GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS...Programme, under Grant Agreement Nº 871528 and is framed under the Next...

Grant Agreement No.: No 871528 Call: H2020-ICT-2019-2 Topic: ICT-24-2018-2019 Type of action: RIA

GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS 1st Open Call

Submission starts on Wednesday, 1st of April 2020

1st deadline 1st of June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels time)

Version 02/04/2020

NGI POINTER is funded by the European Commission, as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement Nº 871528 and itis framed under Next Generation Internet Initiative.

NGI POINTER | GfA NGI POINTER 1st open call

NGI POINTER is funded by the European Commission, as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement Nº 871528 and is framed under the Next Generation Internet Initiative

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 4 2 OPEN CALL SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 5 3 ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA ............................................................................................. 6 3.1 Types of beneficiaries ................................................................................................ 6 3.2 Eligible countries ........................................................................................................ 6 3.3 Type of Activity ........................................................................................................... 7 3.4 Submission language ................................................................................................. 7 3.5 Multiple Submission (NOT ALLOWED) ...................................................................... 7 3.6 Deadline ..................................................................................................................... 7 3.7 Online Submission ..................................................................................................... 8 3.8 Absence of conflict of interest .................................................................................... 8 3.9 Other requirements .................................................................................................... 8 4 PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS ........................................... 9 5 SUMMARY OF EVALUATION PROCESS .............................................................. 10 5.1 Eligibility check & pre-screening .............................................................................. 10 5.2 Proposal evaluation .................................................................................................. 11 5.3 Consensus Meeting ................................................................................................. 12 5.4 Sub-Grant Agreement Setup Process ...................................................................... 12 5.5 Tentative timeline ..................................................................................................... 12 6 NGI-POINTER SUPPORT PROGRAMME .............................................................. 13 7 NGI-POINTER PAYMENT PLAN ............................................................................ 14 8 COMMUNICATION WITH APPLICANTS FLOW .................................................... 15 8.1 General communication procedure .......................................................................... 15 8.2 Appeal procedure ..................................................................................................... 15 9 OBLIGATIONS OF FSTP BENEFICIARIES ........................................................... 16 9.1 Originality of the sub-granted projects ..................................................................... 16 9.2 IPR ownership .......................................................................................................... 16 9.3 Communication obligations ...................................................................................... 16 10 SUPPORT FOR APPLICANTS ............................................................................... 17 11 OPEN CALL SCHEDULE ........................................................................................ 18 12 APPLICABLE LAW ................................................................................................. 19 ANNEX I: NGI WORK PROGRAMME .................................................................................. 20 NGI-POINTER WORK PROGRAMME CHALLENGES ........................................................ 23



NGI-POINTER-01-2020-2022: Privacy-by-design ................................................................. 23 NGI-POINTER-02-2020-2022: Internet at the Edge .............................................................. 23 NGI-POINTER-03-2020-2022: Network Optimization ............................................................ 24 NGI-POINTER-04-2020-2022: Virtualization and isolation .................................................... 24 NGI-POINTER-06-2020-2022: Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite ................................ 24 NGI-POINTER-07-2020-2022: Autonomous Network operations and control ....................... 25 NGI-POINTER-08-2020-2022: Energy efficiency ................................................................... 25 NGI-POINTER-08-2020-2022: Industrial Internet Security .................................................... 25 NGI-POINTER-09-2020-2022: Trust for New Internet/Web Users ........................................ 26 NGI-POINTER-10-2020-2022: Open Disruption of the Internet architecture [ODI] ................ 26 ANNEX II: INFORMED CONSENT FORM ............................................................................ 27 ANNEX III: PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA .............................................................. 28 ANNEX IV: GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................ 30



1 INTRODUCTION

NGI-POINTER is funded by the European Commission and aims to find ambitious “NGI architects” to change the underlying fabric of the internet and the web, by supporting promising bottom up projects that are able to build on top of state-of-the-art research, scalable protocols and tools to assist in the practical transition or migration to new or updated technologies, whilst keeping European values at the core. NGI-POINTER aims to find ambitious “NGI architects”, to fund and support them, both from a technical as well as business perspective through bottom up projects in an open and agile environment. NGI-POINTER will distribute up to 5.6 M€ among projects that will be selected through open calls targeting NGI Architects, including both individual and legal persons applicants. This Guide for Applicants contains relevant information to understand how to successfully take part in the Open Call of NGI POINTER.

The NGI-POINTER consortium is comprised of: Aarhus University (Denmark) is the project coordinator and has a wide experience in supporting researchers to transfer the results of research into innovative solutions. AU will be responsible for the Business Development Support. FundingBox Accelerator (Poland) manages the open calls and cascade funding. FundingBox is the European leader in managing Financial Support to Third Parties (cascade funding) and provides tools for community creation, to help innovators meet, interact and collaborate to build growth connections. LINKNOVATE SCIENCE (Spain) will empower the capacity of the consortium to proactively find and discover those "publicly hidden" outstanding researchers that are out of the traditional channels related with public funding schemas for Research and Innovation. DIGITAL WORX GMBH (Germany) will be responsible for the Technology Development Support. The main role will be to provide technical mentorship for technology development to the beneficiaries of the program.



2 OPEN CALL SUMMARY

The open call of NGI-POINTER will distribute 5.6M€ to “NGI architects” for blue-sky, bottom-up projects targeting Internet Architecture Renovation.

