ECSEL helps Czech companies in their digitization

ECSEL Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership focused on electronic components and systems, part of the Horizon 2020 programme, offers financial support to projects from a number of fields covering the entire value chain, including: 5G networks; cyber security; artificial intelligence; the Internet of Thing, or a high-performance computing infrastructure.

Between 2014 and 2018, ECSEL participants received a total of 1.17 billion EUR that provided necessary funding for projects in five priority areas, which are: transport and smart mobility; health and well-being; energy; digital industry; and digital life. As the projects are based on a partnership of at least three entities, they offer the opportunity to cooperate on complex projects with large companies as a way to develop and increase competitiveness, especially for SMEs.

The Czech Republic has been an active participant of the programme; with almost 40 entities participating in the projects. With a combination of European and national funding, it is possible to obtain up to 100% of the financial resources needed for the research projects. In addition, universities appreciate the objective and qualified evaluation of proposals, and the focus on their quality, although the overall time needed from the submission of the proposal to the start of the project could be shorter. As the Joint Undertaking falls under the Horizon 2020 programme, which will cease to exist at the end of 2020 and will be replaced by Horizon Europe, ECSEL will also have a successor.

The Czech Republic is very active in the programme, Czech entities have participated in more than a third of all projects, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic would like to increase the visibility of ECSEL and participation of Czech companies even more. The Ministry is very keen to support research and innovation in industry and has introduced a strategy called Digital Czech Republic together with several programmes focused on digitization of industry and innovation.