DataPACT develops novel tools and methodologies that enable efficient, compliant, ethical, and sustainable data/AI operations and pipelines. DataPACT delivers a transformative approach where compliance, ethics, and environmental sustainability are not afterthoughts but foundational elements of data/AI operations and pipelines. DataPACT… Read more contributes to the design, implementation, and management of data/AI operations and pipelines by embedding compliance, privacy, and environmental sustainability at their core design. It delivers compliance by design for data/AI operations and pipelines by developing innovative technical tools (DataPACT Compliance Toolbox) and tool-supported methodologies (DataPACT Compliance Framework) for compliance assessment and realization of data/AI pipelines designed, deployed and executed through a set of pipeline management tools and techniques (DataPACT Compliance-aware Data/AI Pipeline Toolbox). DataPACT validates its core results through a strong selection of seven complementary use cases offered by SMEs, large companies, and public sector organizations in relevant areas, including media and entertainment, healthcare, smart cities, law enforcement and security, customer relationship management, manufacturing, and public data. DataPACT helps them ensure straightforward and cost-effective compliance with existing and emerging regulations and guidelines, shorter time-to-market for compliant data solutions, fair and unbiased data-driven systems, respect for privacy and other fundamental rights, and lower and transparent environmental impact for intensive data/AI pipeline operations. DataPACT gathers a balanced consortium of 18 partners from 16 countries, consisting of two large companies, two public sector organizations, four SMEs, two research centers, and seven universities, covering relevant aspects related to legal, ethical, social, environmental, and technical compliance of data/AI operations and pipelines.

The ACANCOS project aims to lay the foundation for a solid, and internationally competitive research, which is deeply rooted in a context of numerous prior collaborations (but non structured in an unique network on a worldwide scale) on Automata Networks, Cellular Automata,… Read more and modelling of complex systems by these discrete models. ACANCOS connects the scientific expertise and excellence of research groups from five countries, two of them outside EU, including experts from two distinct communities (AN and CA), from two distinct orientations (theory-oriented and application-oriented), and from three distinct disciplines (computer science, mathematics, and biomedicine). The scientific objectives of the project are: a) Increasing the knowledge on the relations among the architecture/properties of the underlying graph of AN and the dynamical properties of DTDS defined by AN; b) Understanding the sensitivity/robustness of AN to (a)synchronism; c) Understanding AN through the concept of intrinsic simulation, i.e. the capacity of instances of the computational model to simulate the dynamical behaviour of other instances of the same model; d) Targeting and understanding wide classes of CA both exhibiting the complex behaviours of general CA and with decidable dynamical properties; e) Designing efficient decision algorithms for the dynamical properties describing the dynamical behaviour of DTDS defined by the above mentioned classes of CA; f) Understanding the complexity of the problems regarding the dynamics of DTDS defined by CA with both finite and infinite lattice. g) AN for new conceptualisation and modelling of GRN: theoretical validations and applicative validations on real GRN; h) New CA-based methods for data encryption; Sharing knowledge among different cultural and scientific environments will be crucial to achieve the scientific objectives of the project. The partnership will be strengthened through summer schools and workshops.

Genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics play an increasingly important role in the current societal challenges. These scientific fields bring tools and technologies that can significantly improve the health of citizens. In personalized medicine it contributes to the development of more targeted personalized drugs,… Read more therapies and interventions for serious diseases (cancer, rare diseases). Genomics has also a significant role in the data-driven COVID-19 pandemic response. Genomics and bioinformatics in Slovakia has rapidly developed also thanks to the Comenius University in Bratislava (CU). Nevertheless, the CU’s capacity and expertise still lags behind the leading research institutions. The main aim of the TWINNING project FORGENOM is to improve access to excellence at the Comenius University Science Park (CUSP) and raising the research profile of the institution and its staff in the field of biomedical genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics via targeted networking and mentoring and training activities with internationally leading research institutions in the area of genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics – European Molecular Biology Laboratory and Milano-Bicocca University. By networking activities with global leaders will be developed the potential of the Comenius University to become European-wide known centre with increasing R&I contributions and achievements. These will increase the participation of the teams from CU in European and international projects. FORGENOM project will help to increase the scientific level, research quality, international visibility, and competitiveness of the Comenius University through targeted twinning activities aimed at career development, transfer of knowledge, institutional development, exchange of best practices and networking. Enhancing the scientific excellence of CU and transfering of know-how from experienced countries will have a systemic impact on the entire Slovak R&I system.

With a vision “to drive responsible transformation for regions and communities, serve them with creative solutions by joint outcomes from incorporating research into education and turn contemporary challenges of our era into opportunities”, seven leading universities unite in their pledge to establish… Read more the INVEST - INnoVations of REgional Sustainability European university Alliance. We are committed into a deeper, sustainable and an effective transnational cooperation that promotes European Identity and European values leading to sustainable, short- and long-term impacts. With this premise, our aim is to advance knowledge, increase the quality and relevance of higher education and research, strengthen links between education, research, and innovation, improve employability and skills, make more effective use of digital technologies and open science, towards imparting inclusive education and training at all levels. We shall achieve this based on three strategic pillars: (a) Regional Transformation, Ecosystems & Entrepreneurship; (b) Flexible education & workbased pedagogy; (c) Developing a Centre of Excellence in RDI. Our main focus areas are Water, Energy, Food and Environment Nexus, Quality of Life and Entrepreneurship. We intensify the use of our Living Labs as innovative platforms for quadruple helix collaboration among research, education, innovation and service to society. The process is supported by innovative digital solutions such as the Virtual Campus and the EDUC8EU platforms. The INVEST Alliance endeavours to meet the needs and requirements of the new generation of Europeans who are able to cooperate and work within different European and global cultures, in different languages, across borders, sectors, academic disciplines, and respond to the current global challenges determined within the UN Sustainable Development Goals. INVEST will strive impact and create models for good practices for a more sustainable higher education and a more sustainable Europe.

