Open Call for Digital Credentials to support Projects from European Organizations

Deadline: 31-Jul-23

Are you a European organization looking for a great funding opportunity that allows you to collaborate with a Canadian organization in digital credentials? Apply for the digital credentials call and make it a reality!

NGI Sargasso and Canada collaborative call in Digital Credentials will support projects from European organizations in the field of Digital Credentials that propose an effective collaboration project with Canadian organisations.

This is an incredible chance for European Digital Credentials organisations to secure funding, advance their goals, and make a lasting impact in this vital field.

Through this collaborative call, both jurisdictions have the opportunity to further their joint efforts in advancing interoperability and mutual recognition of digital credentials. The aim is to provide funding for projects that tackle at least one of the following challenges:

• Advance interoperability testing of technical conformity and/or compatibility between trust frameworks. The topic will explore conformity and compatibility testing approaches and will propose solutions that will advance the interoperability between technology solutions and trust frameworks from EU and Canada.
• Test issuing and verification services and infrastructures between jurisdictions. This topic will focus on innovative EU services and infrastructures that support the digital credential model (issuing, verifying and holding) and will advance and test these solutions with the Canadian counterparts.
• Test the interoperability of digital wallet solutions, including testing EBSI wallet framework interoperability with Canadian digital credential technologies. This topic will focus on demonstrating interoperability between EU and Canadian wallet solutions. The proposal should identify interoperability challenges and propose innovative solutions that will facilitate and improve the storage, presentation and verification of digital credentials between EU and Canadian wallets.
• Develop and test an approach for decentralised trusted data registries. This topic will focus on designing innovative and transparent, cryptographically secure system to act as a trust anchor for digital credentials. This system will be based on international standards and allow easy scaling. The aim will be to advance the solution, testing easy scaling, and/or implementing international standards together with the Canadian counterparts.

Target Areas

• NGI Sargasso plays a vital role in promoting the collaboration between Canada and the European Union on digital credential interoperability.
• Hence, the target areas for this open call are:
  • Technical Interoperability: Different digital credential systems may use different technical standards and protocols, making it difficult to exchange and verify information across systems. To achieve interoperability, these systems must be designed to work with each other, which requires a common set of technical standards.
  • Semantic Interoperability: Even if different digital credential systems use the same technical standards, they may use different terminologies or meanings for the same attributes. For example, one system may use “date of birth” while another may use “birthdate.” Achieving semantic interoperability requires developing a common vocabulary and understanding of attributes.
  • Legal and Regulatory Interoperability: Different countries and regions may have different legal and regulatory frameworks for digital credentials, which can create barriers to interoperability. For example, privacy regulations may differ, and some countries may require certain types of identity verification that are not recognized in other countries.
  • Governance Interoperability: Digital credential systems may be governed by different entities or organizations, each with its own rules and policies. To achieve interoperability, there must be a shared governance framework that allows for consistent policies and procedures across systems.
  • User Experience: Digital credential systems must be easy to use and intuitive for users, regardless of which system they are using. This requires designing systems with usercentred principles in mind and ensuring that users have a clear understanding of how to use their digital credentials across different platforms and applications.

Financial Support

• NGI Sargasso will only provide financial support to European entities for projects submitted to this collaboration call-out, including a 9-month experiment with a funding limit of up to EUR 100,000.
• Each organisation supported by NGI Sargasso can receive a maximum of 150.000€ among different open calls that are run under the NGI Sargasso framework.

Why apply?

• Accelerate your project’s innovation in a transatlantic collaborative network
• Access Scaling Up and Dissemination Opportunities
• Increase your chances of having Global Impact

Eligible Beneficiaries

The European eligible entities by NGI Sargasso open call should be legally identified under the following categories of organisations:

• Universities and research centers: academic and research institutions with a focus on developing novel knowledge areas and technologies aligned with the focus of NGI Sargasso.
• NGOs and foundations: non-profit organizations and foundations that work under the NGI areas of knowledge and technologies.
• SMEs and startups: small and medium-sized enterprises and startups that focus on developing innovative solutions related to NGI Sargasso’s areas of focus.

Eligible Countries

• Only applicants legally established/resident in any of the following countries are eligible for funding:
  • The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions;
    • In the case of Hungary, no legal commitments should be entered into with any public interest trust established based on the Hungarian Law IX of 2021 or with any entity maintained by said public interest trust.
  • The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States.
  • Horizon Europe associated countries.

Eligibility Criteria

An automatic filtering to discard non-eligible proposals will follow the shortlist below. Eligibility criteria check will verify:

• All the required fields are completed.
• Applicants should be registered in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country and express their interest in collaboration with a Canadian entity.
• The existence of a legal entity.
• The correct fulfilment of the application form on the Sploro platform.
• The alignment with the NGI Sargasso call for proposals and challenges, and
• The uniqueness of the proposal (proposal not already funded in the NGI Sargasso project and/or any other project to avoid double funding).

For more information, visit NGI Sargasso.