Collective projects

One of Europe’s strengths in manufacturing is its abundance of SME equipment manufacturers with the capability to offer world-class products of highest quality and precision. A further strength is the large number of actors having off-the-shelf prototypes ready for experimentation and for market uptake. To increase their visibility towards global users of equipment and to further support digitisation of manufacturing, industrial online platforms needs to be developed and set up for use on the market.

The poor energy performance features that buildings may exhibit can be due not only to the characteristics of the building materials used, but also to the use of traditional or unsuitable construction processes. Therefore, the building process needs to benefit from an increased level of industrialisation, including for instance lean construction and higher degree of prefabrication. This is especially true in the case of building retrofitting where the traditional construction methods are not able to plan in advance all the problems to be solved in the variety of renovation sites.

The activities under this topic will support technology-enabled multilingualism for an inclusive Digital Single Market. Every European should be able to access content and engage in written and spoken communication activities without language being a barrier. Content and services, such as those provided by public administrations, are not available in multiple languages. Linguistic fragmentation means that many citizens and businesses cannot fully engage in online activities and benefit from online content and services.

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and applications are bringing fundamental changes to all sectors of activity and are therefore an essential element of the Next Generation Internet. The challenge is to leverage EU technological strength to develop the next generation of IoT devices and systems that build on enhanced sensing/actuating, reasoning capabilities and computational power to the edges, but also new capabilities on the backend, such as artificial intelligence, deep semantic interoperability and novel contractual arrangements like Blockchains.

Future social networks, media and platforms will become the way our societies operate for communication, exchange, business, creation, learning and knowledge acquisition. The challenge is to mobilise a positive vision as to the role that Social Media will increasingly play in all these areas, and to overcome today's critical issues about trust and governance through democratic reputation mechanisms, and user experience.

Systems biology and synthetic biology are scientific fields with potential to transform our way to understand and interact with nature. Synthetic biology combines knowledge and tools from biology and engineering for the design of biological systems that are thus programmed to do what we want them to do, be it for pharmaceutical products (e.g. active pharmaceutical agents or enzymes), in the environment (e.g. bio-pesticides), or industry (e.g. biochemicals).

The deployment of information and communication technologies induces changes that impact individuals, societies and the environment in profound and pervasive ways. Agriculture and rural areas will be changing significantly with the multiplication of devices, their increased "intelligence", autonomous behaviour and connectivity. Aside from the benefits of digital innovations, there are also challenges, and sometimes threats, that need to be addressed to ensure that technological innovations go hand in hand with societal needs and expectations.

Digitisation represents a huge opportunity to leverage the information and day-to-day knowledge generation on farms. While the more technology savvy farmers may be able to benefit from their data immediately, the majority of the EU’s 12 million farmers will need support from intermediaries such as farm advisors to take up technologies and to make decisions on ICT use adapted to their specific farm context. The best way to motivate independent advisors to embrace the upcoming digital revolution is to build on tools that are already familiar to farmers and advisors.

The EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 calls on the modernisation of public administrations in Europe and improving the interaction with citizens and businesses. This modernisation aims to reduce administrative burden on stakeholders, including farmers, based on the reuse of common services. A set of cross border services in key policy areas such as health, procurement, justice and identification have been successfully developed in the past through Large Scale Pilots. A key domain of application is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The links between the richness of the natural environment and farming practices are complex. Many valuable habitats in Europe are maintained by extensive farming and forestry, but inappropriate agricultural practices and land uses have also had an adverse impact on natural resources, such as soil, water and air pollution, fragmentation of habitats and loss of native biodiversity in farmland landscapes, as well as on climate change adaptation and mitigation.