ELASTIC D6.1: Plan for dissemination and exploitation including communication activities

Horizon Europe Framework Programme HORIZON JU Research and Innovation Action Reliable Services and Smart Security Efficient, portabLe And Secure orchesTration for reliable servICes D6.1: Plan for dissemination and exploitation including communication activities Abstract: This document outlines the Communication, Dissemination, and Exploitation Plan for the ELASTIC project, aiming to effectively communicate and maximise the impact of the project's outcomes among relevant stakeholders. The plan is divided into three core components: communication to increase awareness and engagement through various media and a cohesive visual identity; dissemination to ensure widespread reach of project results via conferences, publications, and online platforms; and exploitation to leverage the commercial potential and ensure long-term sustainability by engaging industry partners. A coordinated effort involving all project participants will map target groups, develop key messages, and monitor impact. This comprehensive plan will enhance visibility, ensure lasting impact, and support the growth of the 6GSNS programme on Security, fostering a competitive European research and innovation ecosystem. Contractual Date of Delivery 31/08/2024 Actual Date of Delivery 31/08/2024 Deliverable Security Class Public Editor Jelena Vasic (ZEN), Aleksandra Rankov (ZEN), Nenad Gligoric (ZEN) Contributors All ELASTIC partners Internal Reviewers Riccardo Sisto (POLITO) Jan Höller (ERS) ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 2 - August 31, 2024 The ELASTIC Consortium Part . No. Participant organisation name Participan t Short Name Role Countr y 1 POLYTECHNEIO KRITIS TUC Coordinator EL 2 ERICSSON AB ERS Principal Contractor SE 3 OY L M ERICSSON AB ERF Principal Contractor FI 4 TELEFONICA INNOVACION DIGITAL SL TID Principal Contractor ES 5 THALES SIX GTS FRANCE SAS THS Principal Contractor FR 6 THALES DIS FRANCE SAS THD Principal Contractor FR 7 INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICROELECTRONICA CENTRUM IMEC Principal Contractor BE 8 ULTRAVIOLET CONSULT DOO UVC Principal Contractor RS 9 AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR AAL Principal Contractor FI 10 LUNDS UNIVERSITET LUN Principal Contractor SE 11 ABSTRACT MACHINES SAS AMA Principal Contractor FR 12 PRIVREDNO DRUSTVO ZENTRIX LAB DRUSTVO SA OGRANICENOM ODGOVORNOSCU PANCEVO ZEN Principal Contractor RS 13 POLITECNICO DI TORINO POLITO Principal Contractor IT ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 3 - August 31, 2024 Document Revisions & Quality Assurance Internal Reviewers 1. Riccardo Sisto, (POLITO) 2. Jan Höller (ERS) Revisions Version Date By Overview 1.0 31/08/2024 Despina Kopanaki, Ayed Dhouha Version for submission 0.9 31/08/2024 Nenad Gligoric Final editorial changes 0.8 30/08/2024 Riccardo Sisto, Jan Höller, Despina Kopanaki Comments and approval from the IR and PC 0.7 29/08/2024 Jelena Vasic, Aleksandra Rankov 2nd draft - Addressing comments from IR 0.6 23/08/2024 Riccardo Sisto, Jan Höller Comments on the 1st draft 0.5 19/08/2024 Jelena Vasic, Nenad Gligoric, Aleksandra Rankov First draft 0.4 04/08/2024 Jelena Vasic, Aleksandra Rankov, Nenad Gligoric Section 1-5 0.3 05/07/2024 Jelena Vasic, Nenad Gligoric, Aleksandra Rankov Final TOC 0.2 04/07/2024 Despina Kopanaki, Ayed Dhouha Comments on the TOC 0.1 13/06/2024 Aleksandra Rankov TOC Disclaimer The work described in this document has been conducted within the ELASTIC project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101139067. This document does not reflect the opinion of the European Union, and the European Union is not responsible for any use that might be made of the information contained therein. This document contains information that is proprietary to the ELASTIC Consortium partners. Neither this document nor the information contained herein shall be used, duplicated, or communicated by any means to any third party, in whole or in parts, except with prior written consent of the ELASTIC Consortium. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 4 - August 31, 2024 Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................................. 5 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................................ 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................................ 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................... 9 1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE DOCUMENT ............................................................................................ 10 1.2 RELATION TO WORK PACKAGES, DELIVERABLES AND ACTIVITIES ..................................................... 10 1.3 CONTRIBUTION TO WP6 AND PROJECT OBJECTIVES ............................................................................ 10 1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE DOCUMENT .......................................................................................................... 11 2 ELASTIC ENGAGEMENT METHODOLOGY..................................................................................... 12 2.1 ENGAGEMENT PHASES ......................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 ELASTIC STAKEHOLDERS .................................................................................................................. 13 2.2.1 Telecommunication Sector ............................................................................................................. 