SUSTAIN-6G will develop a holistic sustainability framework in the context of 6G, addressing all three sustainability areas (environmental, societal, economic), and factors impacting sustainable 6G technology and 6G technology for improving verticals’ sustainability. The framework will be applied to key vertical sectors, in an end-to-end manner, considering the full lifecycle of assets. SUSTAIN-6G will identify the cross-points between what sustainability needs are, which challenges 6G and verticals need to consider, what 6G should do to address these challenges, and how society and economy benefit from responsible innovation. To achieve this, the project will provide a driving force for multiple activities and a hub, to integrate research and innovation from previous and ongoing projects, develop innovative concepts and solutions, and address gaps and trade-offs in technology, processes and methodologies. The concepts and solutions will be validated and evaluated by proof-of-concepts on their sustainability impact and performance. The insights from these PoCs, and the proven processes and methodologies will be consolidated into guidelines, best practices and roadmaps to drive the full integration of sustainability aspects into future communication and vertical systems, in close collaboration with stakeholders and other SNS projects, and for use across the EU and beyond. The outputs and impact of SUSTAIN-6G will provide the foundation for industry-wide standardisation that will enhance existing ecosystems, help to shape a sustainable future that develops and thrives within planetary boundaries, and strives to protect and restore the environment, while respecting EU values and rules. Recognising the complexity and multifaceted characteristics of sustainability, SUSTAIN-6G will achieve these objectives through its multidisciplinary consortium, composed of 6G and vertical technology, social science, and economic experts, and with relevant external stakeholders.

HEDGE-IoT proposes a novel Digital Framework which aims to deploy IoT assets at different levels of the energy system (from behind-the-meter, up to the TSO level), to add intelligence to the edge and cloud layers through advanced AI/ML tools and to bridge the cloud/edge continuum introducing federated applications governed by advanced computational orchestration solutions. The HEDGE-IoT Framework will upgrade the RES-hosting capacity of the energy systems and will unleash a previously untapped flexibility potential. It will increase the resilience of the grid, create new market opportunities and promote advances in IoT standardization, by introducing and managing a plethora of diversified, interoperable energy services over scalable and highly distributed data platforms and infrastructure. The multi-dimensional framework of HEDGE-IoT comprises the following pillars: (a) the Technology Facilitator Pillar will exploit the computational sharing by offloading applications on the grid edge, towards providing a set AI/ML federated learning and swarm computing applications; (b) the Interoperability Pillar, which leverages on leading-edge interoperable architectures, such as the Data Space architectures; (c) the Standardisation Pillar will enable all involved platforms, systems, tools and actors to seamlessly communicate and exchange data in standardized formats using widely used standards, such as SAREF, etc.; (d) the Digital Energy Ecosystem Enabling Pillar will ensure the creation of an ecosystem facilitating the increased integration of RES and characterised by resilience. Liaisons with EU initiatives for IoT and digitalisation will be established (e.g., the AIOTI) and the engagement of stakeholders will be ensured by addressing IoT ethics and cultivating trust among end-users, thus promoting inclusivity. Scalability and replicability studies will be performed and connections with innovators and SMEs will be established through the Open Call mechanism of the project.

The 6G4Society project aims to address the tension existing between two parallel needs in terms of technological development of 6G: 1) securing technology performance objectives, and 2) ensuring that societal and sustainable values are properly embedded into technology. This will be done by engaging all key stakeholders within the Smart Networks and Services (SNS) ecosystem, but also by embracing civil society players, regulators, policy makers, media, and the public at large, to ensure correct and clear information about the expected impacts 6G technology will produce and induce is elaborated and disseminated. To achieve this objective, 6G4Society will apply methodologies from ethics, legal and social science and humanities (SSH) perspectives, allowing to comprehend socio-cultural aspects and mechanisms behind 6G technology and lay the foundation for a responsible research and innovation (RRI) of 6G technology. Based on these methodologies, 6GSociety will provide methods, models, guidelines, policy options and operation recommendations to develop sustainable and socially accepted 6G technology and applications. The 6G4Society results (including a Technology Acceptance Model for 6G technology, a framework of Key Sustainability Indicators, a policy brief and an operation brief) will be validated with all 6G-SNS JU projects by adopting public and user engagement methodology, as well as by involving the 6G-IA Working Groups and its connected projects. To achieve these ambitious objectives, the 6G4Society project is composed by a consortium with heterogeneous skills and competence, ranging from SSH and RRI (CEL and PSCE), technology (NOVA, PSCE and EBOS), networking coordination and management (MAR), communication and stakeholder engagement (D4P). The consortium has large experience in 5G-PPP/6G-IA projects and initiatives, and its partners have links with more than 20% of the current JU 6G-SNS initiatives, ensuring a strong cooperation to achieve objectives.

ATHENA will bring a flexible and scalable Cyber-security solution for being used by SW&HW manufacturers, including microenterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), organizations CISOs and cyber-security personnel. This solution will allow the above-mentioned stakeholders to test, validate and ensuring their SW&HW products compliance with the new EU mandatory security requirements (CRA) and its readiness for certification following the schemes proposed by the EU Cyber-security Act Certification Framework (CACF). In addition, this solution will include a security engineering dedicated tool to guarantee the reliability of new SW&HW from the early development phases and its compliance with both, the EU mandatory essential requirements for the security of products with digital elements stated in the new EU harmonised legislation (e.g. Cyber Resilient Act (CRA) , NIS2 , Data Act ) and the stakeholders own security needs. Furthermore, several innovative security services based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) along with a cutting-edge automatic vulnerabilities detection and assessment toolset will be developed and integrated in the ATHENA solution for ensuring the continuous SW&HW products security assessment and protection against complex cyber threats.

Horizon project 101070118 ΝΕΜΟ (Next Generation Meta OS) builds an IoT-Edge-Cloud continuum, in the form of an open-source, flexible, adaptable, and multi-technology meta-Operating System. NEMO aims to unleash the power of Artificial Intelligence IoT to increase European autonomy in data processing and lower CO2 footprint. Leveraging on consortium partners technological excellence, along with clear business and exploitation strategies, CyberNEMO builds on top of NEMO to add end-to-end cybersecurity and trust on IoT-Edge-Cloud-Data Computing Continuum. CyberNEMO will establish itself as a paradigm-shift to support resilience, risk preparedness, awareness, detection and mitigation within Critical Infrastructures deployments and across supply chains. To achieve technology maturity and massive adoption, CyberNEMO will not “reinvent the wheel”, but leverage on existing by-design, by-innovation, and by-collaboration zero-trust cybersecurity and privacy protection systems, and introduce novel concepts, methods, tools, testing facilities and engagement campaigns to go beyond today’s state of the art and create sustainable innovation, already evident within the project lifetime. CyberNEMO will offer end-to-end and full stack protection, ranging from a low level Zero-Trust Network Access layer up to a human AI explainable Situation Perception, Comprehension & Protection (SPCP) framework and tools, collaborative micro-cervices Auditing, Certification & Accreditation and a pan-European Knowledge Sharing, risk Assessment, threat Analysis and incidents Mitigation (SAAM) collaborative platform. Validation and penetration testing will take place in 6 pilots including OneLab for integration, various Critical Infrastructures (Energy, Water, Healthcare), media distribution, agrifood and fintech supply chain, along with their cross-domain, cross-border federation. Sustainability and adoption will be offered via the de-facto European Open source Eclipse Foundation ecosystem.