The first calls in the framework of Horizon Europe, the EU’s new research and innovation programme for 2021-2027, are starting to be decided, and following the positive line taken in the previous programme, Horizon 2020, UPF has started strongly.

Five researchers from the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) have been selected under the 2021 call “A human-centred and ethical development of digital and industrial technologies”, which is part of pillar II “Global challenges and European industrial Competitiveness”.

On the one hand, in the projects of Josep Blat and Boris Bellalta (“MAX-R: Mixed Augmented and Extended Reality media pipeline”) and Carlos Castillo (FINDHR: Fairness and Intersectional Non-Discrimination in Human Recommendation), focusing, respectively, on the creation of extended and augmented reality multimedia content and on the fight against discrimination in the field of artificial intelligence, UPF is the coordinating entity within the consortium that is to conduct them.

UPF funding for these four projects totals €2,267,526

On the other hand, in the projects of Narcís Parés (EMIL: European Media and Immersion Lab), which will be developed by a pan-European network of extended reality (XR) laboratories, and Leo Wanner (ReSilence: Retune the Soundscape of future cities through art and science collaboration), which will improve the quality of the soundscape of cities, the University is one of the consortium’s member entities.

UPF funding for these four projects totals €2,267,526 (€119,000 for ReSilence; €553,625 for EMIL; €709,838 for FINDHR; and €885,000 for MAX-R) and they are set to run for two and a half years (EMIL and MAX-R) or three years (FINDHR and ReSilence).

MAX-R and EMIL, two of the three approved European  extended reality (XR) projects, have the DTIC-UPF seal

The projects MAX-R and EMIL (the former with UPF as consortium coordinator and the latter as a participant) are two of the three approved European  extended reality (XR) projects within the sub-call “Innovation for the media, including extended reality”, which demonstrates the importance and strength of research and innovation of the DTIC-UPF in this area.

MAX-R: developing tools to deliver the highest quality extended reality content

DTIC full professors Josep Blat, director of the Interactive Technologies Research Group (GTI) and Boris Bellalta, director of the Wireless Networking Research Group (WN), will be principal researchers and European co-coordinator of the MAX-R project, which will define, develop and demonstrate a complete set of tools to create, process and deliver the highest quality extended reality content (eXtended Reality, XR) in real time.

The project will be based on application programming interfaces (APIs) and open file and data transfer formats, to encourage the development and support the integration of new tools, in particular, also open source ones.

“MAX-R builds on recent research and will develop breakthroughs in virtual production technologies, focusing on distributed real-time processes”

The interdisciplinary consortium of eleven partners from five different countries that is to conduct it covers the chain that goes from technological development (Foundry, FilmLight, Brainstorm, ARRI) and product innovation (such as Disguise) to creative experimentation and demonstration (such as CREW-U. Hasselt, FilmAkademie BW); and from the creation of XR media to delivery to the end consumer (Improbable, BBC). The total budget of the project is around eleven million euros with a maximum EU contribution of almost nine million euros.

“MAX-R is based on recent research and will develop advances in virtual production technologies, focused on distributed real-time processes, with the aim of supporting creativity, enhancing the extended reality ecosystem, offering better quality, greater efficiency, improved interactivity, new content in extended reality, and open tools”, Josep Blat affirms.

EMIL: creating the reference network of extended reality laboratories that allow Europe to lead the next digital revolution

Narcís Parés, a tenured university lecturer of the DTIC and director of the Full-Body Interaction Lab (FubIntLab), within the Cognitive Media Technologies Research Group, is the principal investigator at UPF for the EMIL (European Media and Immersion Lab) project. In all, the project will be funded with about eight million euros (around half a million euros directly to UPF), besides helping to advise and carry out third-party projects.

