Promoting high-performance computing innovation in European SMEs
SMEs represent 99 % of all businesses in the EU. They provide work for about 100 million people, generate over half of Europe’s gross domestic product and add value to every sector of the economy. Given the central role of SMEs in Europe’s transition to a sustainable and digital economy, the EU-funded FF4EuroHPC project is working to increase their competitiveness by helping them access HPC technologies. FF4EuroHPC is now calling for proposals on high-quality experiments engaging “innovative, agile SMEs” with strategies based on HPC-related innovations. While proposals can tackle business challenges from various application domains, according to the call for proposals posted on the project website, “a strong preference is given to engineering and manufacturing, or sectors able to demonstrate fast economic growth or particularly strong economic impact for Europe.” In other words, proposals that focus directly on the business challenges faced by manufacturing SMEs will be given the highest priority, followed by consortia centred on SMEs that are new to the use of advanced HPC services. Such services include modelling and simulation, data analytics, machine learning and AI, or combinations of these. The call has a total funding budget of EUR 5 million, with a maximum allocation of EUR 200 000 per proposal. Closing on 29 September, this is the second open call organised by the project. The first call, open from 2 November 2020 to 27 January 2021, received “68 high-quality submissions involving 202 partners from 25 European countries (plus Canada),” as reported in a news item on the FF4EuroHPC website. Of the 68 submissions, 16 were selected for funding by a team of 37 external reviewers. The experiments began in early June 2021. The total funding allocated for these projects was EUR 3 million.
First open call in figures
Of the 16 experiments selected in the first call, 5 focused on manufacturing, 3 on professional scientific and technical services, and 2 on human health and social work. The remaining six projects dealt with water supply and waste management, financial and insurance activities, wholesale and retail trade, electricity, agriculture, and transportation and storage. Most of the proposals in this call were submitted by 3 European countries: Italy (23 proposals), Spain (16) and France (10). These 3 countries also had the highest number of selected proposals, with 5 belonging to Italy (which received EUR 890 000 in funding) and 3 each to Spain and France (allocated EUR 520 000 and EUR 420 000, respectively). Germany (EUR 400 000) and Greece (EUR 340 000) both had 2 of their proposals selected. SMEs with successful proposals in the FF4EuroHPC (FF4EUROHPC: HPC INNOVATION FOR EUROPEAN SMES) project’s current open call will have the opportunity to develop unique products, create new business opportunities and become more competitive through the use of advanced HPC services. So if you’re ready to usher your SME into the Industry 4.0 era, submit your proposal now! For more information, please see: FF4EuroHPC project website
Keywords
FF4EuroHPC, SME, open call, proposal, HPC, high-performance computing, innovation