Open Calls
Automated Planning and Scheduling is a central research area in AI, concerned with reasoning on a predictive model of a system to identify a course of actions that achieves a desired goal. It has been studied since the inception of the field and European research has been making strong contributions over decades.
Planning engines have now reached a maturity that makes them highly useful for real-world applications. Still, their application in practise is sometimes hindered by the fact that the planning world is quite heterogeneous, without a common programming interface that makes the technology easily accessible. Moreover, it can be very hard, even for experts, to reliably predict which technique will work well on a certain problem. Thus, it is important that a user needs not to commit to a certain technique at an early stage of adoption but can at any time easily try out and switch to other, better-suited planning technology.
AIPlan4EU aims at solving these problems: it will offer state-of-the-art planning technology through a unified API designed for practitioners and validated on practical use-cases.
Following the overall vision for AI in Europe, the project will leverage the excellent research on planning technology that Europe has funded and constructed over the years by bringing it to innovators and practitioners.
AIPlan4EU is centred around 6 ambitious objectives:
The design of the various activities in AIPlan4EU is derived from user needs, considering use-cases relevant in the scope of AI planning, regardless of their sector. For example, the use-cases provided by the project partners themselves are from the following areas:
Open call #1 for innovators features three different tracks, distinguishing three different kinds of contributions. Track A is mainly of interest for planning experts, while Tracks B and C mostly require more general software development. In track B, we are also looking for additional use-cases, which can potentially be of interest for everyone.
If you have any questions on the different tracks, don’t be shy to contact us via email.
Track A is for innovators who want to contribute planning technology to the AIPlan4EU ecosystem.
We seek all kinds of software tool/library/technology related to planning. Examples include (but are not limited to):
A funded project will make their contribution available as a service within the unified planning framework (UPF), a python library developed within the AIPlan4EU project that enables the programmatic modelling, manipulation and solving of planning problems. The integration code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool via the UPF.
The financed projects will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).
Innovators (researchers, experts, students,…) and organisations (SMEs, MidCaps, larger companies, universities, research institutes, labs,…)
Open call #1 for innovators is open from 17 February 2022 to 20 April 2022, 17h CET. Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.
Track B is intended for a consortia of two partners who together want to solve a planning use-case, exploiting the capabilities of the unified planning framework (UPF). The UPF is a software library developed by the AIPlan4EU project and offers planning-related capabilities in a general and convenient way.
One consortium partner will be a use-case provider, who wants to explore the benefit of planning for their specific use-case. The other partner will typically have expertise in planning and/or software development and will realize a “Technology-Specific Bridge” (TSB) that connects the technology/software from the use-case with the UPF.
Examples include (but are not limited to):
You have never heard of AI planning before and are unsure whether your task is a use-case for planning? If it can be framed in some way as identifying a course of actions, it potentially is. If you need a first-contact explanation, you can have a look at our recent blog entry or some use-cases of our project partners. If you are still unsure, don’t hesitate to contact us via email.
A funded project will describe the use-case in a dedicated report and the developed TSB will address at least some of the aspects highlighted by the use-case. Moreover, the TSB shall be demonstrated and evaluated on the use-case specifications. The TSB code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool.
The financed projects will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).
A consortium of 2 organizations (a use-case owner and a TSB provider (SMEs, MidCaps, larger companies, universities, research institutes, labs,…)
Open call #1 for innovators is open from 17 February 2022 to 20 April 2022, 17h CET. Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.
Track C is intended for companies and organizations that have expertise in planning and/or software development and want to integrate an existing use-case with the unified planning framework (UPF), a software library developed by the AIPlan4EU project that offers planning-related capabilities in a general and convenient way.
The use-case is from the healthcare sector and was selected in an earlier open call for use-cases. To find out more about the use-case, consult the following documents:
The funded project will realize a “Technology-Specific Bridge” (TSB) that connects the technology/software from the use-case with the UPF. Both entities, the TSB provider and the use-case owner, will work together and validate the results.
The AIPlan4EU project finances the realization of TSBs that must use the functionality offered by the UPF library and the realization of a demonstrator that showcases the developed TSBs on the given use-case.
The TSB code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool.
The financed project will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).
Organizations (SMEs, MidCaps, larger companies, universities, research institutes, labs,…) that can provide TSBs for the given healthcare use-case
€60.000 for the TSB provider
Open call #1 for innovators is open from 17 February 2022 to 20 April 2022, 17h CET. Potential TSB providers for the healthcare use-case need to apply for the Technology Specific Bridge sub-track of Track C. For the other sub-track, only use-case owners that have already been successful in open call #1 for use-cases are eligible.
Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.