Previous Calls

The KDT JU Calls for 2021 are open as of 16 December 2021 with deadline for submissions on 27 April 2022. The KDT JU Programme is open to any organisation that can make a contribution to the RD&I objectives of the programme.

On signing the contracts after the public Authorities funding decision for the Calls of 2020, ECSEL JU is proud to add another 14 projects to its array of impactful RD&I collaborations. The Calls have added a total R&I investment of close to €660 million, of which €340 million is funded by the EU and the ECSEL Participating States; the remainder (approx 48%) is provided by the participants themselves (64% from private industry, the rest being from public or private research organisations). The collection of projects gives good coverage of the programme. Notably, continuing the quest for ever smaller process technologies for digital (ID2PPAC) and novel memory device architectures (StorAIge) in support of ever more advanced digitalisation, through improving energy management of electric vehicles (Energy ECS) and lighting systems (AI-TWILIGHT), components for AI and Edge computing (IMOCO4.E, DAIS, AIDOaRT) and integrated devices for quantum computing (MATQu). Power electronics devices also feature strongly (these lead the way to reducing energy consumption over a broad range of uses and already contribute to the European Green Deal), in projects HiEFFICIENT, TRANSFORM, YESvGaN and GaN4AP. Further energy-efficiency related projects include AI4CSM (managing electric vehicles in transport systems), while TRANSACT continues the strong contribution of the programme to high reliability solutions for safety critical applications. Participants are from 26 of the ECSEL Participating States, and it is notable that 11 participations are in countries who sadly were not able to provide National funding this time.

The project proposals from the Calls of 2019 are currently being evaluated and the funding decision is pending.

ECSEL JU opened 4 concurrent Calls in 2018 (1 for ECSEL-IA, 1 for ECSEL-RIA and 2 for ECSEL-CSA type of actions). The ECSEL-CSA actions are related to the 2 Lighthouse Initiatives adopted in 2017 The evaluation and funding decisions for the Calls in 2018 yielded a total of 13 projects representing an additional investment of almost 800M€, bringing the total for the programme so far to 3.4bn€, more than half of which is funded by the industrial participants. Among the 7 “IA” projects, representing a total investment of some 586M€ (MADEin4, PIN3S, Arrowhead Tools, VIZTA, Power2Power, CPS4EU and APPLAUSE), we find interesting projects from across the broad ECS supply network, from power semi-conductors to advanced manufacturing solutions in Industry4.0. Characteristically, these larger projects recognisably build further on previous successful projects, pulling the technologies further towards marketable maturity. There are complemented by six “RIA” projects with value 212M€ (UltimateGaN, NewControl, TEMPO, AI4DI, HELIAUS and COMP4DRONES). These comparatively smaller projects, as intended, introduce newer ideas that will surely become mainstream in the very near future, such as the use of AI techniques in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, or the extension of automated drone technologies to address a broad range of potential markets and applications.

ECSEL Joint Undertaking provides financial support mainly in the form of grants to participants following open and competitive calls for proposals. These pages provide information about the Calls for 2017. The Calls for 2017 yielded 12 projects for funding; 6 IA and 6 RIA projects were selected, representing a total cost of roughly 685m€, partly funded with 173 M€ from the EU and matched with similar amounts by the participating National authorities. These are: iDev40 (Digital Industry), WAKeMeUP, OCEAN12, TAPES3 (ECS Process Technology), REACTION (Power Electronics) and POSITION-II (Health and Well-Being), and iDev40 (Digital Industry), HiPERFORM (ECS Process Technology), 5G_GaN2 (Power Electronics), FITOPTIVIS (Health and Well-Being), SECREDAS (Safety, Security and Reliability), AFarCloud (Systems and Components, for smart agriculture) and PRYSTINE (Transport & Smart Mobility). Summaries of these projects are available via the “Projects” page.

In 2016, ECSEL-JU launched two concurrent calls - one for "Research and Innovation Actions" (RIA) and one for "Innovation Actions (IA). They cover all topics described in the Multi-Annual Strategic Plan for 2016, though differ primarily in the Technology readiness Level of the outcome (RIAs being typically at lower maturity levels, while IAs typically deliver close-to-market results) and also possibly in size: IAs typically attract larger project consortia. From the Calls of 2016, the Public Authorities Board selected 8 RIA projects (EuroPAT-MASIP, MICROPRINCE, Productive4.0, R3-PowerUP, SCOTT, TAKEMI5) and 6 IA projects (AutoDrive, TARANTO, SILENSE, WInSiC4AP, I-MECH, CONNECT, AQUAS, MegaMaRt2), for a total cost of more than €670M, about 45% of which is funded by the EU and the Participating States.

In 2015, ECSEL JU launched two calls, similar to those of 2014 but now using the two-phase proposal cycle. From these Calls, the Public Authorities Board was able to select 8 RIA projects (PRIME, REFERENCE, 3DAM, AMASS, ASTONISH, DENSE, SafeCOP and DELPHI4LED) and 5 IA projects (ENABLE-S3, EnSO, IoSense, SemI40 and TAKE5), for a total cost of nearly €600M, roughly half of which is fund by the EU and the Participating States.

Already within the first few months of its existence, the ECSEL JU was ready to launch its first Calls for Proposals. Due to the short time available, the first Calls used a shortened cycle with only one evaluation phase (Full Project Proposal phase). The Public Authorities Board selected 6 RIA and 6 IA projects: ECSEL-2014-1 (RIA): 3Ccar EXIST MANTIS OSIRIS RobustSENSE SWARMs. ECSEL-2014-2 (IA): ADMONT InForMed PowerBase R2POWER300 SeNaTe WAYTOGO FAST