13 2.2.2 Industrial Ecosystem ...................................................................................................................... 13 2.2.3 Digital Technology Providers ........................................................................................................ 13 2.2.4 Academia ........................................................................................................................................ 14 2.2.5 Policymakers .................................................................................................................................. 14 2.3 TARGET GROUPS AND FOCUS GROUPS (UP TO 1 PAGE) ........................................................................ 14 2.4 STAKEHOLDER MAP ............................................................................................................................. 15 3 ELASTIC DISSEMINATION AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGY AND PLAN ....................... 17 3.1 ELASTIC DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES ................................................................................................ 17 3.2 EUROPEAN SMART NETWORKS AND SERVICES JOINT UNDERTAKING (SNS JU) ................................. 19 3.3 ELASTIC COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................. 20 3.4 ELASTIC DISSEMINATION AND COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES PLAN.................................................. 21 3.4.1 ELASTIC Logo and Visual Identity ................................................................................................ 23 3.4.2 ELASTIC Website ........................................................................................................................... 24 3.4.3 Elastic Newsletters ......................................................................................................................... 27 3.4.4 ELASTIC Social Media Channels .................................................................................................. 28 3.4.5 ELASTIC press release ................................................................................................................... 32 3.4.6 ELASTIC Campaigns...................................................................................................................... 32 3.4.7 ELASTIC Materials ........................................................................................................................ 33 3.4.8 ELASTIC Collaboration with Other Projects................................................................................. 34 3.4.9 ELASTIC KPIs and Project Monitoring ......................................................................................... 35 4 ELASTIC STANDARDISATION STRATEGY AND PLAN ................................................................ 37 4.1 ACTION PLAN ....................................................................................................................................... 39 5 EXPLOITATION STRATEGY AND PLAN ........................................................................................... 41 5.1 EXPLOITATION PLAN ............................................................................................................................ 41 5.2 TENTATIVE BUSINESS MODEL AND BUSINESS PLAN............................................................................ 44 5.3 KEY EXPLOITABLE ASSETS .................................................................................................................. 46 5.4 INDIVIDUAL EXPLOITATION ................................................................................................................. 49 6 CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS ........................................................................................................ 54 ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 5 - August 31, 2024 List of Tables Table 1: List of events attended by the project partners by M6 ............................................................. 18 Table 2: ELASTIC statistics about social media ................................................................................... 29 Table 3: ELASTIC Dissemination and communication KPIs ............................................................... 36 Table 4: Business Model Canvas ........................................................................................................... 45 Table 5: ELASTIC Key Exploitable Result Exploitation strategy ........................................................ 46 ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 6 - August 31, 2024 List of Figures Figure 1. ELASTIC Stakeholder Map ................................................................................................... 15 Figure 2. Gantt plan for the communication and dissemination activities ............................................. 22 Figure 3. ELASTIC logo ........................................................................................................................ 23 Figure 4. ELASTIC PowerPoint template ............................................................................................. 24 Figure 5. ELASTIC project website....................................................................................................... 