The present page gathers information and resources about the Challenge call CHIST-ERA is exploring:

• Timeline;
• Progress achieved so far;
• Next steps.

Contractual framework

The work planned for exploring a Challenge in CHIST-ERA is described in the task 10.5 -Assessment of Challenge-like call opportunity- of the CHIST-ERA IV grant agreement:

• A workshop is foreseen to formulate recommendations for the implementation of a Challenge call within an ERA-NET;
• The potential launch of a call would rely on the existing CHIST-ERA infrastructure: Topic selection process, evaluation process...

Challenge concept & motivation

In a Challenge, the technologies developed by the funded projects to approach the objective of the call are evaluated through a yearly campaign during the lifetime of the projects.

Challenge Call = Standard Call + Technology Evaluation Instrument

However, objective evaluation is not a triviality in knowledge processing domains, and requires in-depth expertise. While the research community has already, and with great success, endorsed this framework, its public support is still nascent in Europe, in spite of its demonstrated efficiency in terms of research management (see box below). Since almost a decade, CHIST-ERA has supported technology evaluation by promoting open evaluation methodology and experiment reproducibility in its yearly call. With the launch of a Challenge, for the first time, CHIST-ERA would deploy the full concept.

 The benefits of the Challenge approach are:

• S&T targets are made explicit and shared by the community;
• Selection of risky approaches is facilitated (they will be evaluated anyway);
• Comparability of technologies and technology transfer;
• Fostered exchanges between the researchers;

The Challenge has broader impacts beyond its duration at the level of the research community:

• Experiment reproducibility;
• Open Access to evaluation methodologies, reference and possibly large data sets.

Timeline

Next steps

The next steps will focus on attempting to gather a critical mass of interested funding organisations. The decision to launch the call will be based on this outcome.