FET Proactive – Boosting emerging technologies

Specific Challenge : To explore and consolidate a new technological direction in order to put it firmly on the map as a viable paradigm for future technology . To foster the interdisciplinary communities that are able to drive this forward, extending from the participating consortia to a wider European pool of expertise. To stimulate the emergence of a European innovation eco-system around a new technological paradigm, well beyond the world of research alone. Scope : proposals are sought for cutting-edge high-risk / high-reward research and innovation projects that aim to demonstrate a new technological paradigm within the scope of one of the following sub-topics: a. Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction. This sub-topic explores the combination of new Artificial Intelligence and immersive interaction technologies to enhance the social dimension in future virtual social spaces. It aims to lay the basis for a new flavour of social media in which Europe can mark a difference. In 10-15 years from now, Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (eXtended Reality, XR) will be as ubiquitous as Smart Phones are today, leading to new kinds of social media in which, on the one hand, interaction with others will become more natural while, on the other hand, entirely new experiences and ways of sharing become possible. The sub-topic addresses the redefinition of a person’s social interaction space in light of increasing virtualisation, unprecedented social scale information load and ubiquitous intelligence, leading to currently acute issues of trust, the nature of social relationships (beyond ‘friends’ and ‘followers’), believe formation, crowd- and organisation dynamics, the permeation of private and public spheres, or social exclusion and divides, among others. New human-centric and responsible Artificial Intelligence technologies can address these by bringing more social intelligence in the interaction environment and greater user-, contextual- and social awareness, and also through a tighter coupling with sensori/motor- and cognitive processes using, for instance, multimodal XR setups, or minimally invasive interfaces like spatial audio, smart skins, haptics, robotic devices and wearables. Projects will also investigate whether and how the perceptual- and sociocultural parameters implicit in natural, context-rich social interaction carry over to such virtual or hybrid settings. Influence on self-perception, well-being (addiction), acceptance, learning and brain-development/adaptation should also be considered, especially in scenarios of extensive and always-on use. Ethics, age- and gender differences, safety and health should be taken into account. b. Breakthrough zero-emissions energy storage and conversion technologies for carbon-neutrality. Provisioning clean and sustainable energy is one of the major challenges for Europe to meet its climate ambition. This sub-topic aims at multidisciplinary research (starting from TRL 1-3) for breakthroughs in energy storage and conversion that is clean, compact and ultimately low-cost, aimed at decentralised and/or mobile or portable uses in specific application contexts, for instance, in industry as substitutes to fossil fuels or raw materials for chemistry, in the transport sector (road, air, water and either for motive or auxiliary needs), for portable uses, in sustainable housing, remote places or in emergency situations. Novel concepts and breakthrough techniques with zero emissions of greenhouse gasses and a minimal use of rare or toxic materials have to be explored. Research areas could include storage and conversion of clean energy (e.g., solar, wind, geothermal), solar fuels and solar chemicals, possibly based on recycled and atmospheric CO2 or other. Research on electro-chemical batteries is not addressing this sub-topic. Where relevant, circular design and/or high degree of recyclability must be addressed. Clear and ambitious performance targets and milestones to achieve t