The maximum amount per bottom-up project is 200,000€ equity-free funding.

This call will launch on 1st of April 2020 and will have a deadline 1st of June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels time).

Applications must be submitted online at: https://ngi-pointer-open-call.fundingbox.com/ IMPORTANT NOTE: please, be aware that you won’t be able to change or modify your application once submitted it.



3 ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

All applicants will have to abide by all general requirements described in sections from 3.1 to 3.9 of this Guide for Applicants in order to be considered eligible to take part in NGI-POINTER Support Programme, benefit from its services and receive funding.

3.1 TYPES OF BENEFICIARIES Applicants can be Natural (e.g. researchers, developers, hackers or internet activists) or Legal persons (e.g Universities, Research Institutes, SMEs or startups) with proven experience in internet architecture (protocols and open source software and hardware that are used to manage the Internet). Natural persons must have required nationality or permits and visas to reside in one of the eligible countries as defined in section 3.2. Legal persons must have a registered office in one of the eligible countries as defined in section 3.2. In case the case of Legal persons, an SME will be considered as such, if it complies with the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC1. As a summary, the criteria which define a SME are: • Headcount in Annual Work Unit (AWU) less than 250;

• Annual turnover less or equal to €50 million OR annual balance sheet total less or equal to €43 million.

3.2 ELIGIBLE COUNTRIES Only applicants from any of the following countries (i.e. “Eligible Countries”) will be eligible for NGI-POINTER Support Programme: • The Member States of the European Union.

• The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States2.

• Associated Countries to H20203.

1 Description of this definition can be found at: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition_en 2 Companies from Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) are eligible for funding under the same conditions as entities from the Member States to which the OCT in question is linked. 3 Updated information at: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/3cpart/h2020-hi-list-ac_en.pdf



3.3 TYPE OF ACTIVITY Proposals should be focused on the Open Internet Architecture Renovation, and related to new tools and protocols that will bring critical value for a more efficient, scalable, secure and resilient evolution of the internet architecture according to the NGI POINTER Work Programme, available in the project website and the open call website. Furthermore, these proposals should address specific technology challenges related with one or more of the following 9 (+1) application domains: • Privacy-by-design; • Internet at the Edge; • Network optimization; • Virtualization and isolation; • Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite; • Autonomous Network operations and control; • Energy Efficiency • Industrial Internet Security • Trust for New Internet/Web Users • Open Disruption of the Internet Architecture

3.4 SUBMISSION LANGUAGE Proposals must be written in English in all their mandatory parts in order to be eligible. If the mandatory parts of the proposal are in any other language, the entire proposal will be rejected. If only non-mandatory parts of a proposal are submitted in a language different from English, those parts will not be evaluated but the proposal is still eligible. English is also the only official language during the whole length of NGI-POINTER Support Programme and, accordingly, any requested deliverables will be admitted only if submitted in English.

3.5 MULTIPLE SUBMISSION (NOT ALLOWED) Applicants are not allowed to submit multiple applications. In case that more than one application from the same applicant is submitted, only the one submitted first will be considered and any other will be rejected.

3.6 DEADLINE This open call will launch 1st April 2020 with a deadline on 1st June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels).

It won’t be possible to modify applications after submission. If a mistake has been made in key administrative data (e.g. contact mail or phone, name of the company, etc.) the applicants have to contact us at [email protected] indicating the proposal ID, their username and the data which is meant to be corrected.



3.7 ONLINE SUBMISSION Proposals must be submitted online through the NGI-POINTER microsite for this open call at FundingBox Platform: https://ngi-pointer-open-call.fundingbox.com/ before the deadline. Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered for funding.

3.8 ABSENCE OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST Each applicant must take all measures to prevent any situation where the impartial and objective evaluation of the proposal and implementation of the action is compromised for reasons involving economic interest, political or national affinity, family or emotional ties or any other shared interest (‘conflict of interest’). To avoid conflicts of interest, applications will not be accepted from organizations who are partners in the NGI-POINTER consortium, as well as its affiliated entities and its employees. All cases of conflict of interest will be assessed case-by-case.

3.9 OTHER REQUIREMENTS Each applicant must confirm: • It is not under liquidation or is not an enterprise under difficulty according to the Commission

Regulation No 651/2014, art. 2.18,

• Its project is based on the original works and going forward any foreseen developments are free from third party rights, or they are clearly stated,

• It is not excluded from the possibility of obtaining EU funding under the provisions of both national and EU law, or by a decision of both national or EU authority,

• All statements embodied in the Declaration of honour have been understood and accepted.



4 PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Proposals must be submitted online through the NGI-POINTER microsite for this open call at FundingBox Platform: https://ngi-pointer-open-call.fundingbox.com/ before the deadline. Proposals will be submitted in a one-step process via the online application form which will include: • Project proposal, divided into:

• Contact info • Project description (including keywords) • Excellence (Scored) • Impact (Scored) • Implementation (Scored)

• Statistical section (optional)

• Declaration of honour – confirmation that applicant is not in the cases explained in the exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest (Compulsory)

• Processing of personal data – legal requirement related to the processing of the personal data of the Applicants in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, EU 2016/679 (Compulsory)

Additional material, which has not been included and specifically requested in the online application form, will not be considered for the evaluation of the proposals and data not included in the proposal will not be taken into account regardless of the reason for not being included. The applicants are solely responsible for verification of the completeness of the form. The NGI-POINTER consortium makes its best effort to keep all provided data confidential; however, for the avoidance of doubt, the applicant is solely responsible to indicate its confidential information as such. The applicants are strongly recommended not to wait until the last minute to submit the proposal. Failure of the proposal to arrive in time for any reason, including extenuating circumstances, will result in rejection of the proposal.