In a global context characterised by geostrategic confrontation and competing narratives, information manipulation can be used to influence perceptions on the ground or fuel a conflict by creating confusion. The transition towards a multipolar world, accelerated by recent shocks such as… Read more the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2022 war Russia has been waging in Ukraine, has created an “informational battleground”, in which malign actors resort to hybrid tools, including Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), to gain influence or undermine the capacities and credibility of other powers. Such a “global battle of narratives” was already described by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (EU HR/VP) Josep Borrell in his 2020’s article3, highlighting the impact the framing of narratives has on citizens’ perceptions and behaviour, governments’ responses and health, economic, political, democratic and security consequences where time is a crucial factor. The 2022 March Strategic Compass (p. 14) warns that the EU now faces “a competition of governance systems accompanied by a real battle of narratives”. In addition, several other key EU communication and policy efforts have already recognised the threat of disinformation and foreign interference, such as the EU Action Plan on disinformation (5 December 2018), the European Democracy Action Plan (3 December 2020), the Digital Services Act (5 July 2022), the Code of Practice on Disinformation (also this year’s (2022) new updated and expanded version), Council Conclusion on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (18 July 2022), among others. Therefore, this Action also aims to further the implementation of existing frameworks and promote the related knowledge and tools externally. This action aims to enable the EU to address short and medium-term foreign policy needs and opportunities in and with non-EU territories by supporting innovative policies/initiatives and by deepening EU relations and dialogues, forging alliances and partnerships, in the fields of information manipulation and other types of foreign interference. It will contribute to enhancing the resilience and responses against FIMI, strengthening the EU’s role as a global security provider and defender of democratic values. It will lead to establishing a community of practice, bringing the EU, Member States and partners closer together on the understanding of FIMI-related challenges and how to address them. While the EU has developed over the past few years many new instruments and approaches, gaps in the EU’s ability to address these growing and evolving challenges remain. Therefore, promotion of widespread understanding and visibility of the Union’s work in this domain and its role on the world scene, by means of strategic communication, public diplomacy, people-to-people contacts, cultural diplomacy, cooperation in educational and academic matters, and outreach activities to promote the Union's values and interests will be further enhanced by this Action.

enRichMyData provides a novel paradigm for building rich, high-quality and valuable datasets to feed Big Data Aalytics and AI applications. The paradigm consists in facilitating the specification and scalable execution of data enrichment pipelines, with a focus on supporting various data enrichment… Read more operations such as discovery, understanding, selection, cleaning, transformation, integration of Big Data from a variety of sources. enRichMyData makes this paradigm easily accessible to a wide set of large and small organizations that encounter difficulties in the process of delivering suitable data to feed their data analytics solutions due to the lack of suitable tools and expertise to support cost-effective and energy-efficient management of data enrichment pipelines. enRichMyData delivers a software toolbox consisting of tools and infrastructure services for setting-up, deploying, executing and managing data enrichment pipelines. The main exploitation targets the operation and monetization of the toolbox primarily in European markets. enRichMyData validates its plan through a strong selection of complementary business cases offered by commercially-focused organizations targeting development of novel products in a wide range of domains, including digital marketing, Industry 4.0, medical devices maintenance, public procurement, innovation ecosystems, and mineral processing. The balanced consortium consists of 14 partners from 12 countries. With a mixture of R&D/technology providers and business case providers, enRichMyData gathers five large companies, three SMEs, an international organization, two research institutes, and three universities

Machine learning methods operate on formal representations of the data at hand and the models or patterns induced from the data. They also assume a suitable formalization of the learning task itself (e.g., as a classification problem), including a specification of… Read more the objective in terms of a suitable performance metric, and sometimes other criteria the induced model is supposed to meet. Different representations or problem formalizations may be more or less appropriate to address a particular task and to deal with the type of training information available. The goal of LEMUR is to create a novel branch of machine learning we call Learning with Multiple Representations. We aim to develop the theoretical foundations and a first set of algorithms for this new paradigma. Moreover, corresponding applications are to demonstrate the usefulness of the new family of approaches. We regard LEMUR as very timely, as LMR algorithms will allow to flexible representations (e.g., suitable for explainability, fairness) with diverse target functions (e.g., incorporating environmental or even social impact) so as to make the induced models abide by the Green Charter and trustworthy AI criteria by design. We will focus on learning with weak supervision because it addresses one of the major flaws of modern ML approaches, i.e., their data hunger, by means of weaker sources of labelling for training data. The outcome of the DN will be a set of 10 experts trained to implement the third and subsequent waves of AI in Europe. The highly interdisciplinary and intersectoral context in which they will be trained will provide them with research-related and transferable competences relevant to successful careers in central AI areas.