A total of 105 proposals from all over Europe have been submitted to ONTOCHAIN third open call, between the 23rd of May and the 25th of July 2022. From these, 94 of them were eligible and evaluated.
The target audience were researchers, innovators and developers whether from high tech companies including SMEs, academia or natural person(s) legally established in an EU Member State, H2020 associated countries or Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States.
Profile of Applicants and Technology Domains of Expertise
Applicants were asked whether they were applying as:
- As a group of individuals (team)
- As a group of individual(s) and organization(s)
- A group of organisations (consortium)
- A single organisation (legal entity)
Out of the 94 applications, 59 were submitted by a single organisation, 24 by a consortium, 6 by a group of individuals, and 5 by a group of individual(s) and organization(s).
At the same time, applicants were asked to select their technology domain of expertise as follow:
- Data & AI
- Decentralised solutions, blockchain, distributed ledger
- Measurement, monitoring, analysis & abuse handling
- Middleware, distribution, deployment, operations, DNS, authorisation, authentication, reputation systems
- Network & Transport infrastructure (Including routing, P2P & VPN)
- Operating Systems, firmware and virtualisation
- Services & Applications (e.g. email, instant messaging, search, video chat, collaboration, community)
- Software Engineering (Including protocols, interoperability and fundamentals e.g.cryptography, algorithms, proofs)
- Trustworthy hardware & manufacturing
Among the 94 applications, they were distributed as represented in the following figure.
Applicants completed their choice with the following keywords linked to the overall ONTOCHAIN vision:
- Vertical applications
- Empowerment and self-determination
- Inclusiveness, accessibility diversity and democracy
- Permission less innovation, decentralisation and level playing field
- Privacy and confidentiality
- Resilient, robust and dependable
- Social good, fairness and ethical behaviour
- Sustainability/Eco-friendliness
- Trustworthiness (Including: transparency, auditability and security)
- Well-balanced economy
It results in the distribution hereafter showing that the application received are in accordance with the ONTOCHAIN vision linked to trustworthiness.
Countries coverage
A large number of countries were covered thanks to the communication and dissemination efforts in getting participants from all eligible countries. So, this Open Call 3 received proposals from 22 eligible countries. Spain (18,1%), Italy (14,9%), UK (9,6%), Germany (8,5%), Estonia (6,4%), Portugal (5,3%), were the 6 countries the most represented.
ONTOCHAIN Topics Selected
To complement the ONTOCHAIN infrastructure, the applicants could choose among 3 topics in objective A as follow:
- A1 - Service Integration (Gateways APIs) for ONTOCHAIN applications
- A2 - Semantic Matching and Reasoning
- A3 - Energy-efficient and sustainable hosting infrastructure for the ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem and services
The distribution of applications received among the 3 topics of objective A is represented in the figure below which shows “Topic A1: Service integration for ONTOCHAIN applications” as the topic chosen by the majority of applicants (4 proposals) followed by “Topic A3: Energy efficient and sustainable hosting infrastructure for the ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem and services” (2 proposals). “Topic A2: Semantic Matching and Reasoning” wasn’t selected despite the effort of ONTOCHAIN to increase the advertisement of this specific topic.