5 SUMMARY OF EVALUATION PROCESS

Evaluation of proposals will be done following the phases reflected in the following figure:

*EB = Evaluation Board (members of the consortium participating in the Evaluation Committee)

5.1 ELIGIBILITY CHECK & PRE-SCREENING The ‘List of Applications’ received after the deadline will be checked according to the “eligibility criteria” (section 3 of this Guide for Applicants) and those proposals which do not comply with those criteria will be excluded. Prior to send the Eligible Applicants list to external evaluation (Section 5.2), applications will also be checked for minimum quality criteria by the project technical partners (AU and DWX) and eventually the NGI POINTER Advisory Board members. Applicants need to at least satisfy 2 of the 5 criteria listed below. Eligibility criteria are:

1. Experience contributing to open source. Assessment is based on the applicant having contributed to open source projects (yes/no). Evidence can be given via a link.

2. Experience contribution to Internet Architecture community (yes/no). Assessment is based on the applicant having contributed to Internet and Web related memberships. Evidence can be given via a link.

3. Experience contributing to scientific publications in the Internet Architecture fields (yes/no). Assessment is based on a recent scientific peer-reviewed publication in a relevant journal or conference.

4. Experience contributing to an Internet or Web SME/start-up with European Values (yes/no). Assessment is based on evidence from the SME/start-up website.

5. Experience contributing to the Internet and Web communities through other means (yes/no). Assessment is based on the applicant providing at least one link to online publications, contributions to events, teaching or other relevant activities.

A shortlist of ‘Eligible Applicants’ will be produced as a result of this phase.

Proposal Submission

Minimum Quality Criteria Check

Expert Evaluation

Consensus Meeting

Result: Ranking of Finalists

FSTP sub-grant agreement signature

Invitation to the Welcome Event

DW/AU experts

Expert Panel (2 experts per proposal)

Eligibility Check FBA

Rejection

mail

Evaluation Committee (EB + 3 Experts)



5.2 PROPOSAL EVALUATION Proposals in the list of “Eligible Applicants” will be evaluated by two independent and confidential evaluators, on the following criteria: Excellence

• Ambition: The applicants have to demonstrate to what extent that proposed component is beyond the State of the Art and describe the innovative approach behind it (e.g. ground-breaking objectives, novel concepts and approaches, new organisational models).

• Technical Approach: The applicants should provide information about the level of innovation within their domain and about the degree of differentiation that this component will bring. Which part of the Internet Architecture / Web are they addressing? And how does it relate to the NGI vision and European Values?

Impact

• At least 2 out of the 3 impacts listed below need to be addressed: 1. Demonstratable Internet Architecture renovation: The applicant must provide

information about how the bottom up project might contribute to provide new building blocks (protocols, applications, algorithms, methods, etc) that might help to evolve the internet architecture towards a more scalable, resilient and sustainable internet. Development of clear demonstratable solutions as hardware, software and/or operating system contributions.

2. Open source contributions: The applicant must provide information about how the bottom up project might contribute to the open source community, clearly stating the targeted open source community/communities.

3. Standardization and roll-out potential: The applicant must demonstrate how his/her bottom up project will contribute to adopt new open standards with actual potential of rolling out at the whole internet scale, clearly stating the targeted standardisation body/bodies.

Implementation

• Team: The applicant should see themselves as an ‘NGI architect’ with the ambition of changing the fabric of the Internet and the Web. What is their commitment and motivation?

• Resources: Demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of the resources assigned in order to complete the proposed milestones.

Each evaluator will rank the application assigning a score from 0 to 5 for each criterion and produce an Individual Evaluation Report. The final score will be calculated as the average of the individual assessments provided by the Evaluators. The threshold for individual criteria will be 3. The overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, will be 10. All proposals above the threshold will be passed to the consensus meeting.



5.3 CONSENSUS MEETING The “Evaluation Committee” will check the best proposals scored in the “Ranking List” produced in the previous phase. The Evaluation Committee will decide, by consensus the “List of finalists” and “Reserve List” to be invited to the next stage. The exact number of proposals approved will be decided based on the overall quality of the proposals.

5.4 SUB-GRANT AGREEMENT SETUP PROCESS After the consensus meeting, but prior to the Welcome Event, proposals included in the “List of finalists” will be required to go through a “Formal check”. For the “Formal check”, applicants included in the “List of finalists” will have to provide all documentation required to prove their compliance with the Eligibility Criteria and fulfilment of the legal requirements. In case the requested information is not provided in time without a clear and reasonable justification, this will directly end the “Sub-Grant Agreement” setup process and projects inside the “Reserve List” will substitute the failing applicants in order of ranking. Once all these formalities are covered, FBA (on behalf of the consortium) will sign the “Sub-grant Agreement” with the final beneficiaries of FSTP.

