Interactive Technologies

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

Interactive technologies such as Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are set to transform the ways in which people communicate, interact and share information on the internet and beyond. This will directly impact a larger number of European industries ranging from the cultural and creative industries, manufacturing, robotic and healthcare to education, entertainment and media, enabling new business opportunities. The challenge is to forge a competitive and sustainable ecosystem of European technology providers in interactive technologies.

The scope includes: 1/ support a pan-European coordination effort to strengthen the collaboration among the constituency; 2/ increase the European innovation capacity through the development of new authoring tools and the access to a broader community;

a) Interactive Community Building (CSA)

To better coordinate stakeholders the focus should be on:

• elaborating a common research agenda and a technology transfer strategy;
• building a platform to gather and share knowledge, algorithms and tools for the development and use of new interactive technologies. This may include the development of a dedicated open operating system;
• providing broad access and technical support for the platform as well as promoting its existence and establishing links with other existing platforms;
• supporting research and development teams in the integration of their tools into the platform. The task may involve financial support to third parties, in line with the conditions set out in part K of the General Annexes. Maximum 2M€ funding could be dedicated to it, with EUR 50.000 to 100 000^[1] per third party.

This action should result in a unique access point for innovators, SMEs and industrial companies interested in taking-up European interactive technologies in their product and services development. The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of EUR 3 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

b) Future interaction (RIA)

To strengthen European research and industrial capacities the research and innovation actions should focus either on:

• Better exploiting opportunities offered by multi-user interactions, researching and developing technologies augmenting human interaction in groups within both professional and private contexts.
• Or developing future interactive systems offering higher quality experiences, for instance through systems which are mobile, support additional senses, have higher accuracy or incorporate bio or environmental sensors.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 and 4 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

a) Establish a sustainable competitive ecosystem of European technology and solution providers for interactive technologies.

b) Strengthening European research and industrial capacities to develop future interactive devices.

This topic continue in 2020 under ICT-55-2020: Interactive Technologies

[1]In line with Article 23 (7) of the Rules for Participation the amounts referred to in Article 137 of the Financial Regulation may be exceeded when this is necessary to achieve the objectives of the action.