25 Figure 6. ELASTIC project website - about us page ............................................................................. 25 Figure 7. ELASTIC project website - Research description page ......................................................... 26 Figure 8. ELASTIC project website - Contact page .............................................................................. 26 Figure 9. ELASTIC project website - European Commission Funding statement 6GSNS ................... 27 Figure 10. ELASTIC Newsletter - First Issue of the ELASTIC Newsletter .......................................... 28 Figure 11. ELASTIC LinkedIn .............................................................................................................. 30 Figure 12. ELASTIC X social media channel ....................................................................................... 31 Figure 13. ELASTIC Instagram ............................................................................................................. 31 Figure 14. ELASTIC First press release ................................................................................................ 32 Figure 15. Campaign - Meet the Partners .............................................................................................. 33 Figure 16. ELASTIC Flyer Front and Back ........................................................................................... 34 Figure 17. ELASTIC Exploitation plan ................................................................................................. 42 Figure 18. Key Exploitation Results template ....................................................................................... 43 ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 7 - August 31, 2024 List of Abbreviations 6GSNS 6G Smart Networks and Services AI/ML Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning API Application Programming Interfaces B2B Business-to-Business B2C Business-to-Consumer CA Consortium Agreement CERTs Computer Emergency Response Teams Comms Communications CSIRTs Computer Security Incident Response Teams CSP Cloud Service Provider DPOD Data Protection On Demand EC European Commission eBPF extended Berkeley Packet Filter eSIM Embedded Subscriber Identity Module ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute EUOS European Union Observatory for ICT Standards FL Federated Learning GA Grant Agreement GDPR General Data Protection Regulation HSM Hardware Security Module ICT Information and Communication Technology IETF Internet Engineering Task Force IoT Internet of Things IPR Intellectual Property Rights iSIM Integrated Subscriber Identity Module JU Joint Undertaking KPI Key Performance Indicator M# Month # NFV Network Functions Virtualisation OASIS Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards OSF OpenStack Foundation PoC Proof of Concept QoE Quality of Experience ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 8 - August 31, 2024 R&D Research and Development R&I Research and Innovation SB Steering Board SDK Software Development Kit SIM Subscriber Identity Module SME Small Medium Enterprise TB Technical Board TEE Trusted Execution Environment VM Virtual Machine W3C World Wide Web Consortium WP Work Package XDP eXpress Data Path ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 9 - August 31, 2024 Executive Summary This document outlines the Communication, Dissemination, Exploitation, and Standardisation Plan for the ELASTIC project, which aims to ensure that the project's outcomes are effectively communicated and disseminated to all relevant stakeholders, maximising the impact and sustainability of the project's results. The plan is structured into three core components: communication, dissemination, and exploitation. The objective of the communication activities is to increase awareness and engagement with the ELASTIC project among target groups such as project partners, industry stakeholders, policymakers, and the general public. This will be achieved through the development and maintenance of a project website, social media profiles, press releases, newsletters, and various digital and print materials. Additionally, a cohesive visual identity for the project will be created, including a logo, presentation templates, and factsheets, to ensure consistent and effective communication. The objective of the dissemination activities is to ensure widespread dissemination of project results through various channels to maximise reach and impact. This will involve participation in conferences, workshops, and other industry events; publication of research findings in academic journals and industry magazines; and the use of online platforms to share updates and results. The goal of the exploitation activities is to identify and leverage the commercial potential of the project's outcomes, ensuring long-term sustainability and impact. This will be achieved by engaging with industry partners to explore commercialisation opportunities, develop business models, and identify potential markets for project innovations. The standardisation activities play a pivotal role in promoting the widespread adoption of ELASTIC’s technologies among various stakeholders. ELASTIC partners are actively contributing to the development of new standards and participating in working groups within organisations such as IETF, ETSI, W3C, and others. These efforts ensure that the project's innovations are aligned with ongoing standardisation trends, thereby fostering industry-wide adoption and long-term impact. The