Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.
Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.
The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
This action will directly contribute to preserving the linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe while effectively implementing the European Common Data Infrastructure and Service MCP’s objectives in the area of language technologies. By providing the necessary data and model adaptation capacities, the action will have a strong impact on the deployment of large language foundation models and their applications such as generative AI. This federated effort will be established around two work strands.
Detailed Call Description
First work strand – Data collection & Fine-Tuning
The first work strand will support the language data collection and the adaptation of existing large language foundation models to specific languages, domains or industries so as to support the onboarding of the latest language technologies by the European actors.
Data: Leveraging on the Common European Language Data Space and other relevant Data Spaces, this activity will, in compliance with the applicable legislation (e.g. Copyright and GDPR), gather the necessary language data (text, audio, image and other modalities) from a broad array of European industrial, academic and institutional actors, and provide data in sufficient quality and quantity that can be made available to build large language foundation models, ensuring a coherent coverage of all the official languages of the Member States as well as the most socially and economically relevant ones. This will also include providing data required to adapt such large language foundation models to specific languages, domains or industries. The action will also provide a repository of existing European Large Language foundation models as well as models adapted to specific languages, domains or industries. Once sufficiently advanced, the consortium may consider working on a future copyright infrastructure and related issues to allow efficient use of language and other data, while taking into account the interests of the rightsholders.
Fine-tuning:
- This activity will also provide large language models fine-tuned to specific languages, domains or industries as a result of further training of large language foundation models on specific language data. This process involves adapting, evaluating and optimizing foundation models for specific languages, domains or industries. It will facilitate the efficient deployment of these models across various industries, requiring less task-specific data compared to building models from scratch, which is particularly advantageous for SMEs. The action will also include the support for the ongoing maintenance and enhancement of these models, ensuring their adaptability to evolving tasks and domains over time.
- In addition, this activity will also provide, including through Financial Support to Third Parties, dedicated supports and services, in particular for SMEs, to facilitate the fine-tuning of available models. This supports and services will provide third parties with an infrastructure to fine-tune and evaluate existing models for their purpose.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
50%
Thematic Categories
- Audiovisual sector and Media
- Culture
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
- Small-Medium Enterprises and Competitiveness
Eligibility for Participation
- Legal Entities
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries:
- EEA countries (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein)
- other countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme (list of participating countries)
Please note that this call is subject to restrictions due to security reasons:
Entities must not be directly or indirectly controlled from a country that is not an eligible country unless they comply with the requirements to guarantee the protection of the essential security interests of the Union and the Member States and to ensure the protection of classified documents information as set out in the relevant work programme (conditions for foreign controlled entities – guarantees).
Consortium composition – Proposals must be submitted by:
minimum 3 independent applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries
Targeted stakeholders:
The consortium that will carry out this action should be composed by representatives of Member States; public and private organisations, SMEs, RTOs; entities with access to large compute capacities; public and/or private data providers, such as the media or publishing industry.
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
National Contact Point(s)
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
Directorate of Research and Innovation
Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy