Memorandum of Understanding with 6G-IA signed

Collaboration for faster terrestrial and non-terrestrial convergence

                               

On 4th April 2022, Eureka Cluster CELTIC-NEXT and the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which aims at establishing synergies and complementary activities in collaborative ICT research. The MoU will help foster economic growth and jobs through coordinated R&D&I activities and the commercial exploitation of generated results. The collaboration aims to leverage the complementarity of 6G-IA and CELTIC-NEXT and build on synergies to maximise the return on investment and to support achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

ICT has become, more than ever, a pillar of sovereignty and resiliency in the rapidly changing social, political and economic environment of today and its regional battlefields. The Russian war against Ukraine as well as the measures against the COVID-19 pandemic have shown how critical it is to count on both terrestrial and non-terrestrial ICT services, as together they constitute one of the critical infrastructures of a country, especially considering the digitalisation of the society and the vertical industries.

Therefore, it is mandatory to increase and leverage to its maximum the European and allied countries’ funding to reach a critical mass of R&D&I and a faster time-to-market for the European countries and their allies’ ICT industry.

This Memorandum of Understanding provides the platform for leveraging on each signatory’s strengths and cooperation, to support sovereignty and resiliency for Europe and allied countries.

The purpose of this MoU is to set out a simple framework where the signatories can identify the complementary nature of their respective objectives and to identify and implement shared activities that benefit both initiatives and contribute to the achievement of their goals.

The signatories aim to leverage the diversity of 6G-IA and CELTIC-NEXT as well as the fact that their projects are somewhat sequential in terms of their Technology Readiness Levels (TLRs), to maximise the return on the respective investments and increase the impact on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The signatories will focus on encouraging cross-programme discussions and workshops on potential technology pathfinders and solutions, with a view to stimulating a pipeline of new projects for both initiatives and sharing reciprocal contributions to each other’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) documents.

The focus of the cooperation is to stimulate the respective communities to consider the issues in a holistic way considering the “end-to-end” perspective of the new communications services being enabled by 5G and 6G technologies, as well as developing an understanding of the economic, environmental, and societal benefits.

How the MoU will be implemented

To support the achievement of their common objectives, the signatories intend to:

› Create awareness and promote opportunities for collaboration within and across the respective communities
› Consult mutually on their SRIAs
› Collaborate on the organisation and execution of activities with a view to reaching the common objectives identified
› Participate in and support suitable events organized by the other signatory
› Plan and manage joint activities in areas of common interest in line with the signatories’ respective legal frameworks
› Undertake joint communication, as appropriate
› Leverage their relevant resources and expertise necessary to ensure the success of the common objectives
› Regularly review the effectiveness of this collaboration, with reference to the priorities agreed

Conclusion

This MoU is the second of a series of new collaborations for CELTIC-NEXT. This fulfils the objectives set by CELTIC-NEXT’s Core Group to develop CELTIC-NEXT’s support to and impact for the ICT community by enriching its DNA with new verticals and communities. The 6G-IA community is also eager to collaborate more with the CELTIC ICT community. This MoU offers the perfect playground for both communities to meet and work together on strategic topics and projects.

Back to the Future—A 21-Year Journey of Collaborative Innovation

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

21 years of Innovation through ­collaboration

21 years in the life of any initiative is significant achievement as it shows that the goals, methods and achievements of the community are maintaining relevance and value for the community.

As a EUREKA cluster, the CELTIC community held their first call for projects in 2003, resulting in selection of 15 projects based on quality and relevance and were supported by the national authorities and launched.

Whilst, the current statistics show that, there have been over 175 CELTIC projects which have generated at least 650 patents and 1500 products and services. Besides, this work resulted in almost 1500 higher level degrees (PhD & MSc) and stimulated more than 4500 scientific publications. This is the power of Collaborative Innovation.

For 21 years the CELTIC-NEXT process has continued to evolve to meet the ever-changing research requirements of the ICT industries, related academics and vertical sector organisations and, more critically, the national interests of the EUREKA Member States. In fact, what the CELTIC-NEXT EUREKA community has learnt over the years is that this marriage of the industry needs with the priorities of national interest can achieve a high return on investment for the supporting parties. This Win-Win type of collaboration presents a sustainable model.

