Request for Applications: Fostering Innovative and Compliant Data Ecosystems

Scope

• The proposal should clearly state (in the abstract and in the introduction) which of the following three areas it addresses. A proposal can address more than one area, but it should indicate one of them as the main focus of the proposal, and it will be evaluated accordingly under that area.
  • Area 1: Actions to develop advanced compliance technology integrating AI, cybersecurity, language technologies, and privacy preservation. This framework could include the creation of NLP-driven semantic analysis tools for deciphering complex legal texts and translating them into clear compliance tasks, energy-efficient neuromorphic approaches and mechanisms for optimising massive data operations, or machine learning algorithms trained on historical data to predict and mitigate potential compliance violations. With the capability to detect changes in EU legislation, these advanced AI systems and analytics tools will provide deep insights into compliance performance, risk management, and help forecast upcoming regulatory trends to strategically prepare for future requirements. For usability, it is also important that the tools can be integrated with the organisation’s existing processes and systems.
  • Area 2: Actions to ensure auto-compliance of data transactions and data spaces with applicable regulation (e.g. data and sectoral legislation). Actions in this area should anticipate compliance tasks within the context of Common European Data Spaces and coordinate with them as necessary. Actions in this area are expected to develop automatic or semi-automatic tools that analyse and take into account the specific architecture, governance model, exchange mechanisms, tools, data types, identity management, smart contracting, user policies and other user needs or operational features of the actual data spaces, liaising with and building on other actions working in this area, in particular the Data Spaces Support Centre.
  • Area 3: Actions to generate, manage and leverage synthetic data in order to improve data quality, availability, representativity, fitness for purpose and compliance. The actions should in particular address the inherent shortcomings of real world data that would necessitate synthetic data (e.g. data availability, confidentiality, privacy protection, enhancing quality, diversity, representativeness, bias). Additionally, actions may target generating synthetic data for sparse or unusual domains, integrating synthetic and real data effectively, or advancing technological capabilities in generative models and simulation-based approaches to drive synthetic data generation forward and/or addressing or modelling rare events and complex dynamic systems. All actions under this Area are expected to address the evaluation, validation and benchmarking of synthetic data to ensure fitness for purpose and safe, ethical and compliant use of synthetic data, including the analysis and mitigation of biases inherited from the original data or introduced by the synthetic data generation process. For these purposes, collaboration with simulation/digital twins actions could be explored.

Funding Information

• Budget (EUR) – Year 2025: 45 000 000
• Contributions: 7000000 to 9000000

Expected Outcomes

• The projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
  • Easing the compliance process of businesses and professionals with the relevant EU legislation, in particular reporting obligations, and alleviating administrative burdens for businesses and professionals.
  • Developing and integrating advanced technologies for data collection, data sharing and data analytics for simplifying and automating compliance.
  • Generating, managing, and leveraging synthetic data to improve fitness for purpose; addressing limitations of real-world data, enhancing data quality, diversity, and representativeness, while mitigating bias and addressing other ethical issues.
  • Ensuring broad user training and support for rolling out and scaling up “compliance and privacy by design” and the FAIR principles in the constantly evolving regulatory landscape.

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.