With open call #3 the ows.eu consortium aims to on-board data centers as a proof-of-concept for the developed technology and engage in discussions on creating a sustainable future infrastructure.

Third-party Call #3

Update per 4 April 2024: submission for Call 3 was closed on 4 April 2024, 17 CEST.

Alongside the second third-party call, the OpenWebSearch.eu Community Programme is looking to onboard third-party computing and data centres for the provision of infrastructure to host parts of the Open Web Index (OWI). Additional emphasis placed on a green computing strategy and on solid security as related infrastructure will be of advantage.

Fundings can be granted over a period of 12 months with up to 150,000 Euros. See modalities for more details.

Dates and Modalities

Opening date: 8th February 2024
Closing date: 4th April 2024, 17:00 CEST
Notification date: June 2024
Start of projects: June/July 2024
Possible funding: 100,000 – 150,000 EUR (with a limit for a single organisation of EUR 150,000 of cumulative funding across all OpenWebSearch.eu calls)

What?

Third-party projects should contribute to the development of the project in tangible ways. They should aim to extend and enrich the existing R&D activities and propose new ones that complement the project objectives.

Call #3 particularly addresses computing and data centers to join our network of infrastructure organisations and host parts of the OWSAI infrastructure.

Who?

Addressed are universities, public infrastructure providers, computing centres/data centres, companies (e.g., cloud providers) or research teams with a well established infrastructure.

Eligible organizations have to be registered in any EU Member State or any of the countries associated with Horizon Europe.

Third-party Funding

Successful applications can request funding between 100,000 and 150,000 EUR in this third call for a funding period of up to 12 months.

Note that there is a limit for a single organisation of EUR 150 000 of cumulative funding across all OpenWebSearch.eu calls.

Call topic: Data Centre on-boarding

Call #3 particularly addresses computing and data centres to join our network organisations piloting the Open Web Search and Analysis Infrastructure (OWSAI). We aim to on-board more data centers as a proof-of-concept for the developed technology and engage in discussions on creating a sustainable future infrastructure.

Projects are expected to implement the following activities:

Proof-of-concept of federation and cooperation with the other participating data centres, particularly LRZ, IT4I, CSC, DLR and CERN;
Provision of storage infrastructure using iRoDS and S3 compliant data stores;
Provision of compute infrastructure for running (parts of) our technology stack, which includes:
- Apache Storm-based Crawling Infrastructure,
- Apache Spark-based Preprocessing and Indexing Infrastructure,
- GPU-capacity for AI-training and inferencing.
Willingness and legal capacity to align with the project’s governance and data policies in contractual form and contribute to the discussions on a joint, federated governance model, sustainability of the infrastructure as well as ethical and legal aspects.

Applicants should clearly describe their own infrastructure which is planned for the third-party project, and, indicate to which quantity will it be made available to the consortium, including storage, CPUs, GPUs and bandwidth. Additional emphasis placed on a green computing strategy and on solid security as related infrastructure will be of advantage.

Target Audience

The third-party calls particularly focus on the following categories of applicants:

We are targeting universities, public infrastructure providers, data centres, companies (e.g., cloud providers) or research teams with a well established infrastructure. The applicants should be capable of providing a significant extension to the current OpenWebSearch.eu data and compute infrastructure, and engaging in relevant infrastructure-oriented R&D activities.

The eligible applicants for this opportunity are either:

Eligible organizations have to be registered in any EU Member State or any of the countries associated with Horizon Europe. Please note that the list of associated countries may change over time, and it is recommended to check the latest list of eligible countries before applying (List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe).

Note that applications can also involve teams of different organisations. In this case, one organisation must take the role of main contact point and legally responsible party.

Submission procedure

The applicants have to submit their appropriately formatted proposal by email to the call management by the given deadline. Please use the proposal template for applications. Applicants can submit at most one application per call. English is the main language for communication with the OpenWebSearch.eu consortium, and all submitted documents must be written in English.

The submission will be acknowledged by the call management, and, only after the confirmation, the proposal can be considered as being submitted. It is advised not to wait till the last moment with the submission. Note that multiple submissions of the same project are not accepted. If the submission is not confirmed within max. 2 days, and provided the call deadline has not yet passed, you may contact the Grantor at call3@openwebsearch.eu to request the information and ask for re-submission

Get the Call Package here

The package consists of two documents: The information for applicants and the proposal template.

The “Information for applicants” contains all information about the call, the procedures and the application process as well as the legal information.
The “Proposal Template” contains the actual application form. For full functionality, open this proposal template in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Information for Applicants (pdf)

Proposal template (pdf)

FAQs Third-party Call #3

General Project Status

For more information on the project’s status, please visit the status page.

Are UK entities eligible for OWS.eu call #3?

Yes.

Can I apply if I have alreday applied for a previous call?

Yes, you can. But please note that there is a limit for a single organisation of EUR 150 000 of cumulative funding across all OpenWebSearch.eu calls.

Contact

If you have further questions on the application procedure and third-party call related activities of OpenWebSearch.eu project, feel free to contact us.