Innovative Collaboration

However, we cannot assume things will always be the same. As we speak, new challenges in the way we prepare and do collaborative innovation have arisen in more recent times. Some involve the politics of the moment, having faster programs, and others raise security and sovereignty issues. Finding fair and practical ways to address such issues will test the industry players and the national authorities’ joint ability to always find the common ground of mutual interest. But having recently participated in exercises where the interested parties sat down around a table to discuss what improvements we can make to increase the value and effectiveness of the EUREKA Cluster programs, I have no doubt solutions can be found. Authorities and Industry have a shared ambition to make the clusters programs better, more relevant and easier to operate for the future. This willingness to evolve innovatively on how we do collaborative innovation is the key to future success for all.

 

The future vision of CELTIC NEXT

If we look forward in even the next 10 years, we can expect that the communications infrastructure will have become even more pervasive, people will have ceased to notice how they are connected but they will be quite confident that the connectivity of the required quality will always be there when they need it. Similarly, our devices – from our phones to our cars – will have capabilities not just to serve our needs but to anticipate our future needs and make sure the data and communications services are there for us. Industry will be transformed with fully digitised systems modelling and managing just about every industrial process.

Behind all of these visions will be a set of people who will work with their international peers in a collaborative way to advance the technologies, improve the social sciences and ensure a sustainable future for all. CELTIC-NEXT will work on enabling this vision.

Looking forward to the next 21 years !!


© Canva

What’s next for CELTIC-NEXT

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

CELTIC-NEXT: Looking Back

It is said that there are periods in history where, if you jump 50 years, the world is recognizable. But there are other periods of rapid development where such a jump brings you to an unrecognisable new world. The first half of the 20th Century would be an example of the latter as at the turn of the century the world was still based on horse transport but by the middle of the 20th Century cars, trains and planes had made the world small and accessible to all.

For Telecommunications we have seen such a generational change in the first 20 years of the 21st Century. In fact, the pace of change from the late 1990s to today has seen the communications infrastructure change and evolve so rapidly that it has changed the behaviour of society as a whole.

As the new technologies advance, they reach a level where they become “adequate”. What I mean by this is that it became sufficient for all normal needs to the point that you, as a user, no longer expects or demands evolutions. You don’t ask any more if you PC processor is fast enough – they all are fast. We are rapidly entering the era where you don’t worry about your data connection any more as it is fast enough. So where do we go from here?

CELTIC-NEXT: Looking Forward

There is a core challenge in the ICT domain that each evolution of the network infrastructure has prompted a complete infrastructure renewal. The fixed network had to be changed for a mobile network and then, in subsequent generations, all physical network elements had to be replaced with newer faster devices. No other infrastructure industry has had such a challenge. For example, the electricity network to your house has probably never been renewed. In the ICT sector growth has been explosive as people now have a communication device for every family member (probably including the dog) and most family members now have several communicating devices.

This means that Telcos must get a good return on investment on each new technology within a very short time in order to be able financially implement the next generation. To progress from here the ICT industry now has to migrate to more generic hardware that can provide many of the interesting evolutions through updating software. Network infrastructures must have interfaces that allow elements to be changed without changing the whole system. At the same time the whole ICT domain must address the new requirements that include important issues like: sustainability, renewability, inherent societal considerations and, more recently, sovereignty.

CELTIC-NEXT: The future opportunities

Two streams of innovation are essential for the future: the first is the revolution – where new services and devices that enhance our live must be invented and brought to life; and the second is evolution – where every aspect of how we do things must be overhauled to be done more efficiently, using less energy and resources, and for lower costs.

ICT not only must facilitate this for its own industry but also it is the facilitator for other sectors. The revolution of millions of sensors – the Internet of Things (IoT), combined with the explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems means we now should have all the data and the intelligence to learn how to improve everything.

