Sploro

NGI Sargasso: funding transatlantic cooperation in Next Generation Internet technologies

The main goal of NGI Sargasso is to catalyze the European collaboration with the US and Canada on the development and experimentation of new ideas, implementation of prototypes, and contribution to standards and open-source communities on technology trends, which are of utmost importance to shape a human-centric Internet.

The consortium of NGI Sargasso is pleased to announce the launch of an ambitious project selected and granted by the European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe Programme.

NGI Sargasso, as part of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, launched by the European Commission in 2016, which supports this vision of building bridges internationally. The main idea is to advance and sustain an ecosystem that embodies the values that Europe holds dear: openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data.

In this context, NGI Sargasso’s objective is to catalyze the European collaboration with the US and Canada on the development and  experimentation of new ideas, implementation of prototypes, and contribution to standards and open-source communities on technology trends, which are of utmost importance to shape a human-centric Internet.

The project takes its name from the Sargasso Sea, which is a unique extraordinary open-ocean ecosystem bound by currents circulating around the North Atlantic gyre. Without a coastline to help define its boundaries, the Sargasso Sea provides habitats, spawning areas, migration pathways and feeding grounds to a diverse assortment of flora and fauna, including endemic, endangered, and commercially important species.

Similarly, NGI Sargasso will contribute to create a unique transatlantic ecosystem that will provide R&I habitats for NGI technologies, as well as international research pathways and “feeding grounds” in the form of capacity building services, to a multidisciplinary and diverse community of open-source developers, researchers, startups, SMEs, MidCaps and other multidisciplinary actors  contributing to the development of Next Generation Internet technologies and services.

During the 36-month duration of the project, NGI Sargasso will run five open calls for proposals, attracting +300 EU teams together with USA and/or Canadian teams on emerging topics, such as trust and data sovereignty, digital identity, internet architecture renovation, decentralized technologies, and standards, for the EU Next Generation Internet and corresponding US and Canadian programmes, and plans to support up to 96 projects that will benefit from:

  • Up to 100,000€ in equity-free funding, through cascade funding calls.
  • Up to 9-month Capacity-building programme.

To accomplish such ambition, NGI Sargasso counts with a competitive consortium with complementary skills and expertise, and builds on their experience in previous transatlantic cooperation initiatives, such as NGI Explorers or Think NEXUS.

This consortium is led by the European Science Foundation (an organization promoting the highest quality science in Europe to drive progress in research and innovation, that counts with a network of over 40,000 experts across all scientific disciplines and over 83 countries of affiliation), and counts with the support of Mobile World Capital Barcelona (an ecosystem builder driving the digital advancement of society), SPLORO (whose team has been part of different NGI projects, including the EU-US fellowship programme NGI Explorers), AUSTRALO (leader of the community building in NGI Explorers and Think NEXUS), and US IGNITE, (organization strongly linked to the US research ecosystem that will support the expansion of the US), as core partners. 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 101092887