5.5 TENTATIVE TIMELINE Evaluation process is expected to take up to 2 months and Sub-grant Agreement is expected to take one additional month approximately, both counting from the deadline. (See Section 10 for open call indicative schedule).



6 NGI-POINTER SUPPORT PROGRAMME

The selected applicants, after signing the “Sub-grant Agreement” with FBA, will participate in NGI-POINTER’s Support Programme, which is an up to 12-month programme to help with the execution of bottom-up projects in order to create highly innovative technologies, potentially turn them into products or services that will contribute in creating a more scalable, resilient and sustainable internet. The Support Programme will provide bottom-up projects with support for 3 major milestones: • “Technology Development” (Welcome Event + Technology Development + Tech Support):

all bottom-up projects will be supported to develop their technical solution. Duration 6 months.

• “Business or Advanced Technology Opportunity” (Business Plan or Advanced Technology): the bottom-up projects will have additional support to define their business model to exploit the technology developed or continue to develop their technical solution. Duration 3 months

• “Technology Adoption”: the bottom-up projects will receive support to define the technology adoption strategy to further develop and/or commercialise their product. Duration 3 months.

At the start of the Support Programme, Technical and Business Mentors will be allocated to each project, the Mentors will define the procedure to coordinate the mentoring process. After this, the Mentors and the Teams will define the Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP) establishing the individual budget, deliverables and KPIs that will be taken into account when evaluating the Teams’ performance at the payment’s milestones. The IMP, once updated, will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement by FBA.



7 NGI-POINTER PAYMENT PLAN

The agreed grant is paid as a lump sum or as a voucher against specific Deliverables/ Milestones4 included in the Individual Mentoring Plans and the Sub-grant Agreement. Agreed amounts will be paid after successful completion of the specific Deliverables/ Milestones. The criteria for calculating the exact amount of the financial support and the specific milestones will be indicated in the “Individual Mentoring Plan” based on actual third-party needs and the best value for money indicator included in the individual budget. This Individual Mentoring Plan and the final grant will be agreed after the Welcome Event. Concerning this, the following relevant notes must be takin into account. • Applicants might have applied to the maximum grant amount but after the Individual

Mentoring Plan different financial support can be agreed, but never exceeding the maximum grant amount.

• Natural persons individually considered cannot receive more than 50.000€. This means a variety of situations that have also to be agreed during the Individual Mentoring Plan definition, but a % distribution and reduction of the grant will be the inspiring principle i.e. o If a natural person is granted together with other natural person (i.e. team of two

people), the same principle applies for the same case, but the maximum amount to be distributed is 100.000€ between two people (max 50K each).

o If a natural person is granted together with a legal person, the Sub-Grant agreement will be signed with the legal person on behalf of the team, and the internal distribution of the grant to be paid to the natural person will not exceed 50.000€. For these cases, an internal Consortium Agreement, stating those internal payments, following the DESCA model is highly recommendable although not compulsory to receive the NGI POINTER funding.

At the end of each milestone (or whenever a payment is due), a deep analysis will be done to evaluate the bottom-up project’s performance. The Mentoring Committee will evaluate the performance and quality of deliverables issued by bottom-up projects, proposing their final valuation. Selection Committee will validate it and take the final decisions based on Mentoring Committee inputs. Bottom-up Projects performing as expected in the Individual Mentoring Plan, will receive the EU Funds payments as scheduled. Those not reaching the performance requested, will be invited to leave the program without receiving the corresponding payments.

4 The Deliverable can be a DEM (Demonstrator, pilot, prototype, plan designs, MVP); a DEC (Websites, patents filing, press & media actions, videos, etc.) or OTHER: Software, technical diagram, plan, strategy etc.)



8 COMMUNICATION WITH APPLICANTS FLOW

8.1 GENERAL COMMUNICATION PROCEDURE All applicants will receive a communication via email after each step of the evaluation process, indicating if they can move to the next phase or need to make corrections to their deliverables. In case of corrections not being implemented by applicants, contracts can be terminated and this communication will include the reasons for the termination.

8.2 APPEAL PROCEDURE If the applicant considers, at any stage of the evaluation process, that a mistake has been made or that the evaluators have acted unfairly or have failed to comply with the rules of this NGI-POINTER Open Call, and that her/his interests have been prejudiced as a result, a complaint can be drawn up in English and submitted by email to [email protected] Any complaint made should include:

• contact details (including postal and e-mail address),

• the subject of the complaint, and

• information and evidence regarding the alleged breach. Anonymous complaints will not be reviewed. Complaints should also be made within 5 (calendar) days since the evaluation results are presented to the Applicants. As a general rule, the NGI-POINTER team will investigate the complaints with a view to arriving at a decision to issue a formal notice or to close the case within no more than 7 days from the date of reception of the complaint, provided that all required information has been submitted by the complainer.



9 OBLIGATIONS OF FSTP5 BENEFICIARIES

Take into account that the funds awarded under the Sub-Grant Agreement are provided directly from the funds of the European Project NGI-POINTER and are therefore funds owned by the European Commission. The “Sub-Grant Agreement” will include the set of obligations that the Beneficiaries of FSTP have towards the European Commission. It is the task of the Beneficiaries of FSTP to satisfy these obligations and of the NGI-POINTER consortium partners to inform the Beneficiaries of FSTP about them.

