Call for Proposals 2019

ICT Virtual Organization of ASEAN Institutes and NICT

ASEAN IVO

Call for Proposals 2019

The topics of this year are connected to ICT for a Secure and Sustainable Future. As the population grows and becomes more urbanized, there is a massive increase in material needs and environmental impact as well as demand for a digital infrastructure to support people’s lifestyles and communication. As society and economy digitize, the ICT solutions for supporting people’s lifestyles require greater computational power and the energy demands increase. This in turn produces a greater demand on the environment.

As all these needs are interconnected, we need to look for sustainable and mutually complementing ICT solutions in each of these areas. Projects would ideally have a strong outlook to conduct a demonstration by the final year of the project. Proposals from all technical fields are welcome and they will be evaluated on the potential benefit of output.

ASEAN IVO -- Call for Proposals 2019 is now open to all members of ASEAN IVO to make new projects in the ICT field starting from April, 2019. Please fill in the Proposal Form and submit it to the ASEAN IVO Secretariat.

1. Topics

The Call for Proposals 2019 is open for topics under the following themes:

1) ICT Solutions from Farm to Meal

As food is a common need of all people, ensuring food security (i.e. food availability and regional self-sufficiency) is a key concern for every country. The focus of this topic is for ICT applications providing specific solutions to food security issues in the ASEAN region, specifically the development of applications and integrated systems for R&D in all fields addressing food availability, from environment and agriculture through the supply chain to consumption and waste management.

Keywords: IoT Application, Climate Smart Agriculture, Disease Management, Pandemic Influenza, Waste and Pollution Management

2) ICT for Environment Protection and Disaster Prevention

As an important issue in human society, environment monitoring and protection will once again be a focus in this call. Today, natural disasters are occurring more frequently and with increasing intensity. Also, as well as for disaster prevention and response, environment monitoring is key for stable infrastructure, for example space environment monitoring for ICT satellite positioning, affecting transport and agriculture. In this topic, we are not only focusing on land, but also on coastal resources as well as space and atmospheric monitoring. This topic does not only focus on technologies, but also applications and integrated systems for R&D.

Keywords: Mangrove, Sea Grass, Coastal Resource Mapping, Disaster Mitigation, Assessment and Conservation, Rainforest Protection, Space Environment Monitoring, Environment Protection

3) Secure and Sustainable Connected Society

With the internationalization and regionalization of ASEAN, we are facing many difficulties such as environmental noises, cultural differences and social adaptation. Additionally, with rapid urbanization, cities face a variety of risks, concerns, and problems. The unprecedented rate of urban growth creates an urgency to finding smarter ways to manage the accompanying challenges. There are several technologies addressing these challenges including blockchain to secure transactions, and artificial intelligence for language processing as well as various smart city applications. As these technologies develop to address the needs of a connected society, they also come with new issues. This topic is a challenging one which does not only focus on technologies, but also applications and integrated systems, including development of useable applications in real-life context.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Multilingual Speech and Language Processing, Real-life Context Application, Environment Adaptation, Speech Enhancement, Blockchain, Smart City, Administrative Cost, Digital Economy, Digital Identification, Energy efficiency, Sustainability

Proposals in any ICT-related topic are welcome if sufficient relevance to one or more of the above themes can be demonstrated.

2. Important dates

Deadline for proposal submission: January 31, 2019
Evaluation period: March 2019
Notice of results: April 2019

3. Application

The institution of the applicant should be an ASEAN IVO member, and the applicant should be the project leader. Non-members can submit proposals for new projects as project leaders, but they must apply for membership and obtain approval before the deadline for proposal submission.
The members of the proposed project must be at minimum 2 institutions total, and from at least 2 different countries in the ASEAN region.
- Multiple institutions from one country as well as NICT and other Japanese institutions are also welcome to be members of a project team, but will not count towards this minimum requirement.
Institutions that are not members of ASEAN IVO can also be members of the project team.
The leaders of ongoing projects cannot make new applications.

4. Budget

Max. 40,000 US$/project/year

5. Projects

Around 5 projects will be selected in total.
The duration of the project can be from 6 months to 24 months. If the duration is over 12 months, the project would be reviewed once by the Steering Committee.

6. Review and selection

The Steering Committee of ASEAN IVO will evaluate each submission from the following viewpoints. In some cases, modifications may be recommended.
- Scientific and/or technological excellence (relevant to the topics addressed by the call)
  - Soundness of concept, and quality of objectives
  - Progress beyond the state-of-the-art
  - Quality and effectiveness of the S/T methodology and associated work plan
- Quality and efficiency of the implementation and the management
  - Appropriateness of the management structure and procedures
  - Quality and relevant experience of the individual participants
  - Quality of the consortium as a whole (including complementarity, balance)
  - Appropriateness of the allocation and justification of the resources to be committed (budget, staff, equipment...)
- Potential impact through the development, dissemination and use of project results
  - Contribution, at the ASEAN and/or international level, to the expected impacts listed in the work program under the relevant topic/activity
  - Relevance of potential impact to national or ASEAN official guidelines, such as the ASEAN ICT Master Plan.
  - Appropriateness of measures for the dissemination and/or exploitation of project results, and management of intellectual property.
  - Potential to generate sustainable community practices, business models or industry-relevant products with future development.
- Benefits to the development of collaboration in the applicant country and ASEAN region
  - Balance, equality and complementarity between organizations and between countries within the project team
  - Contribution to the technical proficiency of research in developing ASEAN countries
  - Realization of new collaborations as well as reinforcing continuing partnerships
Selected proposals will be published on the ASEAN IVO website.
Members of the selected projects, especially project leaders, are requested to cooperate with NICT for administrative procedures.

7. Other financial support

In addition to the support of ASEAN IVO, other financial support for your project is welcome. For example, this can be a matching fund from the institution of the applicant or a public fund or other source.

8. Intellectual Property
Among the project products achieved by the collaborative research and development, the intellectual property of any product that is independently created by a researcher or researchers of one institution shall be solely reserved by that institution.

Among the project products achieved by the collaborative research and development, the intellectual property of any product that is jointly created by researchers of more than one institution shall be jointly held by those institutions.

9. Open source and Data sharing
ASEAN IVO envisions an acceleration of innovation that can be achieved by open access to technologies and information. For this purpose, it is highly recommended that research data is made available between ASEAN IVO members, if it is appropriate and practicable, and researchers are encouraged to consider open source development, or make use of shared platforms.

10. Project Review and Reports
There is a project review in second year, if the duration of the project is 24 months (2 years) or more.

The following reports will be required:
- Progress reports once a year
- A final report at the end of the project duration.

Information about the status of your project based on these progress reports will be published on the ASEAN IVO website. Additionally, you are encouraged to publish a website for your project where possible.

11. Notification to submission

The institutions in non-ASEAN regions can be a member of your project, but the budget supported by NICT can only support the institutions of project members which are located in the ASEAN region.
The personnel expenses should be not included in your proposal, because the budget supported by NICT cannot support personnel expenses for your project.

12. Submission

Procedure: Submit applications by filling in all necessary items in the proposal form and E-mailing by attachment in both MS Word and PDF formats.
Submit to: ASEAN IVO Secretariat

Dr. Hiroshi EMOTO
International Research Advancement Office
Global Alliance Department
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
4-2-1, Nukui-Kita, Koganei
Tokyo 184-8795
Japan
Tel: +81-42-327-7319
Fax: +81-42-327-5321
Email: asean_ivo_sc_nict@ml.nict.go.jp

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