The main publishing groups (e.g. Elsevier) perform business intelligence over scientific and technology-based content for which corporations globally pay top dollar (>50k€/license year), leaving SMEs and independent professionals ‘in the dark’. They have to rely on complex patent analysis tools and scientific search engines to make sense of data, and to detect trends and emerging technologies. LINKNOVATE (LKN) brings a disruptive solution, harvesting metadata from multiple sources, not just publications and patents but also more up-to-date sources (e.g. conferences, grants, news), and addressing the opportunity to attract user generated content. These are the foundations of our ‘Discovery engine’. LKN provides business intelligence software tools for our clients to identify emerging technologies and markets, and the key-players behind them. Our mission is to build a tool able: 1) equip with a basic understanding of emerging technologies in one-click 2) help them understand the emerging verticals inside their topic of interest and keep track of them 3) identify forces disrupting that topic, key-players in it and the relationships between them Regarding our value for Europe, we are an SME friendly tool (Freemium model) and aligned with the ‘quadruple helix model’ and the industry 4.0 principles to have a less linear and more open innovation process. Our aim is to become the go-to tool for business intelligence, for technologists and strategists. LKN will be commercialized under a freemium subscription model. With LKN as our growth axis, we expect to reach 9,5M€ in revenue and 55 employees by 2020. Instrument for SMEs is a unique opportunity for us to gain momentum, and reinforce our competitive advantage. During Phase 2 we will focus on the scale-up and the high growth of the company, for which we estimate a total budget of 1.5M€ for 18 months.

The OaSIS project aims at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the innovation support provided in European regions and strengthening the capacity of regional development agencies and other support providers. This goal will be achieved through the analysis of currently used approaches to the segmentation of innovating SMEs, description of the portfolio of innovation support measures used throughout Europe and the development of a new, performance-based methodology of SME segmentation, allowing for the precise targeting of innovating enterprises with support instruments best suited to their profile and enabling development of a new, hybrid innovation support schemes. Methodologies currently used by the innovation support providers for the "segmentation of the client base" and targeting the high-potential SMEs with the most ambitious projects are ineffective and not based on solid evidence. To improve the situation and increase the societal and economic impact from the innovation support we propose to gather a large dataset, containing historical information about support provided to SMEs by at least 15 different Regional Development Agencies from at least 10 different European regions. The performance of SMEs, in response to specific support measures will be assessed using carefully defined Key Performance Indicators and the big data analysis of the whole dataset will allow us to find correlations and similarities within the groups of SMEs that showed highest increase in performance after receiving specific support. Combination of the results with the analysis of the effectiveness of currently used approaches will be the basis for the formulation of the new, performance-based methodology of segmentation and practical tools, such as hybrid innovation support measures. The OaSIS project will significantly change the European innovation landscape and will provide a significant boost for European economy, as well as substantial societal impact.

NGI-POINTER contributes to the human-centric revolution of the internet architecture by discovering NGI Architects who bring new protocols, Open software and hardware that are used to manage the internet in various use case areas: Privacy-by-design; Internet of Things; Network optimization; Virtualization and isolation; Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite; eCommerce security; Autonomous Network operations and control; Energy Efficiency. NGI-POINTER will leverage in Big Data Analytics technology provided by Linknovate to profile and scout 1.000+ oustanding researchers worldwide. FundingBox - European leader in Financial Support to Third Parties - will manage the open call mechanism on its 17.500 members strong platform. Aarhus University - a Top-100 University in the world - brings expertise in business mentoring and connections with more that 5.000 Internet researchers. Digital Workx provides the technical expertise for software and hardware standardization and ties with more that 65.000 engineers and Open Software developers around the world that are part of the Internet of Things Network. NGI-POINTER will provide the building blocks the pillars for a technical revolution of the internet architecture towards a more efficient, scalable, secure and resilient internet.

Coming up with radically new ideas based on excellent science and being able to materialize it with real benefits for the society is a tremendous challenge. It not only relies on the capability and inspiring potential of the researchers, but in the suitability and synergy of other factors of very different nature: society perception, economic/political context, gender/ethic issues, or its matching with real social needs. Early detection of this type of ideas and resources facilitation is key to enable the kick-off of promising future technologies. The EU has developed several programs for giving financial support to these technologies, although competition is fierce, on one hand, and a considerable proportion of proposals submitted does not reach the quality threshold, on the other hand. PREFET will address the former challenges by creating a methodology platform which will connect the three pillars we consider essential for a successful design and use of FET: a) technology trends detection and analysis combining the most advanced AI engines with human intelligence and social perception; b) RRI trends analysis (and their social impact) and tools for best practices and implementation, especially aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and c) innovation capacity building. This means going beyond the observatory position and proactively detecting, engaging and supporting researchers with high potential to become FET winners, underpinned by the responsible research approach. RTDI, Linknovate, Trilateral Research and De Montfort University, have extensive experience in the field of technology watch, trends analysis, project ideation & project building and RRI implementation. Thanks to their own research activities and innovative methodologies, together with the know-how of FET context, we really feel that PREFET will address the need of boosting the European leadership force and create long-term innovations of great benefit for society.

Since the inception of the internet, applications and services using the internet have evolved significantly. In addition the number of devices connected to the internet, the creation of vast data lakes as well as distributed data cooperatives has made searching and discovering data and generally resources a difficult, yet very important field of research, development and innovation. Today it is even more important to be able to find, represent and ultimately make sense of internet based data sources and resources without the need of relying on non-transparent organisations offering such services, potentially violating privacy and trust. The vision of the NGI Search project is to change the way we use and experience search & discover data and resources in general on the internet and web. This includes new user interfaces for searching and representing data (e.g. voice and image based), heterogeneous data sources (e.g. IoT, semantic data, multimedia, social media as well as traditional websites), new methodologies (e.g. machine learning and natural language processing) in generic context and specific use cases (e.g. industry 4.0, health, social media).