Beyond 5G Seeds Creation Program
The Promotion Strategy calls for program designs that promote free and agile projects conducted by diverse players—e.g., minimize restrictions on Beyond 5G R&D—as it is crucial to build an ecosystem that generates innovation, while allowing prompt project launch and accepting risks, in fields where technological innovation is occurring extremely rapidly.
Based on the above-described contents of the Promotion Strategy, we designed this program to support the following two project types:
- A wide range of diverse R&D projects (commissioned R&D)
- Projects that utilize the private sector's commercialization know-how etc.
This program generates innovation through the creation of seeds for technology by supporting and subsidizing R&D integrated with commercialization efforts.
The target technologies to be developed through the open-call sponsored research projects of this program are those for realizing the following key features of Beyond 5G specified in the Promotion Strategy: ultra fast & large capacity, ultra low latency, ultra numerous connectivity, autonomy, scalability, ultra security and resiliency, ultra low power consumption. In addition, the program called for diverse proposals for realizing Beyond 5G, e.g., R&D of new applications for communication infrastructure to be realized by Beyond 5G.
The target proposers for
- A wide range of diverse R&D projects (commissioned R&D) were diverse players including young researchers of universities, business ventures based on original ideas/technologies, and startups while those for
- Projects that utilize the private sector's commercialization know-how etc. were SMEs such as business ventures based on original ideas/technologies and startups. Challenging proposals addressing difficult issues based on innovative seeds for technology and/or innovative ideas were selected.
In particular, proposals for 2 were evaluated from the perspective of commercialization.
The R&D period is set, in principle, as within 3 years from the start date. The budget size (the planned amount to be covered by NICT) per proposal is set as an amount between tens of millions yen and 100 million yen per year for type 1 projects and a total of approximately 100 million yen for type 2 projects. Nevertheless, the specific amount for both project types is determined based on the scale of each R&D project. As for type 2 projects, the upper limit of the amount to be covered by NICT is two-thirds of the total amount of eligible expenses.