9.1 ORIGINALITY OF THE SUB-GRANTED PROJECTS

The applicants base their proposals on original works and, going forward, any foreseen developments should be free from third party rights, or they are clearly stated. The NGI-POINTER consortium is not obliged to verify the authenticity of the ownership of the future products and services and any issues arising from third party claims regarding ownership are the solely responsibility of the sub-granted parties.

9.2 IPR OWNERSHIP The ownership of all IPR created by the FSTP beneficiaries, via the NGI-POINTER funding, will remain with them as far as results are owned by the Party that generates them. The Sub-Grant Agreement will introduce provisions concerning joint ownership of the results of the sub-granted projects, if applicable. This will be assessed and negotiated case by case.

9.3 COMMUNICATION OBLIGATIONS There are no IPR obligations toward the European Commission (EC). However, any communication or publication of the FSTP beneficiaries shall clearly indicate that the project has received funding from the European Union and the NGI-POINTER programme under NGI Initiative, therefore displaying the EU and logo on all printed and digital material, including websites and press releases. Moreover, FSTP beneficiaries will agree that certain information regarding the projects selected for funding can be used by NGI-POINTER consortium for communication purposes.

5 FSTP is Financial Support to Third Parties. See description in Annex V “Glossary”



10 SUPPORT FOR APPLICANTS

For more information about the NGI-POINTER Open Call, please check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document at https://ngi-pointer-open-call.fundingbox.com/ You can also post your questions at the Helpdesk space of NGI-POINTER at: http://bit.ly/ngipointer-helpor send us a message to our helpdesk mail: [email protected] In case of any technical issues or problems with the Application Form, please include the following information in your message: • your username, telephone number and your email address;

• details of the specific problem (error messages you encountered, bugs descriptions, i.e. if a dropdown list isn’t working, etc.); and

• screenshots of the problem. There will also be a number of online webinars on this open call which will be announced at NGI-POINTER Support Community Space, as well as any other events related such as info days.



11 OPEN CALL SCHEDULE

The table below presents the indicative dates during which each phase of the open call, evaluation and NGI-POINTER Support Programme will take place:

Milestone description Indicative date

Call launch 1st April 2020 1st open call deadline for evaluation: 1st June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels time).

Evaluation period During approximately 2 months from the deadline.

Signature of sub-grant agreement Within 1 month after the end of the evaluation period.

The schedule is based on estimations according to the expected number of proposals received and the actual timing of the consecutive phases may vary.



12 APPLICABLE LAW

Any matters not covered by this Guide will be governed by Polish law, in particular the provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the law of the European Union.



ANNEX I: NGI WORK PROGRAMME

Preamble

The Internet has become a dual-use instrument: it can be used to improve societies and humanity, but also as a tool for repression, surveillance and misinformation. Defects become visible in privacy, data protection, content ownership and centralisation. But the internet is still also a space and a tool to develop and defend the values of democracy, human rights, new business opportunities, and a sustainable future. "Since its inception, the internet has only continued to broaden in size, scope, complexity and diversity, becoming an indispensable global societal resource. Continuous, practical improvements to the architectures, protocols, applications and operational practices, developed and deployed openly and collaboratively between different stakeholders, have been the main reason for this success. It is vital to the future success of the internet to further strengthen this proven approach to architectural innovation." – Lars Eggert “We will not survive the next 10 years if we are not collaborating and standing together on cyber security”’ – Natalia Oropeza

The NGI Program for Open INTErnet Renovation

NGI POINTER - NGI Program for Open INTErnet Renovation is a project funded by the European Commission (GA 871528). Between 2020 and 2022, the NGI POINTER project has the mandate to distribute Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP), parties in a cascade funding framework aimed at support “internet talents” in developing and providing new marketable solutions, backed in state-of-the-art technology and research, that provide alternative and/or auxiliary tools and protocols with specific value propositions for society and/or self-sustainable Business Models for 9 specific use case areas or challenges related with internet architecture renovation such as:

• Privacy-by-design;

• Internet at the Edge;

• Network optimization;

• Virtualization and isolation;

• Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite;

• Autonomous Network operations and control;

• Energy Efficiency

• Industrial Internet Security

• Trust for New Internet/Web Users On top of these 9 use case areas, an additional “Open Disruption of the Internet architecture” [ODI] challenge will be defined. As ‘internet talents’ we will consider researchers from outstanding research groups as well as organisation and individuals with outstanding track records and with links to internet



governance bodies and/or open source communities6 that are owners of the internet renovation problems of today. We will call these internet talents, hereinafter, ‘NGI architects’ Thus, the NGI-POINTER Work Programme is a document prepared to guide the composition of applications that will be submitted by the ‘NGI architects’ that will be invited to submit proposals through one Open Call with a deadline in June 2020. An important part within the process of shaping this NGI POINTER Work Programme is the participation of the POINTER Advisory Board [PAB]7 that has among its attributed functions to advise project partners on the project challenges (i.e. the ones defined in this document) so they have participated in the definition and revision of the 9+1 specific use case areas or topics / challenges below.

The Vision

NGI POINTER aims to support ambitious NGI architects* in changing the underlying fabric of the internet and the web with promising bottom-up projects that are able to build, on top of

state-of-the-art research, scalable protocols and tools to assist in the practical transition to new or updated technologies,

whilst keeping European Values** at the core. *People with an ambition of changing the internet and web with European values at the core. For example, Researchers, Open Source Contributors, Hackers, Software and Hardware developers, Engineers, Computer Scientists, Activists, etc. ** European Values are respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy, equality, and the rule of law.