plan emphasises a coordinated effort involving all project participants to map target groups, identify key messages, develop effective communication materials, and monitor and evaluate the impact of these activities. This strategic approach aims to contribute significantly to the growth and consolidation of the 6GSNS programme on Security, supporting the transformation of the European industry. By implementing this comprehensive Communication, Dissemination, and Exploitation Plan, as well as standardisation activities, the ELASTIC project will not only achieve maximum visibility and public awareness but also ensure that the research has a lasting impact, fostering a sustainable and competitive European research and innovation ecosystem. The dynamic nature of the plan allows for continuous updates and improvements, aligning with the project's progress and adapting to emerging opportunities and challenges. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 16 - August 31, 2024 Keep Informed Quadrant The "Keep Informed" quadrant includes stakeholders such as policymakers and other organisations or individuals directly connected to the project, like other initiatives. While these stakeholders may have a limited impact on the project's outcomes, it is still beneficial to explore collaborative communication and dissemination efforts. Engaging in joint activities like sharing information, insights, and best practices will keep these stakeholders informed about the project's progress and contribute to a broader exchange of knowledge. Monitor Quadrant This quadrant covers partnerships, networks, societal stakeholders, and the non-scientific community, which have low influence on project activities and limited availability for active engagement. Although these groups are not expected to be heavily involved in project activities, maintaining regular communication with them is important. By staying in frequent contact and monitoring their engagement levels, the project can identify any changes in their involvement or movement to other quadrants promptly. This proactive approach helps keep these stakeholders informed and fosters potential opportunities for collaboration. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 17 - August 31, 2024 3 ELASTIC Dissemination and Communication Strategy and Plan The dissemination and communication strategy for the ELASTIC project aims to efficiently showcase the project's achievements to a broad audience, leveraging the consortium's ability to communicate effectively across different languages and international contexts. This strategy employs diverse communication channels and engagement strategies to maximise visibility, impact, and collaboration across targeted stakeholder groups. By specifying clear objectives and outlining a detailed approach for effective outreach (detailing what, when, to whom, and how), the plan will ensure a structured and impactful dissemination effort. The primary objectives of this strategy are to: • Increase awareness of the ELASTIC project among stakeholders. • Showcase the project's achievements and milestones. • Engage and collaborate with targeted stakeholder groups. • Influence and educate the audience to maximise the project's impact. 3.1 ELASTIC Dissemination activities ELASTIC has the dissemination strategy tailored to effectively communicate the project’s findings to targeted groups, raising awareness, fostering understanding, and engaging users by inspiring new action with targeted messages. The message will be created based on a detailed 4-step approach that addresses the key questions: "what, why, when, to whom, and how?" The main vehicle to transfer these messages will be driven by a set of tools and activities, using both traditional and social media channels to reach diverse audiences. This structured method ensures comprehensive outreach throughout the project, with partners encouraged to adhere to all steps, select pertinent aspects, and enhance their efforts to maximise engagement with their audience. Our predefined dissemination goals are closely aligned with our communication objectives and the overall aims of the project, ensuring that we create a substantial impact that extends beyond the project itself, in line with the goals of Horizon Europe. The dissemination plan is divided into three distinct phases, each with specific timelines. While these phases have set durations, the communication activities will span the entire project lifecycle. However, these phases can be extended or adjusted as needed to maximise the impact and reach a broad range of target groups, consistent with Horizon Europe’s objectives. ELASTIC will use a variety of dissemination activities to effectively engage with target groups and promote project outcomes. These activities include detailed project documentation, peerreviewed journal articles, non-scientific publications, interviews, coding guidelines, source code repositories, open access research, webinars, workshops, events, and conferences. • Project documentation will cover technical outputs, APIs, architectures, models, recommendations, promotional activities, and insights gained. These documents will be accessible via the project website and a public repository. • Peer-reviewed Publications: A key objective of the project is to ensure that its technical achievements and experimental findings are widely recognised and utilised by the broader research community and related scientific fields. ELASTIC is committed to publishing