The GENDEX mission consists of the development of the Pilot Innovation Gender and Diversity Index, providing consistent information (currently missing or fragmented) to startups, scaleups, corporates, the EIC, other investors and funding bodies, market actors and policy makers across Europe. The overall aim is to improve the availability of all talent, particularly female talent, to the EIC portfolio of projects and companies and the EU innovation ecosystem. For the first time ever, a G&D Index will be elaborated including a wide range of indicators related to gender but also to diversity factors covering all European Member States plus the U.K. GENDEX will review the existing baseline and access a high number of data sources, but it will bring a unique value by carrying out additional primary research both at quantitative and qualitative levels. Data sets will be assessed, gaps will be identified, a more standard-based approach to data will be suggested, all resulting in a richer definition of indicators and hence a G&D Index that will become a reference in Europe supporting evidence-based decision-making. A full report on the Index will be released with complementary material, including a web-based interactive dashboard that will enable smart data visualizations and a widget that will be used for company self-assessment and as a potential data collection tool. A wide dissemination, communication and awareness campaign will be implemented to ensure engagement and maximize the adoption of the G&D Index. The GENDEX consortium comprises a complementary set of recognized partners that includes IDC, European Women in VC and BluSpecs, authors of some of the key works in the field and also a guarantee of the best possible networks for stakeholder engagement. Such engagement will ultimately lead to maximization of the use of the G&D Index and hence, of its impact. GENDEX will also run a 2-phase validation with an experts’ group composed of at least 18 senior leaders.

UNLOCK CEI’s ambition is to UNLOCK the potential for accelerating the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT (CEI) computing continuum in Europe by focusing on the demand-side drivers and challenges to identify technology-driven innovation and business opportunities driving demand value chains. The project represents the CEI demand constituency; provide insights and guidance to the Horizon Europe R&D projects in this domain; and contribute to a proactive dialogue with the supply stakeholders to encourage the development of an open European CEI ecosystem. It focuses on emerging value chains where investment is needed to foster the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT continuum through the forthcoming CEI large scale pilots. This will ultimately foster European autonomy in the digital economy. The workplan is designed to provide early results to feed into the development of the HE Work Programme in 2023-24 based on the ongoing dialogue with the stakeholder ecosystem. The project pays specific attention to data governance issues, leveraging the relationship with industry-driven initiatives such as Gaia-X and CCAM (Connected, Co-operative & Automated Mobility) partnership. UNLOCK carries out a systematic assessment of the state of the open European CEI ecosystem and develop future market scenarios and related market pathways for the development of the open European CEI ecosystem. It will engage with industry stakeholders representing the most relevant industry value chains in Europe for CEI potential demand and develops a productive and effective interface between the demand constituency and the supply side, including the coordination of HE projects resulting from CL4-2021-DATA-01-05, CL4-2022-DATA-01-02, and CL4-2022-DATA-01-03 and Cluster 3 cybersecurity projects. It finally designs and implement a coordinated communication and dissemination strategy running throughout the lifetime of the project to create awareness about the whole of the European demand-side landscape.

The overall aim is to expand the impact and adoption of Space Tech by bringing together Space start-ups, SMEs, entrepreneurs and the IoT ecosystem to increase commercial relevance of the technologies across industrial sectors and accelerate their access to market and/or scaling. We will achieve this by designing and orchestrating a collaborative ecosystem with adapted tools and instruments that will position a greater number of space-enabled technologies in industrial markets. This ecosystem will be based on a blended community of IoT and Space that brings together a range of stakeholders, large and small, from academia, business and the public sector not just across the three local ecosystems that are directly taking part. The specific objectives are to: • Identify promising tech generated within the European space ecosystem that are susceptible to being used in Industry. • Identify SMEs, tech start-ups and founders who could benefit from space technologies through a range of local activities. • Design and deliver an acceleration programme for early stage space and IoT tech companies. • Facilitate access to innovative financial support to them consolidate their market offering and grow. • Increase the commercialisation and industry adoption of space tech. • Create a Europe-wide network of Space entrepreneurs . We will start by scouting promising space technologies that can be brought to market from across Europe. Their market relevance will be explored by stakeholders through locally delivered design studios. The ventures with the greatest potential will then be supported through an intensive 3+3 month acceleration programme than will build the founders capacity and further enable them to build and implement their go to market strategies. Over the 2 year period, t240 space and data technologies will be explored; the market potential of 90 of these will be scrutinised and 30-45 startups/ventures will have been helped to scale.

EU-IoT will act as an accelerator for the whole European IoT ecosystem towards transforming the current IoT community of researchers and innovators in Europe into an increasingly cohesive, dynamic, participatory and sustainable ecosystem, as an essential part of the Next Generation Internet initiative. It will intervene to assist stakeholders to engage and create value, as well as set up a self-sustaining European IoT community. This requires tackling a number of challenges related to the complex interplay among stakeholders and the many relevant initiatives. The overarching need is the consolidation of fragmented IoT verticals and the still disconnected research and technology domains. To this purpose, EU-IoT set up a strong consortium and plan of action for the establishment of an open and inclusive ecosystem facilitating interactions of all players, know-how exchange, creation of strategic partnerships and durable liaisons. Agility of planning and action is paramount to meet the demand and needs of an ecosystem that is in continuous transformation. EU-IoT will a) help to create a common strategy aligned with the NGI vision to achieve the H2020 goals, while supporting the transition to Horizon Europe; b) foster synergies, liaisons and exchange among all key players in the European landscape; c) support and coordinate outreach and impact creation activities of upcoming ICT-56 projects and Large Scale Pilots; d) pave the way for the development of business models, innovation activities and skills building that lower adoption and deployment barriers for IoT solutions; e) provide a collaborative framework, including content, tools and processes, to engage all EU researchers, developers, integrators and users, thus overcoming fragmentation and assisting further development of a strong European IoT-empowered economy as core building block of the Digital Single Market and Digital Europe altogether.

MERLIN aims to support ICT researchers, SMEs and startups across to realise the full potential and impact of their research and development outputs by crafting them into innovations and achieving market validation using modern needs-first, market-led methodologies like Business Model Canvas, Customer Discovery, Lean Hardware, etc. The project will provide training, networking and follow-on support through 43 practical workshops, 4 webinars (on SME growth and PPP business models), 5 international conference workshops and 8 meetups with potential customers and commercial partners. MERLIN will have over 1250 attendees at in-person workshops and meetups across the four principal nodes of Madrid (ES), Vilnius (LT), Poznań (PL) and Cambridge (UK) and the secondary nodes of Berlin (DE), Warsaw (PL), Tallinn (EE), Bucharest (RO), international webinars and international ICT conferences in Europe. For sustainability, and to increase the participants’ success in bringing to market their innovation, MERLIN will integrate participants with existing national (e.g. Innovate UK, Enterprise Ireland, CDTI) and European initiatives (Startup Europe, ERDF, EFSI, etc.) designed to support early entrepreneurship, product development, market access, seed financing and microfinancing for continued support on their journey to market validation and company growth. The project will also identify and promote high-potential innovators through attendance at Startup Europe events to access other European startup ecosystems, entrepreneurs, investors and accelerators. These activities will see over 160 new business model canvases developed, 1040 individual 1-on-1s with potential commercial customers, serial entrepreneurs and business angels, 250 applications to regional, national and international support actions and the creation of 30 new ventures in the lifetime of the project with an anticipated further 60-100 in the following 3 years’ post project, creating over 1200 jobs in the medium-term.