Artificial intelligence is at the heart of the digital transformation of our society. For industrialists, it is a tremendous asset, but RDI projects are very expensive. Calls for projects are a real opportunity for companies to carry out their research and thus develop, integrate and commercialize AI technologies more quickly. We present you the current APPs, the second APP 2022 of the Eurostars program which starts this July 13 as well as the AMI on the valorization of data of the Ministry of the Armies.

European calls for projects

The second call 2022 of the EUROSTARS program

Eurostars is a program implemented by the European Commission and EUREKA. It aims to support innovative SMEs and targets companies that make significant investments in R&D, carrying out a collaborative transnational Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) project.

This program also aims to encourage collaboration between program members from European countries, but also from South Africa, Korea, Singapore, Ukraine, Turkey, Canada and Chile, in all thematic areas.

Each year, two calls for projects are launched, within the framework of the “Horizon Europe” 2021-2028 program, aimed at companies with less than 2000 employees and their academic partners; the second call for 2022 will be open from July 13 to September 15, 2022.

Eligible projects

All collaborative R&D&I projects are eligible, regardless of the theme, aiming at a marketable innovative process, product or service:

• Including the participation of at least two partners from two Eurostars member countries,
• With a development period of less than 3 years followed by a commercialization taking place less than 2 years after the end of the project,
• The project leader is an SME with less than 250 employees and a turnover not exceeding 50 million euros, from a Eurostars member country

Each partner of the winning projects is funded at the national level, by Bpifrance for France. The deadline for submission is September 15, 2022, 2:00 pm.

The call for projects: Partnerships in innovation France-Finland

As its name indicates, this call aims to promote and financially support partnerships in innovation between French and Finnish companies, however, if it is open to all projects, will be privileged those with artificial intelligence as a theme.

Its objective is not only to open the Finnish market to French SMEs, to support industrial collaboration but also to create French and European talents and achieve excellence in AI.

Eligible projects

The project must be led by a consortium composed of at least one Finnish company and one French company with less than 2,000 employees, with a strong potential for international growth, and must target the development of products, services or industrial processes, with a view to marketing.

The preferred industrial sector is sustainable manufacturing and for the technological approach, AI, with related services, for example:

• Intelligent robotic solutions,
• imaging and artificial vision,
• simulation in product and process design.

Bpifrance will finance industrial research and/or technical development activities of French companies, the deadline for submission is September 26, 2022 .

The Franco-German bilateral call for AI projects

This new joint Franco-German APP aims to encourage collaborations in AI address the following areas:

• Transport and mobility,
• Logistics and services,
• Energy (especially renewable energy),
• Environment and resource protection,
• Industry and production technologies,
• Society.

Funded by the ANR on the French side and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on the German side, it addresses two different types of projects and consortia,

Type 1: Collaborative Research Project, maximum duration 4 years

Each consortium must have at least two members:

• A French partner in the category Research and Knowledge Dissemination Organizations
  knowledge dissemination in the European sense,
• A German partner of the type research institute and / or university (definition
  according to German regulations).

Type 2: Research and Development Project, maximum duration 4 years

Each consortium must be composed of at least four partners:

• For the French part: at least one French partner from the category
  Research and knowledge dissemination organizations in the European sense of the ANR
  and a Company established or having a link with France (see financial regulations) and requesting funding by the ANR in the framework of the project.
• For the German part: at least one research and/or university institute and one company (definition according to German regulations).

Funding

Each party will fund the call up to 7 million Euros. The requested budget should not exceed 2.4 million euros for type 1 projects and 800,000 euros for type 2 projects.

Project proposals must be submitted by September 22, 2022 at 1:00 pm.

The AMI and the national APP

Call for expression of interest for the valorization of operational video data of the armed forces

Launched by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the objective of this AMI is to“promote the development of operational functions based particularly on the various “image processing” techniques and technologies and/or artificial intelligence techniques and technologies, in fine integrable into military operational optronic systems in order to make them more efficient.”

To this end, it is aimed at external players with proven entrepreneurial or academic activity in the fields of AI, DATA processing and optronic signal processing. The French Air Force will provide them with pre-identified and characterized sovereign operational databases, made up of data, mostly video, from various optronic sensors of its operational systems. These data are unstructured and have a maximum classification level of “Restricted Distribution” (RD).

In return, the company will be able to benefit from the data annotations made and the possibility of testing the algorithms or products developed on the basis of this data. The duration of this agreement will not exceed 6 months, renewable once.

The last call for proposals will take place on September 9, 2022.

Call for projects “Financing of pre-series of technological innovations related to agricultural equipment

Launched on December 22 as part of the “Sustainable agricultural systems and agricultural equipment contributing to the ecological transition” acceleration strategy at the heart of PIA4, endowed with €25 million, this APP aims to financially support start-ups and industrial companies in mobile agricultural robotics, agro-equipment and technologies associated with agricultural equipment. More specifically, it concerns pre-production trials of fixed or mobile machines and agricultural equipment, integrating digital technologies, on agricultural sites in real conditions.

To carry out this field test, companies must build a test protocol, train the user, measure the agro-environmental performance, sometimes prevent new risks and verify the suitability of the equipment for the farmer’s use.

Eligible projects

The project must be carried out by a single company, it can concern either :

• Mobile agricultural robotics;
• Agricultural equipment with automated and/or intelligent functions;
• Automated and/or intelligent technologies for agricultural equipment, agriculture and breeding;
• Technological innovations related to agricultural equipment and machinery.

This APP is open until October 5, 2022, 12 noon

Call for projects: “Technological maturation and demonstration of embedded artificial intelligence solutions

This call for projects aims to support hardware and software innovations related to embedded AI applications from their design to the demonstration of their effectiveness in real-life situations. It is composed of two distinct components:

• Track A: Deployment of solutions based on embedded AI in industrial products and processes of all sectors (only open to collaborative projects); This track aims to accelerate the integration of new technological offerings in final products for a faster commercialization. The project must have a budget of more than 4 M€, aim for a TRL level of between 6 and 8 at the end of the project and last between 12 and 36 months.
• Track B: technological maturation of architectures and hardware platforms dedicated to embedded AI. This second track, open to single-partner or collaborative projects, targets more specifically projects in the field of hardware dedicated to AI, in particular semiconductors. The project will have to present a total work base higher than 2 M€ for single-partner projects and 4 M€ for collaborative projects, the final TRL reaching at least level 5.

The next round will take place on October 5, 2022 at 12:00 pm, the next on January 16, 2023.

Translated from Intelligence artificielle : Focus sur les appels à projets en cours