The great opportunities for ICT now include:

  • To use our imagination and inventiveness to make our systems simpler, lighter, and more energy efficient. AI can help here.
  • To make the lifecycles more sustainable – reprogrammable equipment means longer working lives and less resources, and recycling helps everyone.
  • To help reduce the digital divide and promote better education and information. Again, AI can help.
  • To clean up the global information pool and make it safe. We all need information we can trust. Another opportunity for clever AI tools?
  • On a personal level, we need assistance to enjoy the end-to-end communications, so long the backbone of CELTIC-NEXT projects, so let’s invent a new family of cutting-edge services devoted to looking after the interests of the individual.

These challenges are ideal for the Eureka Clusters Programme, as the combination of national interest and early industry investment ensures the wellbeing of both society at large and the industry sectors is considered.

ICT is a tool for economic growth and development. The dramatic evolution of the ICT networks now mean that it generates lots of new opportunities and can change the way our civil society functions. We must now join forces within the CELTIC-NEXT cluster to address these challenges and take advantage of the exciting opportunities to protect, preserve and enhance all the best and beautiful parts of our societies and, at the same time, to invent and develop new, better, more sustainable, solutions to our existing problems.

The exciting evolving ICT sector can be used as a stimulus to stop the spread of negative trends and lead the way towards sustainable development on all levels. CELTIC-NEXT is looking forward to a new generation of projects inventing new networks and services that facilitate a better future for all.

The new improved Eureka Clusters Programme

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

The Eureka Clusters Programme (ECP) is coming out of a restructuring phase where there was a lot of pressure on the Clusters themselves to become more flexible and responsive, against a promise of more investment and more support for the industry and community research and collaboration needs. At this point it is useful to see how we are progressing and if we are achieving our goals.

From the Clusters side we have shown great flexibility and adaptability by running joint thematic calls for topics that were identified as common interest. However, despite this the major expectations the Clusters had from the renewal have not emerged yet. We expected that the joint calls would be new topics that would generate new budgets and increase the investment overall in the Cluster activities, but to date, we have not seen this in reality. In fact, many Eureka member public authorities admit they are funding the new joint calls from the existing Cluster budgets with no additional funding being generated.

The problem here is that we are then, in effect, just increasing the number of calls to be managed and therefore the number of reviews, assessments, funding decisions, etc., for what is effectively the same size programme. Clearly it is not a long-term strategy to keep increasing the costs of operation without seeing any increase in the volume and value of the programme. So, we do need to do a progress assessment on the New ECP model and work out which parts are working and which parts need more attention.

From the Clusters perspective, one part that has not taken off is the expected high-level meetings between industry representatives and national authorities. It was foreseen that we could have strategic discussions that would lead to common ideas on the priorities and therefore a mutual commitment of both public authorities and industry to invest in the identified priorities of the moment. We are just not there yet. We need to get this dialogue going to stimulate the anticipated increases in investments.

Bigger is better

The other point of concern is that we have an increasing trend for smaller project proposals coming from the community. We need to see why this is happening and how can we motivate more substantial actions. One possible cause is that proposers are being conditioned by warnings of limited funding opportunities – so they ask for less, so the project ambition is reduced, so the public authorities are not impressed by the limited proposals, and we are in a downward cycle. Another suggestion is that proposals are shrinking, because resources are limited. However, this is only true if the proposals are moving away from the core needs of the industry. Industry players are simple in this regard in that they decide what they need to do for their future business and, if the project proposal is in line with their business goals, then they commit the necessary resources. But maybe we are coming back to the missing strategic discussion where the business needs and the national interests need to be aligned.

The Cluster commitment to flexibility has been proven by the joint calls, but this has introduced two concerns: the first is that the public authorities seem to have difficulties being equally flexible – it was really unfortunate that one public authority refused to support a project in a joint call, as it was proposed through a Cluster they did not support – this challenges the very basis of joint calls; the second concern is that the level of budget commitment to joint calls is such that the issues may be better addressed as recommended themes within the normal bottom-up calls of the Clusters.

The way forward

Whatever way we look at it, there is a clear need to strategically invest from both the national and the industry sides – but it must be done in a coherent way. There are several challenges in the new model that we must progress on, to get the additional value from the programme. It is now emerging that it will be necessary to have multiple national level meetings with the Cluster interests rather than the one common high-level meeting – or maybe both approaches need to run in parallel.

In any case, we must preserve and promote the essence of the extremely efficient and useful Eureka Clusters instrument. This, in essence, is the structure in which the proactive Cluster core groups, as the key industry players of their respective sectors, work in partnership with the Eureka public authorities to stimulate a set of bottom-up project proposals that capture the needs of industry, aligns them with the national interests and develops products and services for the benefit of both society and industry as a whole. The EUREKA Clusters Programme matters.

CELTIC-NEXT Events in a nutshell

Past Events

EuCNC 2022 & 2023

CELTIC-NEXT and its strategic partnering Cluster Xecs held a joint booth at EuCNC 2022 in Grenoble, France, and at EuCNC 2023 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Both events were very good occasions for both Clusters to meet with the European ICT community members and exchange on inter-governmental funding opportunities offered by the Eureka network of countries within and beyond European borders. AINET Flagship was also present to display the excellence of the CELTIC-NEXT projects.


Xavier Priem, CELTIC Office Director and Nadja Rohrbach, Xecs Director

Eureka HLG/HLR Meetings under ­Portugese Chairmanship

Four times per rotating chairmanship, the ­Eureka High Level Group and High-Level Representatives of the Eureka country members meet to check the status of the Eureka Programmes (including the Clusters). CELTIC-NEXT’s Director attended several Portugal led meetings to represent the interests of the CELTIC-NEXT community, discussing funding, alignment of topics and strategies, timelines of national calls, etc. One of the targets of those meetings is to attract new countries of the ­Network to fund CELTIC-NEXT projects. Canada has become a full member of Eureka, Chile as joint member

As an example, the ESA partnership with CELTIC-NEXT and Eureka got signed during the Porto meeting. Also during those meetings the United Kingdom representatives announced their increased support to the Clusters.


Group photo of the Eureka Network meeting in Porto, Portugal

Eureka HLG/HLR Meetings under Turkish Chairmanship

CELTIC-NEXT’s Director attended the Brussels’, Ankara’s and Izmir’s meetings. Both meetings were important for the Clusters and thus for CELTIC-NEXT. At CELTIC-NEXT’s level, very fruitful discussions took place with over 20 countries, including Chile as new country for CELTIC-NEXT but also with Brazil that will be an associated Eureka country starting mid-2024. This reinforces one of the CELTIC-NEXT’ unique selling points: the ability to have cooperative innovation with countries outside of Europe. Actions have been defined with both countries to introduce CELTIC-NEXT to their national eco-systems.


Group photo at the Eureka HLG/HLR Network meeting in Izmir, Türkiye

› Further information

  • https://eurekanetwork.org/about-us/chair/
  • https://www.celticnext.eu/celtic-next-participate-first-eureka-network-meetings-under-the-turkish-chair-22-23-november-2023/

CELTIC-NEXT Proposers’ Brokerage Day in Paris

Due to and during COVID-19 Pandemics, CELTIC-NEXT took the decision to stop all CELTIC-NEXT’s regularly organised physical events such as Proposers’ Brokerage Days and CELTIC-NEXT annual promotional events. Even if COVID-19 is still present, it is now better mastered and physical meetings have rebooted all over the world. Recognising this, CELTIC-NEXT organised its first post-COVID-19 event at “le Hub by BPIfrance” in Paris, with the support of the French Public Authority in Eureka: BPIfrance. Despite the strikes blocking half of our registered attendees, the event was a success, with keynotes from the Industry and from BPIfrance.

› Further information

  • https://www.celticnext.eu/past-proposers-days/


CELTIC-NEXT Proposers’ Brokerage Day at the BPI Le Hub in Paris

Ongoing CELTIC-NEXT signed collaborations

Memorandum of Intent signed with ESA to enable faster convergence and development between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks & services

                             

On November 22, 2021, Eureka Cluster CELTIC-NEXT and the European Space Agency (ESA) formalized a partnership through the signing of a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) in Porto, Portugal. This collaboration aims to strengthen ties between their respective communities and drive economic growth and job creation by coordinating research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) activities in integrated space and terrestrial systems enabled by 5G and 6G technologies.

