Small and medium sized enterprises and start-ups can test smart city solutions in a simulated environment for free and under expert guidance. This is possible as the Joint Research Centre – the EU’s science and knowledge service – has launched a call for Expression of Interest for the joint establishment of living labs in the area of energy and transport.
The invitation is open until 31 December and concerns JCR research sites for smart city solutions in Ispra (Lombardy, Italy) and Petten (North Holland, The Netherlands).
Co-creating living labs for energy and transport
The pilot call aims to enhance the input to EU policymaking and contribute to technological advancements and the development of new intelligent solutions in the target science area of energy and transport. The goal is to benefit the European industry, public organisations, and citizens.
Thus, the JRC aims to establish the so-called living labs for transport and energy, together with participating companies and organisations. In order do do this, the Centre will make available its two research facilities in Ispra and Petten, which offer a controlled environment, as well as technical and expert support.
The solutions to be tested range from shared rides, door-to-door delivery, automated shuttles, robo-taxis, connectivity and clean vehicles in Ispra, to energy management technologies, IoT services and systems, data analytics and visualization in Petten.
The facilities dispose of laboratories and state-of-the art machinery and advanced infrastructure, allowing companies to experiment with precompetitive technologies in real-life environment. An in-depth look into the facilities is available with these virtual tours.
According to the Terms and Conditions of the Call, participants will get access to JRC infrastructure, such as roads, buildings, water and electricity networks, and if applicable to dedicated infrastructures like machine time, computing resources, software, data, data-communication services, trust and authentication services, sample preparation, archives, collections, set-up, execution and dismantling of experiments, expert support and analytical services.
How to test your solutions for free with the Joint Research Centre?
Applications are accepted from public and private organisations, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, online before 31 December. More information about the call and the necessary application documents are available on this link.
An internal expert panel will assess the received documents every three months. The evaluators will pay attention to the scientific and technical value of the proposals, their relevance to the EU policy context, the relevance to the features of each of the two research sites and finally – the feasibility of implementation.
Source: TheMayor.EU