and contributing to peer-reviewed articles in leading scientific journals and ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 18 - August 31, 2024 conferences, leveraging the expertise of its research partners to maximise the impact of these contributions. • Non-scientific publications and interviews: will aim at a wider audience to achieve broad awareness and validation of project results. These will include articles, blog posts, position papers, and interviews tailored for end-users and the public. Platforms like CORDIS Research EU Magazine, Telefonica Blogs, Ericsson Blog, and Digital Innovation Magazine will be used. • Deployment guidelines: The project will facilitate general guidelines to ease external deployment efforts, including ‘code of conduct’, 'deployment environment’, ‘security guidelines’, ‘debugging’, ‘performance considerations’. • Source Code Repository: Advocating for replicability and openness, ELASTIC will make accessible its software repositories through well-known source code management platforms, such as GitHub or GitLab. In addition, ELASTIC will contribute to existing open-source projects with new features and/or enhancements. This measure will encourage other tech providers to re-use the outcomes easily. • Webinars/ Workshops/ Meetups/ Panels: ELASTIC will (co-)organise a number of events (webinars, workshops, meetups) and will participate in the panels during the project’s lifetime as a means of transferring and exchanging technical and socioeconomic knowledge with the community, with a total of 1000 unique participants. • Exhibitions and trade fairs: will be strategic venues for engaging with multiple stakeholders at both European and international levels. The project will present its findings through talks, presentations, exhibition booths, and personal interactions. Table 1: List of events attended by the project partners by M6 Event Date and place Link Type of contribution Presentation of the ELASTIC project at the SNS Call 2 project introduction webinar (TUC) March 7, 2024 https://smartnetworks.europa.eu/event/introd ucing-the-call-2-sns-projectspart-1-of-2/ Speaker Presentation of the Lund University research including ELASTIC during a visit in Lund by a Dutch cybersecurity delegation (LUN) May 21, 2024 https://dutchdelgation.confetti.events/ Speaker Presenting wasi-usb standard of WasmHAL (IMEC) April 18, 2024 https://github.com/WebAssembl y/meetings/blob/555acc76f705d aadaf1418aa86a48d523949a577 /wasi/2024/WASI-0418.md?plain=1#L31 Speaker Presenting wasi-I2C standard of WasmHAL (IMEC) May 16, 2024 https://github.com/WebAssembl y/meetings/blob/555acc76f705d aadaf1418aa86a48d523949a577 /wasi/2024/WASI-0516.md?plain=1#L66 Speaker ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 19 - August 31, 2024 3.2 European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) The Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) is a European public-private partnership established to drive research and innovation in 5G and 6G networks and services 4 . Its primary mission is to enhance Europe's leadership in these technologies by fostering technological sovereignty and enabling the digital and green transformation of the economy and society. SNS JU focuses on two main objectives: advancing 5G deployment across Europe and laying the groundwork for 6G technologies. This involves not only the development of new technologies but also the standardisation and early market adoption of 6G by the end of the decade. The partnership brings together a broad range of stakeholders, including industry leaders, research institutions, and public entities, to collaborate on projects that will shape the future of digital infrastructure in Europe and beyond. Through its strategic research and innovation programs, SNS JU supports projects that address critical aspects of the 6G value chain, from cloud-based services and IoT to new microelectronics and AI-driven solutions. It also aims to strengthen Europe's position in global standardisation efforts, ensuring that European innovations play a central role in the global evolution of network technologies. ELASTIC, as part of the European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU), stands to benefit significantly from enhanced communication and dissemination of project updates and results. SNS JU, a Public-Private Partnership, is dedicated to promoting industrial leadership in 5G and 6G networks and services across Europe. By actively engaging with SNS JU, ELASTIC will strengthen its social media presence, collaborate with other 6G projects, and tap into the broader ecosystem to amplify its impact and drive technological advancements. Through participation in SNS JU meetings and utilising their social media platforms, ELASTIC can achieve greater visibility and recognition within both the European and international 6G communities. SNS JU brings together a diverse range of stakeholders, offering ELASTIC valuable opportunities to network with other projects and organisations working on 6G technologies. ELASTIC can also leverage the collective expertise, knowledge, and resources available within the SNS JU ecosystem, including access to technical reports, research findings, and best practices related to 6G networks and services. Engaging with the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) offers several key benefits for the ELASTIC project: 1. Increased Visibility and Recognition: By participating in SNS JU activities, ELASTIC can gain heightened visibility within the European and international research communities focused on 5G and 6G. This engagement can enhance the project's reputation and influence within the industry, making it a recognised player in the development of next-generation networks. 