The Mission

The mission-oriented approach of the NGI-POINTER project steer the directionality of the project towards the societal and technological mission of providing a new generation of protocols and open software and hardware tools for better efficiency, scalability, security and resilience in the internet architecture evolution, which is fully aligned with the values of the Next Generation Initiative of creating a more trustworthy, resilient, sustainable and inclusive internet. Thus, NGI-POINTER can be defined itself as a human-centric project that will contribute to this impact by discovering, selecting and supporting bottom-up projects that will be focused on providing tools to build a more human centric architecture of the internet.

Vertical use-cases challenges under NGI POINTER The following sections define the verticals topics that will gear around the 9 specific use case areas + ODI challenges mentioned above, and to be addressed by the applicants to the NGI-POINTER Open Calls. Specific expected outcomes in the verticals are interoperability and backward compatibility across use cases together with a general strong emphasis on building solutions to concrete

6 i.e. (non-exhaustive list): IETF/W3C; Computer science (network research), IFIP, AoIR, ACM, GEANT, RIPE (+ other RIRs), CENTR, DNS operators, Kernel teams, ISOC, EDRi, FSF, FSFE, APRIL, EuroISPA, DPHA, Eurocloud, EURO-IX 7 PAB is an NGI POINTER assessment and support body that will be formed by a representation of the main organizations, platforms and standardization bodies representing industry players. It is expected to gather 12 Chairs with representatives of Internet Governance Bodies such as RIPE NCC, CENTR, Euro-IX, GÉANT, ISOC, EDRi, Free Software Foundation, W3C, IETF; and also digital platforms such as FIWARE Foundation, ETSI and GSMA



problems and according to decentralization principles. Secondly, the requirement for large scale impact in real-life scenarios. Third, radical innovation should be balanced with a realistic business validation and sustainability of MVPs beyond the span of the project. The focus will be on advanced and applied research that is linked to relevant use cases and that can be brought quickly to the market; apps and services that innovate without a research component are not covered by this model. In particular, proposals shall contain a specification for the outcome of the project and criteria for success. They will include an explanation of how the results of the supported project are to be commercialised and of what kind of impact is expected. The expected impacts should be clearly described in qualitative and quantitative terms. Market uptake and distribution of innovations shall tackle the specific challenges in a sustainable way. Finally, applicants shall commit to generate Open Knowledge as result of their projects in the shape of “free software”, “free hardware” and “Open Access” accordingly with the nature of the result, being software, hardware of other intangible piece of knowledge (i.e. research paper).



NGI-POINTER WORK PROGRAMME CHALLENGES

NGI Pointer invites applicants to submit blue-sky internet and web architecture renovation projects. Successful projects will achieve one or more of the following:

• Development of clear demonstratable solutions (SW/HW/OS)

• Contribute to Open Source under open source licensing

• Link to relevant standards bodies and communities such as IETF, W3C, 3GPP, GMSI, etc.

Proposals should address the following broad challenges:

Privacy-by-Design

Internet at the Edge

Network Optimisation

Virtualisation and Isolation

Limitations of the IP/TCP

Protocol Suite

Autonomous Networks and

Operations

Energy Efficiency

Industrial Internet Security

Trust for New Internet/Web

Users

Open Disruption of

Internet Architecture

NGI-POINTER-01-2020-2022: PRIVACY-BY-DESIGN Privacy is a basic human right. But privacy on the internet is in continuous conflict with economic interests such as the advertising industry, and law-enforcement interests and the demand for public safety. Many connected instances are collecting massive data on users and their behaviour, while offering the individual user little control over what is collected, shared, processed and utilised. NGI Pointer seeks new technologies and approaches that allow for the development of applications, services and products, respecting the users and individual rights on digital privacy and self-determined control of data. Helpful solutions can be for example tools supporting smart home users on rising awareness of data flows, monitoring device data, alert abuse, masking sensitive data, or blocking data leaks. In scope are solutions to support applications and product development by privacy-by-design principles such as design patterns, benchmarking tools, detection of privacy violation, monitoring and control of privacy settings such as safe browsing.

NGI-POINTER-02-2020-2022: INTERNET AT THE EDGE Cybersecurity as an afterthought, lack of maintainability and the sheer scale of the Internet connected devices at the edge can lead to less sustainable deployments and products. Since products may not be repairable due to compacted and physically protected components or links to trusted yet proprietary platform architectures. To increase sustainability the monolith architectures must be substituted by modules based and decentralized designs. This can be



achieved by secured hardware modules (e.g. Fairphone) linked to new decentralized architectures such as distributed ledgers. NGI Pointer seeks to increase the security, scalability and maintainability of the Internet during the complete life cycles of connected (smart) products from development, operation up to sustainable maintenance. Examples are tools for strong encryption in the Internet supply chain from hardware, protocols and applications/services towards data services. Focus should be on new approaches to empower the users of Internet enabled products on controlling the dataflow, and on decentralization of infrastructure e.g. by strengthen peer-to-peer principles and enhancing product sustainability.

