] b. Deterministic networking [Node: South or North; RI: 5GBarcelona or UOULU 5GTN; Mentor: i2CAT, UOULU] 3.Energy measurement a. Sustainability enablers for energy measurement and optimisation solutions [Node: North; RI: UOULU 5GTN or VTT 5GTN; Mentors: UOULU, VTT] b. Monitoring of energy consumption of VNFs for Multimedia Streaming [Node: South or North; RI: 5GBarcelona or VTT 5GTN; Mentors: VICOM, VTT] 4.AI/ML for slicing a. AI/ML algorithm for efficient resource optimization in the 5G slicing techniques [Node: North; RI: UOULU 5GTN; Mentor: UOULU] 5.Load balancing a. Mechanisms for load-balancing and service migration to enable Device/Edge/Cloud continuum [Node: South; RI: 5TONIC; Mentors: VICOM, CGE] b. Mobility Load Balancing on ORAN campus network [Node: South; RI: 5GBarcelona; Mentor: i2CAT] 6.Security and trust mechanisms a. Multi-stakeholders security and trust mechanisms for Edge North Bound interfaces [Node: South; RI: 5TONIC or 5GBarcelona; Mentor: CGE] b. Confidential computing environments for end-to-end energy efficiency [Node: North; RI: VTT 5GTN; Mentor: VTT] 7.Increased capacity a. 6G channels [Node: South; RI: 5GBarcelona; Mentor: i2CAT] 8.Other Stream B thematises a. Other proposals coming from Stream B thematises [Node, RI, and Mentor: To Be Indentified based on the proposal] All approved projects performed during this Open Call must be made available to other experimenters during the rest of the 6G-XR project duration. In order to ensure that a balance of the Open Call topics is kept and the widest impact of Open Call enablers is reached a maximum of three proposals will be funded under any given (sub)topic above. Funding more than three projects on a given (sub)topic will result in too much redundant repetition of a particular innovation area within the 6G-XR scope and diminishes the expected wide-scale impact of both cascading actions and 6G-XR targets. This will further ensure the mentors, infrastructures, and use case owners can guarantee high-quality mentoring of funded Open Call 2 topics. All proposals passing the feasibility checks of Open Call 2 will be sent for evaluation by 6G-XR project external experts and will receive an independent scoring. All proposals are then ranked based on the points they receive out of that evaluation. However, only the top three projects of any given (sub)topic will be considered for funding.

Beneficiary & submission

In order to submit your proposal, please download and carefully read the provided documentation and templates through the link below: https://www.6g-xr.eu/open-calls/oc2/ The proposal must be submitted in English and through the 6G-XR online form that is located on the same page. All form fields should be filled with no exceptions. The online form contains key information about the proposer, the proposal, and the requested budget. A feasibility check is mandatory before submission. Proposers MUST submit their draft proposal by Monday 22th April 2024 at 17:00 CET. Once the deadline for submitting a proposal is reached, the call will be closed and the evaluation process will start. Evaluation and ranking will be carried out by an external jury of experts, which cannot be part of the consortium and cannot evaluate proposals where a conflict of interest can be identified. For each of the received proposals, at least two assigned experts will perform reviews independently of each other. Afterwards, consensus meetings for all proposals among involved experts will be held, where a common opinion and rating will be built up for all the proposals. The last step in the evaluation process will be to create ranking among all received proposals, which will be done in cooperation with all independent experts involved in the evaluations. A proposal will be considered eligible for the 6G-XR Open Call 2 if it complies will ALL the following rules: · The proposal is submitted by a legal entity established and based in one of the EU Member States or a Horizon Europe Associated country. The targeted organisations in this Call are (i) SMEs; (ii) Industry; (iii) Research/scientific organisation; (iv) Academia. · The proposal is submitted by a single party. The submission of proposals by consortia is not eligible. · The proposer CANNOT BE AFFILIATED TO ANY OF THE CONSORTIUM PARTNERS OF THE 6G-XR PROJECT. · The proposal complies with the type of activity qualified for financial support: (i) Personnel costs; (ii) Travel costs; (iii) Indirect costs (25% of the direct costs). No other cost categories are eligible. · The proposal is submitted in English. · The proposal is submitted through the official Open Call Submission Tool on the 6G-XR website providing all the required documents (completed proposal template and declaration of honour). · Proposals need to come from the European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) Stream B thematises. Proposals are required to justify their linkage to Stream B thematises, and proposals coming directly from Stream B projects are required to ensure the proposed work is not already covered by the existing Stream B project, but it is in fact novel. If the proposal is based on Stream B action, there needs to be a clear justification how the proposal goes beyond the project’s description of action, or what is the difference between the respective description of action and this proposal. 6G-XR reserves the right to terminate a funded Open Call project during execution if these conditions are found not to be respected. · Feasibility check is mandatory and the proposals must to be submitted for feasibility evaluation before the Feasibility check deadline. Proposals failing submission for feasibility will not be evaluated. · The proposal has been submitted within the deadline set in this document. Late proposals will not be admitted. · The proposal complies with the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) regarding all personal data that might be included in the proposal. Proposals submitted by Parties meeting the requirements will be further evaluated according to the following criteria: 1. Clarity and methodology: Soundness of the approach and credibility of the proposed methodology 2.    Ambition: Advancement regard the state-of-the-art and expected output. The proposal is required to justify and position itself with relation to a SNS JU Stream B thematises. 3.    Impact: Technology and domain fit to 6G-XR scope and objectives. 4.    Replicability of the proposed solution. 5.    Contribution to standardisation of the proposed solution. 6.    Team capacity to perform; knowledge, technological and business expertise; commitment; research domain & track-record. 7.    Value for money: quality and effectiveness of the requested resources. 8.    SME participation is encouraged. 9.    Gender dimension awareness requested to the proposers. 10. Maturity/trajectory of the proposing organization/proposed development in the specific field of their proposal.

Further information

Detailed information about the 2nd 6G-XR Open Call is already included in the Open Call documents (Information Document, Proposal Template, Declaration of Honour, Draft Third Party Agreement) available on https://www.6g-xr.eu/open-calls/oc2/. Please review thoroughly these documents as well as the Frequently Asked Questions section of the Open Call 2 page. If the answer to your question cannot be found in the documentation, you can send your question to the following email address: opencalls@6g-xr.eu. In case your question refers to technical details of the offered research infrastructure, you can send your question to the same email address opencalls@6g-xr.eu, clearly mentioning which infrastructure the question relates to.