Message from our Chairwoman

ITEA has a proven track record of its agility in continuous improvement to create impact in a rapidly changing society while keeping a high quality of service for its stakeholders based on their needs and requirements. The year 2020 will be remembered not only for the societal challenge of COVID-19 but also the birth of a brand-new Eureka instrument: the Eureka Clusters Programme (ECP). In 2020, ITEA managed to achieve a high performance during many challenging changes:

• Preparing and finalising the ‘Impact Plan for ITEA 4 the Future’ with a new set of KPIs based on a commitment of economic impact
• Building impact via international collaboration in ITEA projects by publishing five new Impact Stories
• Changing the format of all ITEA events from physical to online while keeping a similar level of customer satisfaction
• Contributing and supporting the development of the ECP with committed and continuous efforts
• Joining the Eureka Clusters AI Call 2020, a new Call format with a strong contribution by our Community

During 2020, the preparations of ITEA 4 and the ECP developed in parallel by supporting each other in order to build a highly promising impact and quality programme for stakeholders through innovation via collaboration. ITEA also supported the ECP in building management bodies and defining new rules and regulations.

While preparing the future, it is always important to value the success of the past and to be aware of the challenges of the present. In 2020, five new Impact stories were developed on the basis of ITEA projects through which it is possible to witness of success of the ITEA Community:

• A worldwide standard – Distributed Co-simulation Protocol (DCP) – which is already creating economic impact for the automotive industry globally (ACOSAR)
• A book – ‘Scaling a Software Business’ – on a brand-new methodology for the digitalisation of industry, downloaded more than 16,000 times (SCALARE)
• A 3D multimodal pathology demonstrator, the first of its kind in the world, with a lot of impact in hospitals and for patients (3DPathology)

In addition to the innovation level, it is also possible to identify many HR capacity increases in the ITEA Impact stories and Success Stories as a result of ITEA projects.

As an impact of COVID-19, ITEA has proven its agility by changing its events to online while keeping an eye on the quality of these events. The International Customer Workshop has moved to a more distributed online format. The ITEA PO Days 2020 were extended from two to five days while moving from physical to online. Nevertheless, 77 projects ideas were presented in these Online ITEA PO Days. Customer events on Smart City and Cyber Security were changed to online workshops or panels as well.

Moreover, in 2020, a new form of collaboration was tested among Eureka Clusters via a new Joint Call type on AI: the Eureka Clusters AI Call. The ITEA Community reacted to this Call with high ambitions by submitting 27 Project Outlines.

While there are many rapid and radical changes in its environment, ITEA grounds its stability and success by continuously keeping an eye on its KPIs. Similarly, in 2021, ITEA will be agile and adaptive while

• finalising the preparations for ITEA 4 as a part of the ECP
• participating in ECP bodies to shape the future of the ECP
• continuing to open a bottom-up ITEA Call
• preparing the new rules and regulations for Call management in ECP
• continuing customer orientation in ITEA events
• keeping ITEA’s high standards on Call size, kick-off time, new countries and new body members

While planning the future, it is critical to have challenging KPIs, as there are in ITEA. And these challenges keep the ITEA Community agile and responsive to any radical changes in its environment.

Building impact is our mission and, in 2021, I am sure that the ITEA Community – with the support of Public Authorities – will show its motivation and dedication to achieving this mission for the benefit of their industries and countries.

Have a good read!

Sincerely,

Zeynep Sarılar
ITEA Chairwoman