RFCS-2026-Steel-Big Tickets under the steel and metals action plan dual-use

Scope: This award seeks to recognise organisations that have successfully used sport as a powerful tool to promote peace. It honours those that have made significant contributions in bringing together diverse communities, groups, and individuals, transcending differences and fostering dialogue, tolerance, and collaboration beyond divisions. This category celebrates initiatives that leverage sport and physical activity to build relationships founded on mutual respect and cooperation toward shared goals, ultimately contributing to peaceful coexistence at the local, national, or global level.

Expected Impact: Proposals should present the concrete results which will be delivered by the activities and demonstrate how these results will contribute to the topic-specific impacts. This demonstration should rely on a solid analysis of the current situation, realistic assumptions and baselines, and establish clear causality links between proposed activities, results and impacts. In terms of qualitative impact, proposals under this topic should demonstrate how they will contribute to the following outcomes, as relevant: delivering actionable and integrated LHCPs, aligned with EU and Member State guidance and requirements empowering local and regional authorities and support them in creating lasting and institutionalised planning and governance frameworks engaging public and private stakeholders to accelerate the decarbonisation of heating and cooling at the local level. In terms of quantitative impact, proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities. Proposals are not expected to address all the listed impacts and indicators. The results and impacts should be quantified for the…

Expected Outcome: The proposals under this topic should address the design/specification and implementation/testing of the key microelectronics building blocks of an FR3 FEM paving the way towards their future integration into a complete integrated FEM system. • Progresses the State of the art to optimise the cost-performance trade off to serve the target ITU IMT 2030 specifications, notably for what concerns maximum data rate, user data rate, spectral efficiency, whilst enabling 50% mobile transmission system energy consumption; • Allows operational implementation of spectrum sharing with other spectrum users within the selected FR3 sub-band; • Enables large arrays integration for increased path loss compensation at FR3 frequencies with very compact, low power, high efficiency FEM integration; • Enables high bandwidth for carrier aggregation with broadband RF transceivers; • Enables SBFD (Sub-Band non overlapping Full-Duplex) for UL coverage extension (Rel.-19 5G-Advanced in 3GPP) with appropriate interference cancellation techniques; • Enables ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communications) supporting monostatic as well as bistatic radar functionality, and addressing interference…

Expected Outcome: the proposals under this call are expected to address one or more of the following subjects : • Enhanced personalized monitoring, care and treatments, focusing on the development of highly customized healthcare solutions, including the required research and diagnostic tools, tailored to individual needs, covering various scenarios such as chronic disease management, physiotherapy, precision diagnosis, personalized medicine/treatment, pre- and postoperative care, and daily assistance in homes and common spaces. It also targets effective management of chronic diseases and elderly care through personalized monitoring and interventions facilitated by advanced sensor technologies and edge-to-cloud solutions. This includes the development and integration of solutions for Hospitalization at Home, enabling patients to receive complex, remotely supervised care using intelligent medical devices capable of sensing, analysing, and transmitting real-time data. This requires a continuum, from in-hospital diagnostics to robust, long-term patient support at home via AI-driven care pathways and hospitalization at home. • Prevention and treatment of diseases, allowing the improved…

Expected Outcome: Proposals submitted to this call are expected to address several of the following elements: • Scaling of wafer-level photonic processes for key materials (e.g. SiN, InP, GaAs),including process integration, yield optimisation, and manufacturability at highvolumes. • Development of packaging and test solutions that are scalable, automated, andcompatible with co-packaged optics and advanced photonic-electronic integration. • Integration of heterogeneous materials and components, such as on-chip lasers,modulators, and detectors, using advanced packaging and assembly approaches. • Design-process-equipment co-optimisation, enabling repeatable, cost-effectiveproduction of complex photonic circuits and systems, including use of PDKs andvalidated building blocks. • Demonstration of system-level functionality through application-relevant use casesin strategic sectors (e.g. AI, sensing, telecommunication, mobility, health, defence),with quantified performance metrics and clear market relevance.

Scope: Proposals innovations should address one or more of the several domains : WBG substrates to reduce EU dependency on material and provide more sustainable, industrially compatible solutions. WBG platform for cost effectiveness, available in 300mm for GaN and/or SiC to improve yield and power density and close gaps in the value chain. A toolbox (e.g. wafer cut, smart stacking, thin layer transfer, epitaxy, UWBG materials) for further innovation schemes. Next generation or optimised new power semiconductor devices fitting their application. Adding intelligence to power semiconductor devices on control and/or sensor side. Facilitate the propagation of EU Packaging/Integration excellence along the entire value chain e.g. pre-packages or power semiconductor device packaging solutions to enable power device/system integration and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in advanced packaging. Explore the use of heterogeneous and functional integration for improved performance, reliability, robustness and cost competitiveness. Rising operative voltage, frequency, current and thermal features that are common challenge on power electronics across the different application sectors. Provide…

Expected Impact: Each proposal must include an assessment of the expected industrial, economic, social and environmental benefits (Article 26 of Council Decision 2008/376/EC). Objective: Proposals submitted under this topic should relate to one or more of the RFCS objectives for steel as set out in Council Decision 2008/376/EC . Scope: Pilot projects target the construction, operation and development of installations on an appropriate scale. Demonstration projects cover the construction and/or operation of industrial-scale installations. Both pilot and demonstration projects aim to bridge the gap between research and innovation and commercialisation. Pilot and demonstration activities are expected to start at TRL 4-5 and achieve TRL 7-8 by the end of the project.

Expected Impact: Each proposal must include an assessment of the expected industrial, economic, social and environmental benefits (Article 26 of Council Decision 2008/376/EC). Objective: Proposals submitted under this topic should relate to one or more of the RFCS objectives for coal as set out in Council Decision 2008/376/EC . Scope: Pilot projects target the construction, operation and development of installations on an appropriate scale. Demonstration projects cover the construction and/or operation of industrial-scale installations.Both pilot and demonstration projects aim to bridge the gap between research and innovation. Pilot and demonstration activities are expected to start at TRL 4-5 and achieve TRL 7-8 by the end of the project.

Expected Impact: Accompanying measures are expected to ensure a balanced representation, within the consortium, of relevant academia, research centres, industry and/or industry associations, including just transition actors. They should also involve stakeholders required for the just transition of coal regions. In addition, accompanying measures may provide suggestions for policy initiatives that contribute to the digital, green and circular transformation of the coal communities, in line with the European Green Deal. Objective: Proposals submitted under this topic should relate to one or more of the RFCS objectives for coal, as set out in Council Decision 2008/376/EC . Scope: Accompanying measures aim to promote the use of knowledge gained or the organisation of dedicated workshops or conferences in connection with projects or priorities of the RFCS.

Expected Impact: Each proposal must include an assessment of the expected industrial, economic, social and environmental benefits (Article 26 of Council Decision 2008/376/EC). Objective: Proposals presented under this topic should relate to one or more of the RFCS objectives for coal as set out in Council Decision 2008/376/EC . Scope: Research projects focus on investigative or experimental work aiming to acquire knowledge to facilitate the attainment of specific practical objectives.Research project activities are expected to start at technology readiness level (TRL) 1-3 and achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project.