NGI-POINTER-03-2020-2022: NETWORK OPTIMIZATION Upcoming technologies such as edge-computing, tactile internet and autonomous robotics are creating new challenges in communication networks. Networks will need to deal with ultra-low latency, high bandwidth, billions of connected devices and seamless transitions of devices between networks. One challenge is to create unique IDs for assets and users, keep them consistent between different network transitions while providing security and trust of such IDs. NGI Pointer seeks new concepts, tools and technologies on networks to increase security, trust, privacy, resilience and energy efficiency. This includes new approaches to strengthen current networks technologies or new approaches for future proof networks such as 5G or low power Internet of Things RF connections.

NGI-POINTER-04-2020-2022: VIRTUALIZATION AND ISOLATION Container technologies provide a sandbox environment to run applications on heterogenous platforms. But containers are also adding additional abstraction layers and security concerns, which is increasing the complexity of the overall architecture stack. Tools are needed to automate the deployment, monitoring, scaling of containers. NGI Pointer seeks new approaches for virtualization on the edge and low computing devices to manage increasing complexity in heterogeneous virtualized environments, and new tools and solutions to track dependencies, strengthen interoperability and security on virtualized environments and isolation from physical systems. Supported solutions and tools can fulfil this objective by hardware, software or a combination of both.

NGI-POINTER-06-2020-2022: LIMITATIONS IN THE TCP/IP PROTOCOL SUITE New applications for such things as edge computing require new concepts such as decentralized peer-to-peer networks for data distribution and communication. In the case of machine-to-machine communication this can be achieved with new decentralized protocols such as IPFS.



NGI Pointer seeks new solutions, tools and technologies to overcome the limitations of the TCP/IP protocol stack. With the current development of autonomous machines and artificial intelligence the requirements for stable, secure and flexible communication is changing. TCP/IP has limits in security, latency and reliability as needed for new domains such as machine-to-machine economy, autonomous systems or flexible neural networks for artificial intelligence.

NGI-POINTER-07-2020-2022: AUTONOMOUS NETWORK OPERATIONS AND CONTROL Growing adoption of mobility, Internet of Things and cloud technology increases the challenges on traditional human-driven network infrastructure. New machine learning approaches and AI-based autonomous network operation can overcome human bottlenecks on troubleshooting, reporting and maintenance of future networks. NGI Pointer seeks new solutions, tools and technologies for autonomous network control and operations. Such solutions can for instance use natural language processing machine log analysis to identify defective hard- and software components in networks or machine-learning procedures for seamless handling and managing of connection types and traffic.

NGI-POINTER-08-2020-2022: ENERGY EFFICIENCY With Agenda 2030 the EU has embarked on a transition towards a low-carbon, climate neutral, resource efficient and circular economy that goes hand in hand with increased security, prosperity, equality and inclusion. The ICT sector needs to contribute to these sustainability goals. As an example of an area that needs improving, the global Bitcoin network currently accounts for about 0.25 percent of the world’s entire electricity consumption. NGI Pointer seeks new technologies, tools and architectures for autonomous energy efficiency in ICT. New approaches are needed to reduce the energy consumption of running application or future applications for optimizing their energy efficiency. This can include solutions for software- and hardware applications on monitoring and reducing the energy consumption during processing or new software- and hardware designs with the scope of energy efficiency.

NGI-POINTER-08-2020-2022: INDUSTRIAL INTERNET SECURITY Combining machine-to-machine communication with big data analytics in industry can increase efficiency, productivity, and performance. This creates both new opportunities and challenges: cyber-attacks create a reluctance in industry for a wider adoption without isolation and proprietary solutions. Confidence can be increased with new solutions using hardware and/or software to monitor the integrity of Operational Technology (OT) devices e.g. by machine learning to detect device manipulation by suspicious behaviour as downtimes, malfunctions or data errors.



NGI Pointer seeks solutions, tools and technologies to manage future challenges in industrial security. Industrial internet is facing multiple security challenges by merging Operational Technology and Information Technology in secure ways. Furthermore, security needs to be provided on the industrial supply chain and during long industrial life-cycles.

NGI-POINTER-09-2020-2022: TRUST FOR NEW INTERNET/WEB USERS Deception mechanisms such as Deepfake videos can have a significant impact on public opinion when they are used in social media disinformation campaigns. Better detection of misinformation through mechanisms rooted in the internet or web architecture would allow for a better monitoring of the technology. NGI Pointer seeks new technologies, tools and architectures to increase the trust of new internet uses, whether in recognising fake or misleading information, or identifying phishing attempts or malware.

NGI-POINTER-10-2020-2022: OPEN DISRUPTION OF THE INTERNET ARCHITECTURE [ODI] This open-ended challenge offers NGI Architects the chance to submit proposals in areas not included in the nine use-case domains described above. The overarching goal is to renovate, fix and extend the web, internet architecture, protocols and mechanisms, tackling ethical, legal and privacy issues, as well as autonomy, data sovereignty and ownership, values and regulations. NGI Pointer seeks innovative technology concepts, products and services applying new sets of rules, values and models which ultimately create new markets or disrupt existing markets, with prototyping, validation and demonstration in real world conditions; and help for wider deployment or market uptake. Proposers are encouraged to use a cross-cutting approach with multi-disciplinary teams when relevant. Beyond research, activities should be focused on validation and testing of a potential rollout to a global audience.



