For our Pledgers and the Talents following the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative we would like to draw your attention to this funding opportunity.
As part of the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL), the European Commission (EC) has launched its eighth Call for Proposals on Advanced Digital Skills with a total budget of 10 million EUR to help build a virtual world skills academy.
Proposals are expected to focus on activities within the following three pillars:
- Knowledge, education, and training
- Building the ecosystem
- Measuring the progress
Virtual worlds are a fast-evolving technology, gaining ground in more and more areas of our lives, blending physical and digital worlds in real-time for a variety of purposes such as designing new prototypes, virtualising entire cities or for different types of simulations. The recently adopted “EU initiative on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds: a head start in the next technological transition” presents all the various opportunities virtual worlds can bring to many industrial and societal sectors and citizens in their daily lives.
However, virtual worlds require a highly interdisciplinary approach, bringing together various technologies and disciplines. To generate high-level expertise and reinforce the talent pool needed to achieve the aspirations of the EU the academy will:
- Cover education and trainings that encompass all necessary technological blocks of virtual worlds (such as extended reality, blockchain, AI, data, edge computing, high-performance computing, 3D graphics, interactive media, content creation, computer vision, modelling and industrial applications (digital twins), digital identity, data privacy and big data) as well as creative designs and/or other related disciplines (law, ethics, design, etc.).
- Offer training for sector specialists (e.g., in the automotive industry, healthcare, education, cultural and creative sectors and industries) to equip them with the necessary knowledge to deploy virtual worlds in their sectors and realise its benefits.
- Develop training for the basic understanding of virtual worlds technologies to empower citizens and raise awareness of the opportunities and risks of virtual worlds in daily life.
Selected consortium for the Virtual World Skills Academy Call must demonstrate complementary roles and an established track record in virtual-worlds technological and/or non-technological building blocks, in training and education, and proven experience with the design and implementation of complex education programmes. It is highly recommended for consortia to include:
- 3 higher education institutions from 3 different eligible countries
- A minimum of 2 industry partners with headquarters in 2 different eligible countries
- At least 1 research organisations/excellence centres
The consortium is also encouraged to particularly involve small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and start-ups. For each of these partners, the proposals will explain the relevance of their participation in the project.
Partners
