"We are delighted that we were able to bring six outstanding new partners on board in our first tender in 2023. We are now calling on other third-party partners to contribute their ideas, expertise and infrastructure to the OpenWebSearch.EU initiative”, says Dr Megi Sharikadze, Head of the Research Coordination and Support Team and EU Research Services Advisor at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), one of the consortium partners.
"In the new call, our focus is on researchers, innovators and data centres. Together with the successful applicants, we want to expand our research and development activities for the Internet search of tomorrow”, says Professor Michael Granitzer from the University of Passau and the Open Search Foundation (OSF), who is also the project coordinator of OpenWebSearch.EU.
The OpenWebSearch.EU project consortium is calling for contributions in two open calls:
Call #2 invites researchers and innovators to submit ideas for innovative "Applications of the Open Web Index". Proposals are being sought as to how the data provided by the Open Web Index can be utilised and exploited in innovative use cases or research scenarios. The project consortium will provide access to pre-processed and indexed web data with continuous daily updates until the end of the project. "We are looking for innovative ideas on how the Open Web Index and its data can be used," explains Dr Stefan Voigt, member of the OpenWebSearch.EU project management team, scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Chairman of the Board of the Open Search Foundation. "We are open to many ideas. Applicants can submit concepts relating to vertical search applications (e.g. web search for children), 'conversational search' or search applications based on large language models. We are also looking forward to topics such as 'local search' or new approaches to transparent and data protection-friendly search, to name just a few examples."
Call #3 invites computing and data centres to join the OpenWebSearch.eu infrastructure network and host parts of the Open Web Search and Analysis Infrastructure (OWSAI). Universities, (public) data centres, companies (e.g. cloud providers) and research teams with a well-established data infrastructure are invited to participate. "We are looking forward to integrating more data centres into the Open Web Search Initiative and discussing the design of a sustainable European search infrastructure with them," explains Megi Sharikadze, who is responsible for open calls.
In this second and third round of calls, successful applications can apply for funding of between EUR 50,000 and EUR 150,000 for a period of up to twelve months. The applications are reviewed by members of the consortium and by external experts. Individuals and organisations based in EU Member States or in countries associated with Horizon Europe are eligible to apply. The third-party funded projects are supported within the framework of the OpenWebSearch.eu joint programme. All award winners will be involved in the ongoing and future R&D activities of the Open Web Search Community.
Applications are accepted by e-mail. The calls for proposals end on 4 April 2024, 17:00 CET.
Detailed information and application documents at: www.openwebsearch.eu/call2 and www.openwebsearch.eu/call3
About OpenWebSearch.eu
OpenWebSearch.EU is the first EU-funded project to launch the web search of tomorrow. 14 renowned European research centres launched the project under the coordination of the University of Passau in September 2022. The researchers will develop the core of a European Open Web Index (OWI) over three years. The project is being funded with 8.5 million euros from the European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme under funding assistance agreement no. 101070014.
If you have any questions about OpenWebSearch.EU, please contact: ows@opensearchfoundation.org
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