Despite a decrease since the 90s, 3.1M non-fatal accidents still happen at work, with at least four days of absence from work, and around 3 300 fatal accidents in the EU-27. These work-related accidents and illnesses cost the EU economy 460 b€ in 2019, i.e., 3.3% of GDP annually. Production machines are one of the accident causes. In France, 10 to 15% of accidents at work are related to their use, leading to working day lost equivalent to a company of 15000 people that do not work for a whole year. In 2021 the EC proposed a new strategic framework for Health and Safety at Work (HSW) to protect health (incl. mental) and safety of its 170 million workers and achieve sustained decent working conditions for all workers, especially in the new world of work brought about by the digital transitions and industry 5.0. Digital transition is driven by the introduction of robots, AI and remote work that reduce the risks of dangerous tasks and increases productivity. But cognitive overload, digital fatigue, mental exhaustion and various forms of ‘techno-stress’ are also increasing and shall be tackled to ensure HSW. EARASHI will support Start-ups and SMEs in the uptake of advanced digital eco-responsible technologies (in particular AI, data and robotics) to help workers in their daily activities and improve their working conditions (safety, health and well-being) leading to productivity increase. Through open calls, 10 beneficiaries will access to leading edge technologies and test facilities from RTOs and industrial partners, business support, mentoring by industrial pairs, support in Ethics, system integration and user acceptance. Selected projects will focus on improving work conditions and worker trust and acceptance of collaborative embodied AI in robotic systems for the production machine application field. By investing early in and sustaining competitive emerging enabling technologies, EARASHI will contribute to accelerate an eco-responsible digital transition by 2030.

InfraChip is to implement the first integrated, distributed research infrastructure as a wider European research platform for the sustainable development of next-generation and future semiconductor chips. InfraChip will mobilise a critical mass of people, expert knowledge and technology blocks, and capital investment on state-of-the-art equipment to address the EU’s twin digital and green transition and ensure Europe’s capacity to innovate at the early to medium readiness levels. Building on existing RI communities, namely ASCENT+ on Nanoelectronics, EMERGE on Sustainable Flexible Electronics and EnABLES on Powering the Internet of Things (IoT), the InfraChip initiative will advance the state-of-the-art by supporting comprehensive user projects for multi-and-trans-disciplinary path-finding research on sustainable Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)driven by the secure edge. These challenge-driven projects will target the introduction of new materials, proof-of-concept and feasibility studies of new manufacturing processes or disruptive technologies. To accelerate the translation of results from the lab to the fab, InfraChip will channel project activities to Testing and Experimentation Facilities, European Digital Innovation Hubs and Pilot Lines. InfraChip will also develop talent and train a skilled workforce through its Research Accelerator Programme and additional hands-on courses and education resources to support early career innovators and the high-value semiconductor industry. As a whole, InfraChip will significantly contribute to research and innovation capacity within the objectives of the European Chips Act.

The UFO project is based on two main assumptions. First, business opportunities lie in the combination of space data with digital technologies and other sources of data. Embedded Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) into small flying objects (SFOs - drones, small satellites, high altitude platforms) represent a great opportunity to collect additional aerospace data, especially to drive the Artificial Intelligence revolution for various global applications. Second, the value added applications in Europe are mostly driven by SMEs. Thus, the UFO project aims at fostering the development of cross-sectoral industrial value chains between 6 emerging industries (Mobility technologies, Environmental, Blue Growth, Digital, Experience and Cultural and Creative industries), SFOs, embedded KETs and data analysis and exploitation solutions stimulating the development of new products and services by SMEs. To achieve this, the consortium provides a systemic and strategic vision. Clusters, which gather SMEs, large groups, R&D actors, and other innovation entities, are crucial to create links between different value chains, basically the data providers and the information product providers that turn raw data into valuable information. The UFO consortium and associate partner consisting of 8 emerging industry clusters including 5 SFOs, embedded KETs, ICT clusters, representing more than 1000 SMEs throughout 6 different EU countries and sectors. The partners have the capacity to carry such actions as they will foster partnerships between the different links (their members) of value chains and provide them incentives through the launch of call for proposals providing Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) and innovation services provided by clusters. They represent some of Europe’s most dynamic clusters including Gold and Bronze labelled ones with a history of cooperation, a track record of supporting innovation actions for SMEs.

Despite significant recent progress made by the EU industry, the level of digitalisation of industry remains uneven, depending on the sector, country and company size. Facing at the same time a scattered landscape of Research, Industry and Institutional stakeholders, the efficient adoption and transformation of enabling technologies into business visions & concrete market cases remain limited. This slow diffusion of digital technologies poses a risk to the EU’s ability to compete in the global economy. This is particularly true for Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE) enabling technologies whose industry made significant progress recently and has established itself as a competitive growth industry. Despite proving that more and more products have matured onto the global market, the actual diffusion and efficient adoption of OLAE technologies remain limited. Underlying reasons and key challenges are identified (cost, processes, encapsulation, scalability, yield, standards & regulations), for which major breakthroughs are needed on use, production and cost rather than on basic technology, which reflects the growing market orientation of OLAE. To address both market & technology specific challenges, SmartEEs2 will be key role to link technology promises with real use/business cases. These cases will be implemented through a unique digitalisation experience providing experimentation, testing or support to manufacturing. SmartEEs2 will capitalize upon SmartEEs’ strong technological OLAE platform and focuss on the uptake of Flexible & Wearable Electronics enabling use cases, where OLAE can valorize its uniqueness (flexibility, conformability) and its promises for solutions in the fast growing business of wearables and Internet of Everything. SmartEEs2 will orchestrate a pan-EU collaboration network of Regional DIHs promoting the best quality level of digitalisation experience, hence boosting the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall OLAE European inDIH on Area3

DigiFed’s main objective is to encourage the adoption of advanced digital technologies by EU SMEs with a focus on non-digital businesses. DigiFed implements a business plan for the sustainability of the federation of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), while providing significant support mechanisms for individual and groups of SMEs to foster the introduction of digital technologies in their product and service offerings. DigiFed aims to engage at least 200 SMEs and midcaps from all across Europe in its innovation programme. At least 80 of these will receive also funding support and benefits from one of Digifed’s innovation pathways- half of these will be businesses with low digital maturity. DigiFed’s business model is based on collaborative investments with fair return for contributing parties, realised by our ability to reduce innovation risks and generate new business opportunities. DigiFed leverage both funding from private sector and public co-funding from regions of DIHs, in order to maximise value from EU investments. These will be used for the development of truly differentiated and impactful digitization solutions targeting the needs of different markets, penetrating the value chain down to non-technology companies. DigiFed focuses on Cyber Physical and Embedded Systems with a particular attention on security and privacy, autonomy and human-machine interaction. Its innovation pathways offer two main instruments: Generic Experiments target a group of mainly non-tech SMEs to implement advanced technology demonstrators with co-funding from regional authorities; Application Experiments allow individual SMEs to define an R&I project to disrupt, upgrade or manufacture an innovative digital product or service. DigiFed gathers 6 DIHs from different countries with established ecosystems and will continue expanding and linking with other DIHs and DIH networks through its lifetime to create a truly EU-wide offering of sustainable cross-border DIH services.