While Horizon 2020 is the main European funding programme for innovation, there exist quite some other initiatives that operate in a more narrow domain/ecosystem. In this article we'll focus on AI4EU, but be aware it also exists for other topics (e.g. High Performance Computing, Next Generation Internet, Robotics, 5G...)

The EU Artificial Intelligence On-Demand Platform and Ecosystem

AI4EU will unite Europe’s Artificial Intelligence community to the benefit all of European society. The AI4EU initiative has the following main goals:

• Manage a large EU ecosystem to facilitate collaboration between all Europeans actors in AI (scientists, entrepreneurs, SMEs, Industries, funding organizations, citizens…), mainly through their web-platform and through events.
• Share AI resources produced in European projects, including high-level services, expertise in AI research and innovation, AI components and datasets, high-powered computing resources..
• The implementation of industry-led pilots through the AI4EU platform, which demonstrates the capabilities of the platform
• This in five key AI scientific areas: Explainable AI, Physical AI ,Verifiable AI, Collaborative AI, Integrative AI
• Manage a funding programme with in total 3 MEUR of equity free money, see further for more details.

As the AI4EU is still bootstrapping, not all of these are goals are already up to speed. In the remainder of this article you'll find some more info about their webinars, the funding programme and links on how to stay updated.

Get inspiried - Web café sessions

Basically this is a fancy name for webcasts, where users get the possibility to participate vertually in live sessions with experts on specific AI domain areas of interest. A session typically last for 1 hour, and the upcoming webcasts are:

• 2020.01.22 at 15:00, AI in a world of cross-over challenges, by Miha Turšič (Creative Disturbance)
• 2020.01.29 at 15:00, Earth Observation Big Data Challenges: the AI change of paradigm by Mihai Dactu (DLR, Germany)
• 2020.02.05 at 15:00, Are non-diverse AI research and development teams risking bias in innovated algorithms and artefacts? by Huma Shah (Coventry University, UK)

In the past, topics like Leveraging the impact of AI in Europe, Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda of AI4EU, Artificial Intelligence: a Rupture Technology for Innovation, and AI Opportunities and Challenges: Beyond Hype and Fears (and quite some others) were treated.

Funding possibilities

AI4EU will distribute in total € 3 million equity-free among individuals, start-ups and SMEs. There will be two types of calls

• AI Prototypes - Each call will select 25 individuals (who could be researchers, students or developers). Beneficiaries can receive up to € 30.000 and a 4-month support program to develop prototypes based on AI resources. Two open calls will be launched, addressing 5 different challenges that will be owned by industrial partners, corporates or other EU projects. The first call will be launched in Q1-2020.
• Tech Transfer program - 20 Scale-ups will be selected, they could be financed up to € 180.000 in equity-free cash, plus an online premium acceleration program. The program will include mentoring from top entrepreneurs and C-levels, training, accessing to technology, accessing to private and public investment among others. The open call will be launched in Q3-2020.

How to stay informed?

Create a profile on the AI4EU platform, as this is where the (digital) action will take place. It is currently in Beta, but soon it will be the home for focussed interest groups, lively discussions, announcement of events, a listing of available AI assets, and of course for latest news and info on the open calls.

Follow them through social media: they have a company page on LinkedIn, but you'll get more information from their Twitter stream. Or just send them an e-mail with your question.