The call for proposals is part of the program Advanced digitalisation, an effort in collaboration with industry that mobilizes actors from different parts of society towards common objective. In this case, towards objective linked to the digital structural transformation, the competitiveness of business and societal challenges.
The program wants to strengthen Swedish research. It should make Sweden more attractive in terms of research and innovation investments and stimulate the development of advanced digital technology. The program must be implemented with a long-term perspective and contribute to innovative, enabling technologies and the development of central competence areas that meet the needs of the industry.
Read more about the program
objective of the program is to:
- Contribute to the next generation of advanced, powerful and secure digital solutions - developed in Sweden.
- Strengthen Sweden's attractiveness in terms of research and innovation investments.
- Contribute to raising the competence and implementation ability of Swedish business in the area of advanced digitalisation.
- Ensure increased competitiveness for the industry operating in Sweden.
- Form a collaboration platform and act as a knowledge hub for other Swedish initiatives in the field of digitization.
- Contribute to society's digital transformation, sustainable development and the work to achieve the Swedish environmental goals.
This call for proposals focuses on fundamental and enabling technologies and capabilities for the digital solutions of the future. The overall theme for the call for proposals is: Digitalisation and integration of sustainable value chains for interconnected systems and between business areas.
The call's aim is that the project that are financed should contribute to the program's overall objective.
The projects shall:
- Develop new knowledge that can promote advanced digitalisation that renews Swedish industry in one or more application areas.
- Give results with impact and good potential to be spread. In this way, they can provide a competence-enhancing effect in Swedish industry in addition to the participating parties.
Technical focus areas
This call for proposals also has six technical focus areas. The proposed projects must be relevant to one or more of these areas:
End-to-End AI in development, production and services
Technologies are addressed here that include all steps from the initial phase of data collection to the final model dissemination, as well as the feedback of model quality in a model development project.
The development of AI-based smart products and services on an industrial scale is more than just a collection of a number of independent smart algorithms. A successful and scalable solution also requires integrated tools and platforms for data management, from collection, cleaning, annotation, training and model development to continuous update and maintenance after dissemination. A key issue is flexibility and compatibility between various different systems and platforms.
Secure digital platforms for efficient development, production and support
All activities in society are becoming increasingly connected. There is an increased need for digital platforms where data is exchanged as a service through open communication platforms, and where there is trust and interoperability all the way between connected equipment as well as between suppliers and customers. For example, if monitoring and control can take place on a large scale and with reliable connections, secure and reliable platforms are needed.
This area includes:
- High availability in the communication service.
- Support for various eligibility requirements on connection. For example, long battery life or extreme performance in the form of bandwidth or response times.
- High security regarding the devices that are connected to the network through identification, authentication and a high degree of data security.
- Development environments that support application development in connected environments.
Data-driven development and secure exchange of data between processes and actors
The systems and applications of the future will increasingly be based on the analysis and processing of large amounts of data, for example through machine learning. Exchange of data in the value chain should address the possibilities for increased degree of automation, improved and optimized planning and thus increased quality, reduced waste and more. The strategic value of data will increase and partly form the basis of all types of product development.
This area includes:
- Handling large amounts of data at a high rate from many different sources.
- Management of quality, security, integrity, ethics and more.
- Data mining. That is, search in large data sets.
- Data analysis. That is, process, interpret and compare data to improve models and create better decision-making bases.
- Business models for access and exchange of data and for new services and applications based on data.
Model- and simulation-driven development and optimization, including the use of digital twins.
The complexity of future products is expected to increase through the accelerating digitization, i.e. increased use of software and interconnection of "smart" adaptive cyber-physical systems. At the same time, the demands on quality, lead time and cost are increasing. An important strategy to meet these challenges is to increase the use of modeling and simulation in development work.
This area includes:
- Modeling and simulation in all phases and within all disciplines of the development work. From models used in the concept phase to explore the design space to models used for verification and validation.
- Model validation and model improvement with measurement data from physical samples.
- Use of digital twins to analyze deviations during test and in operation.
- Automation of testing and evaluation.
Autonomous systems such as development, optimization and architecture for reliability and collaboration
This area includes a systems-oriented approach and knowledge from several disciplines to build systems with a higher degree of autonomy. Systems that can act autonomously in physical reality augmented via reliable and smart built-in models. An autonomous system requires distributed intelligence all the way to the edge of the network, built on an efficient computer architecture for, among other things, machine intelligence in embedded systems. The communication between all these systems needs to be reliable, so that the systems are safe and robust. It is also important that people's interaction with these systems is natural and comfortable.
Edge computing, joint and cloud technology as well as 5G networks and software-defined networks for industrial applications
The starting point here is that an ever greater variety of tools will be required in terms of tools that are made available for the development of services. Edge computing is needed both for eligibility requirements for short response times and for local survival in the event of major system failures. Cloud technology enables the utilization of shared resources, not least in terms of computing capacity for AI-intensive applications. The networks will also need to be able to be dynamically "configured" to meet specific eligibility requirements from applications, for example regarding capacity, response times, security or redundancy.
Two central sustainability perspectives
In addition to the above, Vinnova is tasked with promoting sustainable growth and community development. Genom Agenda 2030, the countries of the world have agreed on a global agreement and understanding of what characterizes sustainable development. Through our efforts, we contribute to the global commitment to reach the goals.
In Inom Agenda 2030, Vinnova has specifically identified climate and gender equality as two central sustainability perspectives to which our funded investments should contribute positively. Project financed by Vinnova are therefore expected to take special account of the climate and gender equality aspects.
One aspect that Vinnova follows up and assesses is whether both women and men share in the grant in an equal way, participate in and have influence over the project. See section 7 under the actor criterion.
Another aspect involves analyzing and deciding whether there are gender or gender aspects that are relevant in connection with the project's problem area, solutions and utilization. In this call for proposals the question is not the basis for assessment but is mandatory for all applicant to answer in the application form.
Results from research and innovation that are made freely available increase the opportunity for more people to contribute to solutions to societal challenges. The call for proposals should contribute to making more results freely available to everyone and scientific publication should take place with open access.
Read more about our work to contribute to the goals of Agenda 2030
Read more about what our work for equal innovation means for those of you who seek funding from us