Community Program of OpenWebSearch.EU Project: 2nd Open Call for the Third-Parties 'Applications of an Open Web Index'

Description

Call #2 particularly addresses proposals for applications of the Open Web Index. Open WebSearch.eu project will provide access to both, pre-processed and indexed data in the Terabyte range and deliver continuous, daily updates until the end of the project. Successful applicants should use and exploit the data provided in innovative applications scenarios or research topics. Topics could belong to the following area, but are not limited to Innovative vertical search applications (e.g., Kids search, mobile search, science search, argument search); Retrieval augmented generation, conversational search and search based on Large Language models; Geolocation-based search and hybrid search (i.e., search settings that combine specialised data and web data); New search scenarios like personal search, human-centric search, corporate search, hybrid search, privacy aware search; Approaches for transparent and privacy aware searching; New search paradigms, search interactions and search user interfaces; Evaluation or simulation of search systems; Standards for Open Search; Efficient pre-processing and indexing methods like vector embeddings, content quality estimates; Web Analytics at different scale.   The OpenWebSearch.eu project consortium is eager to onboard new third-party project teams in OpenWebSearch.eu landscape and integrate them in the future activities for sustainable Research and Development. Therefore, the candidate third-party project should probe the closely related topics addressed in the project and should aim at widening and enriching the existing R&D activities as well as suggesting new ones which are complementary to the project goals and aims. Ideally, the project results should be integrated with the OpenWebSearch.eu infrastructure.

Beneficiary & submission

The applicants have to submit their appropriately formatted proposal by email to the call management by the given deadline. Please use the proposal template for applications. Applicants can submit at most one application per call. English is the main language for communication with the OpenWebSearch.eu consortium, and all submitted documents must be written in English. The submission will be acknowledged by the call management, and, only after the confirmation, the proposal can be considered as being submitted. It is advised not to wait till the last moment with the submission. Note that multiple submissions of the same project are not accepted. If the submission is not confirmed within max. 2 days, and provided the call deadline has not yet passed, you may contact the Grantor at call2@openwebsearch.eu to request the information and ask for re-submission. Topical fit and contribution to the project has been set as the key criteria for the selected third-party projects. Thus, the call addresses specific questions in the project raised by the consortium members. Also, the evaluation procedure strives for a well-balanced mix of project-external assessment and quality control combined with expertise and knowledge on the project-internal demands. The evaluation will be jointly conducted by the external experts in cooperation with the members of the project consortium. Proposals will be evaluated according to the following categories: Relevance and complementarity to the project, i.e., how well the proposal addresses the specific topics of the call, how the proposed work complements the pilot infrastructure or repeats (validates) what has been done already; Contribution to the goals of at least one of the five main components of the OpenWebSearch.eu project: (i) Crawling and Crawl Management, (ii) Pre-processing and Enrichment, (iii) Indexing, Search Paradigms and Search Architectures, (iv) Search Verticals, Data Products and Applications, (v) Data Storage, Provenance, and Computing Infrastructure; Importance of the target community or ecosystem; Expected outcome and impact for Open Search in general (also beyond the pilot infrastructure); Feasibility. In total 100 points will be distributed among the categories 1-5. Besides the above listed criteria, formal eligibility criteria in accordance with the grant agreement and European Regulations must be fulfilled, particularly on the target group and official funding criteria.

Further information

Details on this call see here Details on the OpenWebSearch Community Programme https://openwebsearch.eu/community/ Project website https://openwebsearch.eu/ More information about the Next Generation Internet https://www.ngi.eu/