The Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking - the Public-Private Partnership for research, development and innovation – funds projects for assuring world-class expertise in these key enabling technologies, essential for Europe's competitive leadership in the era of the digital economy. KDT JU is the successor to the ECSEL JU programme, supporting its ongoing projects.
Through the KDT JU, European industry, SMEs and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) - represented by industry associations - are supported and co-financed by the KDT Participating States and the European Union.
Learn more about the role of the Industry Associations
KDT JU launches annual Calls for Proposals for research, development and innovation projects. You can find information about open Calls, and about projects that were selected from previous Calls, on the respective pages.
Learn more about open KDT JU Calls for Proposals
The Public-Private Partnership keeping Europe at the forefront of technology development.
Electronic components and systems underpin all major economic sectors. The need to master such technologies in Europe, in particular in the context of delivering on European policy priorities such as digital leadership, has driven to a strong resolution of setting up a leading European strategic initiative – the KDT JU - for focused, coordinated and competitive research and innovation activities in the ECS field.
The KDT JU will address clearly defined topics that would enable European industries at large to design, manufacture and use the most innovative technologies in electronic components and systems. Through a structured and coordinated financial support at European level, research teams and European industries will be helped to maintain their current strengths at the leading edge in a highly competitive international context and close the gap in technologies that are critical for a digital transformation in Europe that reflects core EU values, including privacy and trust, security and safety. Collaboration among stakeholders of the ecosystem, representing all segments of the value chains, is essential for the development of new technologies and the fast market uptake of innovation. Openness and flexibility to integrate relevant stakeholders, including in particular SMEs, in emerging or adjacent areas of technology or in both, is also vital. All this represents the sprit and the modus operandi of the new KDT JU.
The KDT JU Joint Undertaking will combine the financial and technical means that are essential to master the escalating pace of innovation in this area, to generate important spill-overs for society, and to share risk-taking by aligning strategies and investments towards a common European interest. Therefore, the members of the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking are the EU (represented by the EC), Member States and associated countries to Horizon Europe on a voluntary basis, and associations as private members representing their constituent entities. Participation of Member States will furthermore facilitate a coherent alignment with national programmes and strategies, reducing overlap and fragmentation of efforts while ensuring synergies across stakeholders and activities.
The KDT JU Objectives
- Reinforce the EU’s strategic autonomy in electronic components and systems;
- Establish EU scientific excellence and innovation leadership in emerging components and systems technologies;
- Ensure that components and systems technologies address Europe’s societal and environmental challenges;
- Support research and development for establishing design and production capabilities in Europe for strategic application areas;
- Launch a balanced portfolio of large and small projects supporting the fast transfer of technologies from the research to the industrial environment;
- Foster a dynamic EU-wide ecosystem based on digital value-chains with simplified access to newcomers;
- Support research and development for enhancing component technologies that guarantee security, trust and energy-efficiency for critical infrastructures and sectors in Europe;
- Foster mobilisation of national resources and ensure coordination of Union and national research and innovation programmes in the field of electronic components and systems;
- Establish coherence between the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda of the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking and Union policies so that electronics components and systems technologies contribute efficiently.
Members
- Three associations (EPoSS, AENEAS and Inside Industry Association) representing the actors from the areas of micro- and nano-electronics, smart integrated systems and embedded/cyber-physical systems. You can learn more about the role of the Associations in KDT JU on this page;
- the European Union (through the Commission);
- Member States and Associated Countries to the Horizon Europe Programme on a voluntary basis (the "Participating States").
KDT JU Participating States are presently:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey.
Additional Participating States may join during the existence of KDT JU.
KDT JU was established through a COUNCIL REGULATION (Council Regulation (EU) 2021/2085 of 19 November 2021 establishing the Joint Undertakings under Horizon Europe).
