18 European sub-projects receive FFplus support for the development of generative artificial intelligence
- katjasinur
- Mar 25
- 3 min read
Updated: May 22
Successful first FFplus call for innovative studies: 18 subprojects selected
About
The first FFplus Open Call for Innovation Studies (Type 2) addressed the needs of SMEs and Start-ups proficient in generative AI and HPC for large-to extreme-scale computing resources. The strategic objective is to facilitate and strengthen the technological development of European SMEs in the area of generative AI. The participating SMEs and Start-ups will be supported in enhancing their innovation potential by leveraging new generative AI models, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), building on their existing expertise, application domain, business model and potential for expansion.
The indicative total funding budget for all sub-projects funded under this call was € 4M.
Statistics
The FFplus project is pleased to announce the results of its first open call for Innovation Studies proposals, referred to as Open Call-1, Type-2. The call opened on June 21, 2024 and closed on September 4. A total of 62 proposals were received and all eligible proposals were evaluated in a two-stage, consensus-based review involving 24 expert evaluators. Each proposal was independently evaluated by two experts, and a consensus review result was then written with the help of a moderator.
As a result of this process, 18 sub-projects were selected for funding based on their impact, the soundness of the technical concept, the quality of the proposing consortium and the deployment of requested resources.
Country Statistics
In total, 62 proposals were received, including 119 organisations from 24 European countries. The 18 funded sub-projects involve a total of 36 organisations including 20 SMEs (56% of all organisations) and 16 other organisations from 14 countries, with Germany and Italy leading the field in the number of selected proposals containing participants from their countries.
Since one of the FFplus Open Call objectives was to broaden the geographical base of generative AI proficient SMEs using large-scale HPC resources, awarding the first 18 Innovation Studies sub-projects to consortia involving 14 European countries demonstrates a clear success. The sub-projects consist of participants from the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Estonia, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and Turkey.
The total Open Call-1 budget for Type-2 was €4M, while each FFplus sub-project was limited to a total funding of € 300,000 aggregated over all its partners. The 18 selected innovation studies were awarded a total funding budget of €4.37 million.
Small and Medium Enterprise Participation
Of the 36 organisations participating in the selected experiments, 20 (or 56%) are Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This is significant since the main objective of the FFplus project is to demonstrate the business value for SMEs.
End-User Domains
Each of the FFplus Open Call-1 Type-2 proposals targets a specific economic end-user sector, aiming to accelerate innovation and create business value within that domain. Among all received proposals, the Healthcare/Pharma/Life Sciences and ICT sectors each account for 10 proposals. These are followed by Administration (Public, Finance, Recruitment) with 7 proposals and Film/Gaming/Media with 5 proposals.
Regarding the funded sub-projects, the Healthcare/Pharma/Life Sciences and ICT sectors together account for 8 sub-projects, with 4 funded sub-projects each. Administration follows with 3 funded sub-projects. The graph below illustrates the distribution of user sectors for the selected sub-projects.
The selected innovation studies cover a wide spread of activities, from using LLMs for geographic data to automatic invoice checking for insurance companies.
Computational Disciplines
The word cloud shows the different generative AI technologies that are used by the selected sub-projects: while all of them focus on LLMs, there are different applications of the employed technologies (e.g. computer vision or speech recognition). The innovation studies focus on different AI topics: explainability, interpretability or data augmentation.
The first of the innovation studies commenced working on January 1st and all will be running for 10 months. When the innovation study is successfully concluded, it results in a success story, whose purpose is to inspire the broader industrial and commercial AI technology community to follow their lead and exploit the possibilities offered by large-scale computing systems.
List of funded Innovation Studies Sub-projects:
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