The AgrifoodTEF, funded under the Digital Europe call for a Testing and Experimentation Facility for Agri-Food, is a network of world-class testing and experimentation facilities (TEFs) in the agri-food sector that supports testing state-of-the-art data, AI, and robotics solutions in real-world environments to accelerate their market introduction. ILVO, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Flemish node of the AgriFoodTEF supports the entire agri-food business, leveraging its infrastructures, experience and vast network established through participation in numerous Digital Europe and Horizon Europe initiatives.

The AI4Culture project, funded under Digital Europe call Data space for cultural heritage (deployment) aims to develop an online capacity building hub for AI technologies in the cultural heritage sector. This hub contributes to the creation of the European common cultural heritage data space, which provides support to the digital transformation of Europe’s cultural sector and fosters the creation and reuse of content in cultural and creative sectors. The Flemish company CrossLang is one of the 12 partners in the project and brings in its year-long expertise in the development of multilingual technology to the transcription and translation of scanned printed and handwritten documents.

The Department of Economy, Science and Innovation of the Flemish government coordinates the Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action SAPHIRe, which started on 1 December 2018. The aim of the project is to secure the adoption of personalised medicine in all European regions, including sparsely populated and remote regions and regions with different innovation capacities.  The activities of SAPHIRe are complementary to the smart specialisation partnership on personalised medicine – S3P4PM, which is also coordinated by the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation.  

Autoship is, as the name suggests, an acronym for autonomous ship. Just like with self-driving cars, the possibilities of an unmanned boat seem endless. It can create more efficient freight transport, around the clock deliveries and these are just a few of the examples. The project has two societal challenges. At first, De Vlaamse Waterweg was a bit hesitant as their experience with FP7 or Horizon 2020 projects was limited and they had not been very successful up until then. The fact that they were already doing basic research on the topic of autonomous boats, and the administrative help of NCP Flanders helped De Vlaamse waterweg to cross the line and get involved.