• Contribution to the further refinement of sustainable seamless E2E 5G Advanced and 6G test infrastructures with fine-tuned capability to integrate vertical use cases specific performance/KPI requirements, as applicable also across public and non-public networks and services.
• Validated infrastructure core technologies and architectures in the context of vertical large-scale pilot use-case implementations and relevant deployment scenarios.
• Validated core technologies and architectures across the value chain (IoT, connectivity, services) for differentiated performance requirements originating from concurrent implementation of use-cases and specialized services for verticals.
• Viable business models for innovative digital use cases tested and validated across a multiplicity of industrial sectors, including demonstration of required device/network/service resource control from the vertical industry business model perspective.
• Support to impactful contributions towards standardisation bodies notably for 6G use cases and technologies.
• European 5G Advanced and 6G know-how showcasing. Visible events widely open to the public are particularly relevant.
• Stimulate large industrial stakeholders, SMEs and the European Academic and Research community to engage in experimental activities in a timely fashion, aimed to validate technological trends for 6G networks.
• Repository of requirements from verticals and of “lessons learned” to prepare for subsequent phases of the SNS programme. It should include records and evaluation of 6G KPIs considering 5G Evolution and the aforementioned requirements and validating them with services linked to specific vertical sectors and related KVIs.
• Contribution to a repository of open-source tools and modules that may be openly accessed and used by SNS projects over the programme’s lifetime.
• Collection of new requirements that are needed in subsequent phases for the key 6G technological building blocks, notably those identified in Stream B. Those requirements may stem from e.g., the emergence of new application domains (Internet of Senses, holographic type communications…), the native support of AI/ML by future networks, the introduction of zero-touch solutions, high resilience/availability needs.

Please refer to the "Specific Challenges and Objectives" section for Stream D in the Work Programme, available under ‘Topic Conditions and Documents - Additional Documents’.

The target 5G Advanced / 6G systems validation work through large scale trials is expected to cover at least the following domains:

Application level: this topic addresses verticals of strategic importance given their economic or societal impact, and the level of public/private R&D investments to date in the EU.

o Use Case Priority 1 for this topic is on connected and automated mobility (CAM) vertical and intelligent terrestrial transportation.

o Use Case Priority 2 include the following verticals (to be considered independently or in combination): Health, Smart Cities, Farming, or Education.

Note: To ensure a balanced portfolio covering both aforementioned Priorities grants will be awarded to proposals not only in order of ranking but at least also to one project that is the highest ranked within each of the two Priorities (Priority 1 on CAM and Priority 2 on complementary use cases in the specific vertical sectors Health, Smart Cities, Farming or Education (to be considered independently or in combination)) provided that the proposals attain all thresholds.

In that context, applicants are invited to clearly specify in their proposal under which Priority they are applying.

Validation should demonstrate clear benefits of the considered 5G advanced/pre-6G technologies and architectures in terms of scalability, security, and performance improvements in line with medium to long-term socio-economic scenarios.

• Management level: the validation should demonstrate the efficiency of the end-to-end resource management technologies and architectures, through two aspects: i) significant improvement of new resource usage efficiency, towards zero-touch management and effective OPEX; ii) additional capabilities offered to vertical users through open interfaces enabling more efficient implementation of use cases (e.g., AI for networks vs. network for AI at the application level).
• Societal level: the validation should demonstrate significant improvement of key parameters like energy consumption (both for the SNS platform and the vertical use cases), safety (incl. EMF exposure), coverage and access, cost and affordability, trustworthiness, security and privacy being part of the priority SDGs to demonstrate in a “user context”, i.e. sufficiently representative of a target operational context.

The Large-Scale Pilots should be carried out from an end-to-end perspective, with representative technologies covering the full value chain, including devices, connectivity, and service delivery. They should demonstrate the integration of different IoT/cloud/edge/computing environments (public and/or private) towards a distributed environment with a landscape unified management able to support the emergence of a European offer and capability.

Projects would involve SMEs, scaleups and start-ups. SMEs, scaleups and start-ups are expected to play a key role in this process with new market-driven applications that can build value on the 5G infrastructure. This support will be a critical enabler of European-led innovation, fast track adoption, and stimulation of private sector investment, across verticals.

The performance capabilities are to be assessed against a set of well-defined KVIs and KPIs. The developing set of KPIs in the international context will be taken as a basis, also those of previous projects, notably for KVIs. Proposals should clearly indicate the target set of KPIs and how it breaks the state of the art and is relevant in the 6G context. The proposals should be flexible enough to accommodate the view of KVIs and new relevant KPIs as they become available from the wider 6G community and from potential use cases. Performance improvement in all domains requires definition of a benchmark against which improvements may be evaluated. Cross project collaboration is needed to define such a benchmark that will be part of the target outcome KPI repository of the SNS Partnership. It is expected that software entities implement the target services in Open-Source Code and with open interfaces for further reutilisation in subsequent phases. Outputs of the work is expected to demonstrate the applicability of 6G KPI/KVI to specific use case requirements, i.e., to map those with higher level requirements at application level.

SNS LST&Ps are expected to attract the participation of vertical industries in view of stimulating a strong European participation in future downstream standardisation phases. Therefore, participation of industrial actors with demonstrated strong standardisation impact is desired.