ANNEX II: INFORMED CONSENT FORM

The statements below will be included in the online application form. By ticking the boxes below, I confirm that I have read and understood the information package and in particular have noted that:

1. I have read and understood the information about the project, as provided in the Guide. 2. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions about the project and my participation

via helpdesk address 3. I voluntarily agree to participate in the NGI-POINTER project. 4. I understand I can withdraw at any time without giving reasons and that I will not be

penalised for withdrawing nor will I be questioned on why I have withdrawn. 5. The procedures regarding confidentiality have been clearly explained to me. Only

anonymised data will be shared for statistical purposes. 6. The use of the data in research, publications, sharing and archiving has been explained

to me. 7. I understand that researchers and European Commission will have access to the

anonymised data only if they agree to preserve the confidentiality of the data and if they agree to the terms I have specified in this form.

8. EC will have access to the anonymised statistical data collected within open call.



ANNEX III: PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA

CONTROLLER’S IDENTITY AND CONTACT DETAILS

The data controller is FundingBox Accelerator sp. z o.o. (Al. Jerozolimskie 136, 02-305 Warsaw, Poland).

In all matters regarding personal data, you can contact us using the following email address: [email protected].

PURPOSES, LEGAL BASIS AND PROCESSING PERIOD

The purpose of processing

Legal basis for processing Period

To run an Open Call and collect data necessary to evaluate applications submitted in the Open Call

The legal basis for processing is the indispensability to implement the legally justified interest of the data controller, consisting in fulfilling the obligations laid down in the Grant Agreement (Article 6 paragraph 1 point f) GDPR in this respect.

6 years from the end of the year in which the NGI-POINTER Project ended

To realize the Project goals described in the Grant Agreement (communication, reporting, collaborating with other project partners)

The legal basis for processing is indispensability to implement the legally justified interest of the data controller, consisting in effectively participating in the project and fulfilling the obligations laid down in the Grant Agreement (Article 6 paragraph 1 point f) GDPR in this respect.


In order to consider potential complaints

The legal basis for processing is indispensability to implement the legally justified interest of the data controller fulfilling the obligations laid down in the Grant Agreement (Article 6 paragraph 1 point f) GDPR in this respect.


In order to possibly establish and enforce claims or defend against them

The legal basis of the processing is the legitimate interest of the data controller consisting in the protection of its rights (Article 6 paragraph 1 point f) GDPR in this respect.


DATA RECEIVERS



Data controller will transfer personal data only to trusted recipients such as entities belonging to the FundingBox's capital group, evaluators, IT service providers, accountants, law firms, postal and courier companies (who process personal data on the controller’s behalf).

To realize the NGI-POINTER Project data can be transferred also to Project Partners (complete list of the project partners is available at the email address: [email protected]), European Commission and other affiliated entities.

RIGHTS OF DATA SUBJECT

Due to the fact that we process your personal data, you have the right to:

1) request access to your personal data,

2) demand the rectification of their personal data,

3) request to remove or limit the processing of your personal data,

4) complain with the supervisory authority (The President of the Personal Data Protection Office, Warsaw, Poland).

You also have a right to object to the processing of your personal data (according to Article 21 of GDPR).

INFORMATION ABOUT VOLUNTARY OR OBLIGATORY DATA PROVISION

Providing data is voluntary, although it is necessary to participate in the 1st NGI-POINTER Open Call. Without providing your data, it is not possible to contact you and evaluate the application

.



ANNEX IV: GLOSSARY

NGI (Next Generation Internet): aims to shape the future internet as an interoperable platform ecosystem that embodies the values that Europe holds dear: openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data8. NGI Architects: researchers from outstanding research groups as well as organisation and individuals with outstanding track records and with links to internet governance bodies and/or open source communities9 that are owners of the internet renovation problems of today. Open Internet Architecture Renovation: supporting communities of developers in ensuring Internet architecture evolution towards better efficiency, scalability, security and resilience. Auditing, testing and improving protocols and open source software and hardware that are used to manage the Internet, with renewed design goals such as isolation of contingencies, redundancy and self-repair, disruption tolerance, transparency, better real-time behaviour and energy efficiency. Ability to roll-out at Internet scale should be assessed as part of the proposed solutions. Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP): is a mechanism of distributing financial support to beneficiaries (such as SME’s or individuals) under the conditions established in Regulation (EU, Euroatom) No 1268/2012 and Regulation (EU) No 1268/2012. Detailed rules for granting support are set out in the Grant Agreement concluded between the financial support provider and the European Commission. Sub-grant Agreement: legal contract signed between FundingBox Accelerator Sp. Z.O.O. (as responsible for the organization of the Open Calls and management of the funds for third parties) and the applicants selected to enter the Support Programme of NGI-POINTER. The contracts include detailed information about the rules of the grant, obligations and applicable legal requirements. More information can be found in Section 4 of this Guide (Sub Grant Agreement Setup Process).

8 https://www.ngi.eu/about/ 9 i.e. (non-exhaustive list): IETF/W3C; Computer science (network research), IFIP, AoIR, ACM, G.ANT, RIPE (+ other RIRs), CENTR, DNS operators, Kernel teams, ISOC, EDRi, FSF, FSFE, APRIL, EuroISPA, DPHA, Eurocloud, EURO-IX

GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS...Programme, under Grant Agreement Nº 871528 and is framed under the Next...

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