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Shaping Europe’s digital future
Digibyte | Publication

New European Partnerships launched to deliver on the EU's ambitions for the Digital Decade

To boost research and innovation investments in digital, the Commission has launched new European Partnerships together with industry and academia, under the Horizon Europe programme.
The Partnerships will pursue innovative solutions on a large scale, pooling in efforts, resources and investments which will generate long-term positive impact, boost European competitiveness and technological sovereignty, as well as create jobs and growth.

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The new European Partnerships in digital

European Partnership for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Robotics

To deliver the greatest advantages to Europe from Artificial Intelligence (AI), data and robotics, this Partnership will drive innovation, acceptance and uptake of these technologies, for the benefit of citizens and businesses, as well as the environment. It will support the research and development of these technologies, as well as their deployment, foster novel applications and stimulate public and private investment, to create economic, technological and societal value for business, citizens and the environment and that enables a human-centric and trustworthy European vision of AI.

This Partnership aims to:

  • Support the EU in achieving sovereignty and leadership in AI, Data and Robotics technologies, as well as reinforcing its strong and global competitive position;
  • Promote the use of innovative human-centric and trustworthy AI, Data and Robotics and ensuring the scaling-up of new markets, while maximising its economic benefit across all sectors and regions in Europe to build a strong and effective ecosystem;
  • Accelerate uptake by industry in all sector, while leading and supporting research to ultimately raise the state-of-the-art of AI, Data and Robotics in the EU; support initiatives that engage SMEs and Start-ups, and that foster AI skills building, as well as work towards aligning legal frameworks, standards and regulation.

A total of €2.6 billion will be dedicated to the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership with equal contributions from the European Commission and the private side, representing the robotics community.

European Partnership for Photonics (light-based technologies)

The Partnership will speed up photonic innovations for a digital and green future, securing Europe's technological sovereignty, raising the competitiveness of Europe's economy and promoting long-term job creation and prosperity. Building on the work of the Photonics21 set up under Horizon2020, this partnership will firstly help to connect the major players in photonics and facilitate the flow of know-how so that technological development can be re-used in different areas. Secondly, it will help the industrial suppliers which are mainly SMEs to get to market more quickly based on the results of collaborative research. This will help companies grow faster and make them less vulnerable to acquisitions by foreign investors.

This Partnership aims to:

  • Provide critical photonic components, systems and processes for next generation applications, products and processes relevant to societal and economical challenges.
  • Maintain leadership in core photonics technologies as well as in the application of photonics through ensuring common strategic research and investment commitment by the photonics industry, end-users and the European Commission.
  • Raise the international competitiveness of Europe’s economy and ensure long-term job and prosperity creation in Europe, for the photonics industry as well as for the downstream enabled industries utilising photonics technologies by increasing the uptake of technology and its translation into new products and services.

A total of €680 million will be dedicated to the Photonics Partnership with equal contributions from the European Commission and other Partners.

Additionally, the Commission also launched the following two Partnerships to help deliver on digital ambitions:

European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud

This partnership aims to deploy and consolidate by 2030 an open, trusted virtual environment to enable the estimated 2 million European researchers to store, share and reuse research data across borders and disciplines.

European Partnership Made in Europe

This partnership should become the driving force for European leadership in sustainable manufacturing in Europe, by applying the principles of the circular economy (zero-waste and others), digital transformation and climate neutral manufacturing.

Background

These Partnerships are complemented by another seven launched today with the aim of overcoming major climate and sustainability challenges, in line with the twin digital and green goals. Altogether, the 11 new Partnerships will receive over €8 billion from Horizon Europe, the new EU research and innovation programme for 2021-2027. The total commitments, including those from private partners and from Member States, amount to around €22 billion. A signature ceremony for the Memoranda of Understanding took place today during the European Research and Innovation Days.

Further information

European Partnerships in Horizon Europe | European Commission (europa.eu)