To demonstrate ONTOCHAIN potential for trustworthy data/knowledge/services exchange and content handling for vital sectors of the European economy, 12 topics including the open topic one were proposed to the applicant:
- B1 - Semantic Digital Logbooks for Companies, Buildings, Cars or similar
- B2 - Decentralised Fact Checking and Data Credibility for Social Content
- B3 - Decentralized Online Semantic Social Networks
- B4 - Semantic energy data management
- B5 - Smart City Applications Relying on Trustworthy Semantic Metadata
- B6 - Automotive, e.g., electric vehicle charging, road side management, car insurance, communication interoperability
- B7 - Distribution Logistics / Supply Chains Using Trustworthy Semantic Data
- B8 - Data/Digital content /Multimedia marketplace, including social media
- B9 - Semantics-based DAO
- B10 - Decentralised Public Services & Common Goods
- B11 - Remote Presence/Working and Metaverse
- B12 - Any other application in synergy with ONTOCHAIN objectives
The distribution of applications received among the 12 topics of objective B is represented in the figure below, which shows “Topic 7: Distribution Logistics / Supply Chains Using Trustworthy Semantic Data” as the topic chosen by the majority of applicants (16 proposals), followed by “Other/Open topic” (14 proposals), “Topic 2: Decentralised Fact Checking and Data Credibility for Social Content”(11 proposals), “Topic 8: Data/Digital content /Multimedia marketplace, including social media” (8 proposals), “Topic 5: Smart City Applications Relying on Trustworthy Semantic Metadata” (7 proposals), “Topic 6: Automotive, e.g., electric vehicle charging, road side management, car insurance, communication interoperability” (7 proposals), “Topic 10: Decentralised Public Services & Common Goods” (7 proposals) , “Topic 1: Semantic Digital Logbooks for Companies, Buildings, Cars or similar”(5 proposals), “Topic 4: Semantic energy data management” (5 proposals), “Topic 11: Remote Presence/Working and Metaverse” (4 proposals), and finally “Topic 3: Decentralized Online Semantic Social Networks” (2 proposals), “Topic 9: Semantics-based DAO” (2 proposals). Note that a secondary choice was made possible for the applicants among these topics.
Proposals Selected
After the evaluation process, only 14 proposals were selected from the 94 proposals submitted leading to an overall success rate of 18%. 2 proposals have been shortlisted under objective A and 12 under objective B according to their value for ONTOCHAIN and the specific evaluation criteria.
The table hereafter is summarizing the quick facts about the selected projects.
| ONTOCHAIN Open Call 3 | |||
| Total number of project selected | 14 | ||
| Total number of projects selected by Objectives and respective topics | |||
| Objective A | |||
| Topic A1: Service Integration (Gateways APIs) for ONTOCHAIN applications | 1 | ||
| Topic A3: Energy-efficient and sustainable hosting infrastructure for the ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem and services | 1 | ||
| Objective B | |||
| Topic B1: Semantic Digital Logbooks for Companies, Buildings, Cars or similar | 1 | ||
| Topic B2: Decentralised Fact Checking and Data Credibility for Social Content | 1 | ||
| Topic B3: Decentralized Online Semantic Social Networks | 0 | ||
| Topic B4: Semantic energy data management | 1 | ||
| Topic B5: Smart City Applications Relying on Trustworthy Semantic Metadata | 0 | ||
| Topic B6: Automotive, e.g., electric vehicle charging, road side management, car insurance, communication interoperability | 1 | ||
| Topic B7: Distribution Logistics / Supply Chains Using Trustworthy Semantic Data | 2 | ||
| Topic B8: Data/Digital content /Multimedia marketplace, including social media | 1 | ||
| Topic B9: Semantics-based DAO | 0 | ||
| Topic B10: Decentralised Public Services & Common Goods | 2 | ||
| Topic B11: Remote Presence/Working and Metaverse | 0 | ||
| Topic B12:Open Topic | 3 | ||
| Selected third parties profile | Group of individual(s) and organization(s) | 1 | |
| Group of individuals (team) | 1 | ||
| Group of organisations (consortium) | 3 | ||
| Single organisation (legal entity) | 9 | ||
| Countries represented | France | 3 | 21% |
| Estonia | 2 | 14% | |
| Italy | 2 | 14% | |
| UK | 2 | 14% | |
| Austria | 1 | 1% | |
| Finland | 1 | 1% | |
| Netherland | 1 | 1% | |
| Serbia | 1 | 1% | |
| Spain | 1 | 1% | |
Funding Allocation per Countries
By the rules, the ONTOCHAIN Open Call 3 funds are distributed to the legal representative of the legal entity or of the consortium or to the legal representative of the team of natural persons. In the two last case, a consortium agreement or team agreement is signed by the parties belonging to the consortium or team of individual mentioning amount shared between parties. The figure hereafter shows the funding distribution per countries taking into account only the legal representative’s countries. So, France is the most funded country with around 22% of the total OC3 funding distributed to it. Then follow Estonia (around 15%), Italy (around 15%), Austria (around 7%) and Netherland (around 7%) as well as Serbia (around 7%), Spain (around 7%) and finally Finland (around 5%). From a geographical point of view, the funding of ONTOCHAIN for this Open Call 3 covers well Europe.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 957338