This MoI emphasizes leveraging the synergies between ESA and CELTIC-NEXT to maximize investment returns and contribute towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In today’s dynamic political and economic environment, Space ICT has emerged as a critical pillar for sovereignty and resilience. The growing importance of Space ICT is evident as it becomes central to global industry and government agendas. From an economic standpoint, new non-European players are disrupting the sector with innovations like Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites and High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS).

The collaboration between CELTIC-NEXT and ESA aims to address these challenges by fostering cross-fertilization and collaboration between their communities. This partnership will facilitate the convergence and development of terrestrial and non-terrestrial network and service technologies, including three-dimensional networking.


Signing the Memorandum of Intent (from left): Eureka Chairman Miguel Bello Mora,
Elodie Viau – Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications and Head of ECSAT
at the European Space Agency (ESA), and CELTIC Office Director Xavier Priem.

To implement this collaboration, both organizations will leverage their respective funding instruments, processes, and expertise while coordinating on specific themes such as network convergence, system development, business ecosystem models, and spectrum sharing. Joint activities will include roadmapping, advisory boards, knowledge networks, webinars, workshops, and testbeds/trial platforms to support common objectives and priorities.

Further collaboration to expect

This MoI marks the beginning of a series of strategic collaborations for CELTIC-NEXT, enriching its support and impact within the ICT community. The collaboration offers an ideal platform for the space and terrestrial ICT communities to collaborate on strategic initiatives and projects. CELTIC-NEXT looks forward to the space community’s contributions and engagement in upcoming joint initiatives focused on Space ICT and three-dimensional networking.

Memorandum of Understanding signed with the 6G-IA to establish ­synergies and complementary activities in collaborative ICT research

                                                

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on ICT research between Eureka Cluster CELTIC-NEXT and the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) is now signed for a year now. As its aim is to enhance economic growth and job creation through joint R&D&I activities and the commercialization of outcomes, this collaboration leverages the strengths of both organizations to maximize investment returns and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In the context of today’s rapidly evolving social, political, and economic landscape, information and communication technology (ICT) plays a crucial role in ensuring national sovereignty and resilience. Recent global events such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic have underscored the critical importance of both terrestrial and non-terrestrial ICT services as essential components of a country’s infrastructure. To address these challenges, there is a pressing need to increase and optimize funding for R&D&I initiatives in European, with the goal of accelerating innovation and enhancing the competitiveness of the ICT industry.

This collaboration is for now facilitating cross-program discussions and soon workshops and joint projects will be organised to aim at advancing technology readiness and addressing key societal challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. It encourages cross-program discussions, workshops, and collaborative projects to advance technology readiness and achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Consultations on Strategic Research and Innovation Agendas (SRIAs), organize joint activities, and leverage resources to achieve common objectives are in discussion. Regular reviews will ensure effective collaboration and alignment with each community priorities.

Opportunities for the future

This MoU represents a new collaboration for CELTIC-NEXT and expands its impact within the ICT community. It provides a platform for the 6G-IA and CELTIC-NEXT communities to collaborate on strategic topics and projects.

To operationalize the MoU, the signatories have committed to several actions, including promoting collaboration within their respective communities, consulting on Strategic Research and Innovation Agendas (SRIAs), organizing joint activities, and leveraging their combined resources and expertise.

Outlook

These two memorandums signed with two different big organisation in their domains are a significant milestone for CELTIC-NEXT, representing a strategic expansion of its impact within the ICT community. By fostering closer ties and cooperation, they provide valuable platforms for both communities to collaborate on critical strategic initiatives and projects that will shape the future of ICT.

They will also allow knowledge exchange and SRIA’s cross collaborations in the years to come, will help levering funding schemes across low TRL topics, support an easier pipelining for proposals and offer innovative entities the full panel between top-down programs and bottom-up spaces for their collaborative projects.