PQ-REACT and SPADE officially came to an end on 31 August. After several years working alongside partners, researchers and innovators across Europe, we wanted to look back at what these two projects have meant for Sploro.
At the end of August, two projects that have been an important part of Sploro’s work reached their final chapter: PQ-REACT and SPADE.
They are very different projects in terms of their focus, scope and communities, but they share something that closely reflects the way we understand innovation at Sploro: funding matters, but so do the structures, support and people around it.
Both projects have taught us a great deal, strengthened our experience in European projects and Cascade Funding, and connected us with people and organisations whose work will continue well beyond the projects themselves.
PQ-REACT: Three years towards a quantum-safe Europe
When PQ-REACT launched in 2023, it set out to address a challenge that was urgent, even if largely invisible to many organisations: the impact that quantum computing could have on today’s encryption systems.
The project brought together 12 partners from seven European countries to develop practical tools and approaches that could help organisations prepare for the transition towards post-quantum cryptography.
For Sploro, our contribution focused on an area we know particularly well: Cascade Funding.
We supported the design and management of the project’s two Open Calls, from structuring the funding scheme and managing applications to supporting selected beneficiaries throughout their projects. In total, €900,000 was made available to European SMEs and startups working on solutions related to post-quantum cybersecurity.
Running those Open Calls gave us a front row seat to something worth reflecting on. Our Team Leader Mikel Apesteguía, who worked on PQ-REACT puts it clearly:
“What PQ-REACT gave me, above all, is perspective. The urgency is real. The threat of data collected today being decrypted in the future is not a distant scenario. But through the Open Calls, we also discovered that the ecosystem is stronger than the public conversation suggests. There are serious organisations across Europe already working on this, and being part of connecting them with the right opportunities has been one of the most meaningful parts of this journey.”
Working closely with applicants and funded teams reinforced something we see across many Open Calls: making innovation accessible is not simply about making funding available. The process around that funding matters just as much.
As our Project Manager Marina Ortega reflects:
“Making innovation accessible is not only about providing funding, but about making complex opportunities easier to understand, helping people navigate them, and creating the conditions for good ideas to move forward.”
Over these three years, we have also had the opportunity to work alongside researchers, cybersecurity experts and organisations from across Europe tackling a complex challenge together.
PQ-REACT may now be officially complete, but the work around Europe’s transition towards quantum-safe technologies continues. For us, that journey also continues through PQ-NEXT, building on the knowledge and experience developed during these years.
SPADE: From first steps to final results
SPADE set out to answer a question that is becoming harder to ignore: as drones become more common across agriculture, forestry, and livestock farming, how do we make sure they are actually safe, trustworthy, and practical to use at scale?
The challenge goes far beyond the technology itself. Cybersecurity, governance, regulation and the ability to develop systems that work across different environments all influence whether drone technologies can be adopted at scale.
SPADE brought together artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins and an open-source toolbox to address some of those challenges, testing its solutions through real-world pilots and two Open Calls supporting additional use cases across the sector.
For Sploro, however, SPADE has a particular significance.
It was our first European project and the first project in which we managed Financial Support to Third Parties.
That meant learning a great deal along the way: about consortium work, Open Call management, beneficiary support and the many practical details involved in making Cascade Funding work effectively.
Much of the experience we have developed since then in Open Calls and Cascade Funding has its roots in what we learned through SPADE.
Over the course of the project, we also had the opportunity to follow startups and research teams working at the intersection of drones, agriculture and innovation as they developed and tested their ideas.
That is one of the most rewarding parts of this kind of work: seeing what begins as a proposal gradually become something tangible.
For Marina Ortega, the experience pointed to something beyond the technical:
“One of the most rewarding things about working on SPADE is realising that, somewhere between the first meeting and the final one, the project stops being just a plan on paper. It becomes a shared journey shaped by the people, ideas, challenges and results built along the way.”
Grateful and looking forward
PQ-REACT and SPADE are very different projects on paper, but working on both has reminded us of many of the same things.
Good innovation projects depend on strong collaboration. Open Calls work best when funding is accompanied by clear processes and meaningful support. And some of the most valuable outcomes of European projects are the relationships, knowledge and experience that remain once the formal work is finished.
We close these two projects with stronger expertise, new connections and an even clearer understanding of the role Cascade Funding can play in connecting European research and innovation with the startups, SMEs and organisations ready to take it further.
To every coordinator, partner, researcher, beneficiary and innovator we have worked with through PQ-REACT and SPADE: thank you for the collaboration, the conversations and everything we have learned along the way.
It has been a pleasure to be part of both journeys and we look forward to seeing where the work continues next.
