Request for Applications: Supporting the AI/ML Digital Transition of Copernicus Services

Scope

• The areas of R&I to address the expected outcomes include:
  • AI-supported retrieval algorithms on both passive and active sensing for existing and upcoming Copernicus missions;
  • Fast, reliable, consistent, and as much as possible sensor agnostic identification of clouds and shadows in optical sensing;
  • Multi-source multi-target AI models for automatic segmentation;
  • Physics parameterization and parameter optimization to emulate poorly understood processes and increase the fidelity of numerical models;
  • Fault and outlier detection in production and delivery workflows to ensure more robust services;
  • Support to automated pre-processing and QA/QC of observations and data to reduce the risk of man-made errors and product deficiencies;
  • Data fusion techniques towards added-value products;
  • Data compression and mining methods to navigate big data efficiently, as the amount of data is becoming a limiting factor;
  • Hybrid observation operator, ensemble data assimilation techniques, error calibration and uncertainty quantification towards improved (re-)analysis and forecast skill;
  • Analysis-driven Earth system deep learning models to boost prediction skill and timeliness, including with Digital Twin Earth models. These methods have shown great promises when applied to reanalyses for example;
  • Experimenting observation(-only)-driven forecasting to support time-critical service elements, circumventing analysis steps. These approaches could be particularly suited for observation-dense areas from which processes can be inferred from observations alone;
  • Exploring the potential of large pre-trained foundation models and transfer learning at scale for Earth system modelling, including with publicly available training datasets from Copernicus;
  • Downscaling and super resolution applications building on Copernicus data to refine products in space and time;
  • Adaptive workflow optimizations;
  • Enhanced interactive interfaces enabling on-demand product and service generation;
  • Chatbots that can guide the user across a wide range of information sources within and across Copernicus services for enhanced user support and experience.
• Proposals are expected to address as many of the above areas as possible.

Funding Information

• Budget (EUR) – Year 2025: 12 000 000
• Contributions: around 12000000

Expected Outcomes

• Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
  • Integrated AI/ML strategy across Copernicus Services, value chains and workflows;
  • Improved quality, timeliness, reliability and resilience of Copernicus data, products and applications;
  • Improved time-to-solution and energy-to-solution of Copernicus operational workflows;
  • Transformed user experience through enhanced interactivity and on-demand capabilities for Copernicus services;
  • Exchange of knowledge, benchmarking and best practices on using AI/ML in the context of Copernicus;
  • Enhanced AI-readiness of Copernicus data, in particular open and free high-value labelled Copernicus data sets.

Eligibility Criteria

• Entities eligible to participate:
  • Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic.
  • A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
    • Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
    • Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe;
    • Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

For more information, visit EC.