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 Horizon2020 project BEAT-AF brings together 9 European renowned clinical centres in France, Belgium, Czechia, Germany and Austria. Together, the consortium strives to revolutionize Atrial Fibrillation (AF) treatment through catheter ablation and contribute to decrease the huge burden of AF in Europe. The BEAT-AF project kicked off in 2021 and will run until 2026. The department of electrophysiology of the AZ Sint-Jan Hospital in Bruges is partner in the project and has so far contributed to the pre-clinical development, the first in man studies and first registries of the revolutionary AF treatment put forward by the consortium. The first pilot studies show that the treatment is safe, effective and efficient.

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.