It deals with the creation of the sole extended reality centre of reference funded by the European Union as a joint effort by four major European academic institutions: Aalto University of Finland (coordinator); Filmakademie Baden Württemberg, Germany, UPF in Catalonia; and the University of Bath, United Kingdom. The aim is to form a pan-European network of extended reality laboratories to speed up the development of augmented and mixed reality virtual technology, content, services and applications for the media.

EMIL will establish a physical and a virtual infrastructure supported by research excellence, technological and creative expertise, and broad contact networks to bring together interdisciplinary actors in the field of XR; engineers, designers, journalists, film-makers, game developers, programmers, artists, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors, start-ups, SMEs and global corporations. In addition, each institution of the network will contribute a “lighthouse” project in which new technologies will be developed in augmented reality and virtual heritage, “location-based entertainment”, mobile haptic technologies and “exergames” for health.

EMIL will be the sole extended reality centre of reference funded by the European Union

These lighthouses will be offered as new tools for adoption by ICT industries and help define the direction to be taken in these industries through external project calls, which EMIL will open in the coming months to the amount of five million euros. ”EMIL’s true ambition and impact lie in the establishment of a permanent pan-European XR network and community that continues to bring innovations in media, virtualization, computational design, interactive AI, resilient cities and manufacturing, as well as health technologies, in order to help Europe be at the forefront of the next digital development revolution”, Narcís Parés points out.

FINDHR and ReSilence, two technological projects to improve people’s quality of life

The projects FINDHR (with UPF as coordinator) and ReSilence (with the University as a partner), come under the “Tackling gender, race, and other biases in AI” and “Art-driven use experiments and design” subcalls, respectively. 

FINDHR: Fighting discrimination in the field of AI for equity and inclusion

Carlos Castillo, ICREA research professor at the DTIC and director of the Web Science and Social Computing Research Group (WSSC), will lead FINDHR, an interdisciplinary project that aims to prevent, detect and mitigate discrimination in artificial intelligence (AI). The context of the research is the technical, legal and ethical problems of algorithmic recruitment and the field of human resources, but it will also show how to manage the risks of discrimination in a wide range of applications involving recommendation.

“Through a context-sensitive interdisciplinary approach, FINDHR will develop new technologies to measure the risks of discrimination”

In research, technology, law and ethics intertwine. Thus, the consortium made up of twelve institutions coordinated by UPF includes leaders in research into algorithmic equity, pioneers in auditing digital services, leading companies in their respective markets, experts in technological regulation and intercultural digital ethics, workers’ representatives and two NGOs that fight against discrimination against women and the vulnerable population.

“Through a context-sensitive, interdisciplinary approach, FINDHR will develop new technologies to measure the risks of discrimination, to create rankings and interventions for the benefit of equity and to offer a useful interpretation for the multiple stakeholders”, explains Carlos Castillo, who emphasizes that all project results, training software, data, etc., will be in and open source format and code.

ReSilence: improving the soundscape of cities through the collaboration of art and science

Leo Wanner, ICREA research professor at the DTIC and coordinator of the Natural Language Processing Research Group (TALN), is the principal investigator at UPF of the ReSilence project, made up of a consortium of entities coordinated by the Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) in Greece.

ReSilence will act on the sound of the city as a design issue applied to the most immersive “matter”, in order to improve the quality of urban life

ReSilence will act on the sound of the city as a design issue applied to the most immersive “matter”, in order to improve the quality of urban life. It will use new artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) technologies to explore the boundaries between noise and music in a changing world through the production of acoustic awareness in urban spaces; creating new types of urban sound experiences that expand the possibilities of accessibility, active participation, sustainability and social inclusion, and cooperating with artists in order to take advantage of multiple sources of inspiration and interdisciplinary collaboration.

“A major challenge in the urban planning and mobility sector is no longer to reduce what we call ‘noise’ but to increase the quality of cities’ soundscape, shape the vibrations of urban spaces and design the atmosphere of the city in a way that is pleasant, safe, and familiar, and this is what we will try to do with our project”, Leo Wanner assures.