Collective projects

The aim of this topic is to develop innovative EGNSS applications to support societal resilience, safeguard the wellbeing of EU citizens, improve emergency and disaster management as a response to climate related, natural and man-made disasters and ensure green growth that protect the environment while generating economic growth.

The challenge is to make these applications more affordable, easy to use and integrated with other solutions and technologies, including for example earth observation, e.g. Copernicus services, in order to enable new targeted innovative solutions.

While facing climate change and natural resource scarcity, ensuring sufficient, nutritious, safe and affordable food to a fast growing world population with changing dietary habits becomes increasingly challenging. The protein supply is in this respect most critical, both for human consumption and animal feed.

Copernicus, the Union's Earth observation and monitoring programme entered into force in 2014 and produces a wealth of data and information regarding the Earth sub-systems (land, atmosphere, oceans and inland waters) and cross-cutting processes (climate change, disaster management and security). Copernicus data and information are mainly made available on a free, open and full basis. This is expected to unleash unique market opportunities.

The EU depends strongly on external sources for the supply of key fertilisers used in agriculture. Resource depletion and an increasing global demand for mineral fertilisers may, in the long term, lead to price tensions with an impact on food security. Mineral-based fertilisation also poses significant environmental problems, linked e.g. to the amounts of fossil energy needed to produce and transport these fertilisers.

In the past years several open service platforms for Active and Healthy Ageing domains have been developed, originating from the medical, independent living, and IoT domain. These platforms aim at building a common basis for application development, assuring interoperability at the application and service level, and reducing development cost by re-use of components. As these platforms mature more insight is needed in the way they contribute to the development of a scalable and open market for digital solutions for health and ageing, and which value is actually achieved through them.

The challenge of providing the inhabitants of European cities with affordable, safe, and nutritious food is both urgent and complex. Moreover, the health and wellbeing of EU citizens and consumers are directly affected by the way cities and regions themselves are shaping a sustainable food environment. Research and (open) innovation co-created with citizens are part of broader city-region food system approaches. Such initiatives stimulate the development of cities as innovative food hubs.

Senior people are statistically at greater risk of cognitive impairment, frailty and multiple chronic health conditions with consequences for their independence, their quality of life (and the one of their families) but also for the sustainability of health and social care systems. There is also increasing evidence that interactions with the environment play an important role in the evolution of the patient's health status and condition. The challenge is now to foster secure, scalable and robust digital solutions for integrated care which will:

An ageing population is increasing demand-side pressures on public health and social care providers across Europe. These pressures undermine the long-term sustainability of existing models for delivering care services to the ageing population.

Currently available methods and strategies for diagnosis and treatment of cancer help clinicians continuously improve quality of care and prevent cancer deaths in the population. Accurate risk assessment, availability of genetic tests, timely diagnosis and effective treatment has created the impression of cancer being a chronic disease that can be cured.

Combining several activities such as renewable energy, aquaculture, marine bio-resources and biotechnologies, maritime transport and related services, in the same marine space, including in multi-use platforms, can serve to divide and reduce the costs of offshore operations and the demand on the space needed for different activities. Research on multi-use platforms funded under the FP7 call ‘The Oceans of Tomorrow’ has provided promising designs, technological proposals and models for combining activities in terms of economic potential and environmental impact.