From historical flagships to flagships programme

What are CELTIC-NEXT Flagships?

Xavier Priem
Director CELTIC Office

CELTIC historic flagship programme started with 100-Gigabit Ethernet Transport Technologies (100 GET), Safe and Secure European Routing (SASER), Secure Networking for a data center cloud in Europe(SENDATE) projects, and Accellerating digital transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork automation (AI-NET) flagship. The ramping-up Sustainable Technologies for Advanced Resilient and Energy-Efficient Networks (SUSTAINET) flagship is the successor of those highly successful flagship projects. This is a clear success track record. And they also create highly collaborative communities, as you can take from the AI-NET song ! Those flagship projects were and are still possible because Industry and National Funding Innovation Agencies jointly recognise(d) the absence of adequate funding support in addressing a particular area of the CELTIC-NEXT’s ICT Strategic and Innovation Road Map (SRIA).


Figure 1: Typical Flagship Characteristics

Preparing and launching a Flagship project requires a concerted approach between a core group of large industry players and a core group of public funding agencies. This small core team delimits the relevant R&D&I area of the flagship, the overall approximative budget envelope to be targeted, and the agenda for developing the project proposal. This is the first preparation phase, consisting of a top-down approach in terms of thematic area and budget envelope. Then, once this is designed, the core industrial consortium will open the flagship proposal to more participants, enabling a considerable number of industry players, SMEs, RTOs, and academics to join the consortium. This is the phase of bottom-up growth within the agreed SRIA area. This is also potentially a growth in terms of budget needs.

Due to the accrued number of participants (up to 100) and subtopics, the Flagship project is then organised around three to four subprojects and an umbrella project that contains all common cross-subproject topics. Another form of maintaining coherence for the horizontal topics is to have a common Work Package with joint tasks across the subprojects (also called vertical projects in the flagship jargon).

Once the horizontal and vertical project proposals are ready, they are submitted to CELTIC-NEXT and the Public Authorities like regular project proposals made in the two-yearly bottom-up calls. They must fulfil the same rules, evaluation criteria, and KPIs.

Flagships are a unique selling point of CELTIC-NEXT in the Eureka Cluster Programme (ECP). There is a strong demand from National Funding & Innovation Agencies to join either in the current topical area of our flagships or in other areas of our SRIA. We aim to reproduce that success in several of them, clearing streams of flagships.

Preparing flagships demands a high intensity of preparation work as they are like mini-programmes. This means that a strategy needs to be put in place to develop them in time and quality. As they target kind of European “funding” market failures, they need also to be well explained to gather the EUREKA national funding agencies support.

Recall of SUSTAINET high-level description: “In the midst of global crises and geopolitical challenges, Europe is charting its course towards a digital, sustainable future. However, with its share of the global ICT market declining, urgent actions are required to ensure technological sovereignty. This project addresses this multifaceted challenge by focusing on network resilience, energy efficiency, sustainability, high-performing end-to-end networks, and network security.

Achieving seamless interconnection of digital systems, essential for future high-performance communication networks, demands research in ICT hardware and control software. The transition towards a “Digital Society” necessitates increased dependence on ICT for power supply control, emphasising the need for resilient, scalable networking technologies combined with the support of new services such as cognitive and complete context awareness.

Network resilience is paramount in such interconnected networking for critical infrastructures and requires new concepts to ensure communication continuity during errors or disasters. Such networking will also call for secure networks with robust cybersecurity measures to combat evolving threats.

Furthermore, network sustainability is vital for realising a climate-neutral future. Telecommunications networks must prioritise connectivity and serve as platforms for a sustainable society. Operators must adapt to fluctuating renewable energy availability, transitioning from consumers to prosumers in the energy market.

Collaborative R&D efforts are imperative to achieve these objectives and regain technological sovereignty. Government support and industry initiatives must converge to drive innovation in key technologies, fostering industrial cooperation and joint R&D initiatives.

This project proposes a holistic approach, integrating research in frictionless network performance, resilience, security, and sustainability to propel Europe towards a sustainable, technologically sovereign future.”

How does it translate into a tangible project?

Here are some KPIs for SUSTAINET :

  • 8 Countries at labelling time, over 10 now, with some still joining during the ramp-up phase
  • Over 90 participants of all types, Telcos, Large Industry, SMEs, RTOs, Academia
  • Over 70 M€ budget,
  • Over 500 FTEs, split into 3 vertical projects and one umbrella set of horizontal tasks
  • 36 months duration (indicative depending on funding decisions timing)
  • High expected impact and visibility in standards & markets


Figure 2: CELTIC-NEXT New Flagship: SUSTAINET

Further information