2. Access to Cutting-Edge Research and Innovation: SNS JU facilitates collaboration among industry leaders, academia, and research institutions, offering ELASTIC access to the latest advancements in 5G and 6G technologies. This access to high-level research, innovative tools, and platforms will enable ELASTIC to stay at the forefront of technological developments and incorporate the latest findings into its project. 3. Collaboration and Networking Opportunities: SNS JU brings together a diverse range of stakeholders from various sectors, providing ELASTIC with opportunities to 4 SNS JU Mission https://smart-networks.europa.eu/missions-and-objectives/ ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 20 - August 31, 2024 network and collaborate with other projects, companies, and research entities. These collaborations can lead to joint initiatives, partnerships, and the sharing of valuable insights, which can significantly boost the project's impact and innovation potential. 4. Contribution to Standardisation and Policy Development: By engaging with SNS JU, ELASTIC can actively contribute to the development of standards, guidelines, and policy recommendations in the 6G domain. This involvement positions ELASTIC as a key contributor to the future of network technologies, allowing the project to influence the direction of 6G standards and ensure that its innovations align with broader industry trends. 5. Funding and Resource Allocation: Participation in SNS JU opens doors to potential funding opportunities and access to resources that are critical for large-scale research and innovation projects. This can help ELASTIC secure the necessary support to expand its research capabilities and achieve its objectives. By leveraging these benefits, ELASTIC can effectively promote its project, expand its ecosystem, and maximise its impact within the 6G landscape, thereby contributing to Europe's technological sovereignty and the digital transformation of society and the economy. A summary of activities already performed in the scope of SNS is provided below: • Contribution to the SNS Annual Journal 2024 5 prepared by SNS OPS, July 2024. • Participation in regular SNS Dissemination meetings. • Participation in Preparatory SNS Steering Board meetings (online). Additionally, ELASTIC has been included in the Steering Board (SB), Technical Board (TB), and Communications groups. However, the collaboration agreement has not yet been finalised due to the pending Consortium Agreement (CA), and as such, active participation in these boards has not commenced. 3.3 ELASTIC Communication activities The communication strategy and plan for the ELASTIC project are centred on effectively promoting the project's goals and outcomes to a diverse, global audience. This strategy takes full advantage of the consortium's multilingual abilities and international reach, using a wellrounded Promotion Mix to raise awareness and engage the target audience. A coordinated and comprehensive master plan is crucial to ensuring that the project's intended impact is fully realised. In the ELASTIC project, communication activities are pivotal in showcasing the project's progress and results to the public throughout its 36-month duration. The goal is to generate interest and build awareness about the project's objectives and achievements. To accomplish this, ELASTIC implements a thorough communication plan that utilises a variety of channels and strategies. WP6, dedicated to dissemination and communication, will run from the first month (M01) to the final month (M36) of the project. Each activity is carefully planned to meet the project's KPIs. The project prioritises the creation of a strong visual identity, alongside a robust dissemination and communication strategy. Throughout the project's lifespan, ELASTIC will execute targeted campaigns aimed at engaging a broad international audience. • Email Campaigns: Broadcasting messages to a database of contact points (the goal is to reach 5,000 contact points) is a highly effective measure for promoting activities and 5 https://smart-networks.europa.eu/sns-journal-2024/ ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 21 - August 31, 2024 results, seeking endorsement. Email campaigns will be relevant to reaching out to endusers, key technology communities, and engaging with the ‘Partnerships & Networks’. ELASTIC will design and execute a portfolio of templates fit to the specific target group, integrating call-to-action measures to increase traffic. • One-to-one Meetings: Individual meetings are successful actions to interact with relevant individuals, often as a follow-up email exchange, scouting efforts, events or coaching. This engagement strategy will target managers from market cloud providers (e.g., IBM Cloud, Amazon, VMware), policymakers, top-level SMEs. • Project Website: The website is the primary asset for promoting the project activities and results to all target audiences, providing comprehensive information about ELASTIC, its objective, the consortium, the EU contribution, events and pointing at the references to resources. The first version was ready by M02 and will be maintained and updated regularly. • Social Media: ELASTIC will build and maintain its online presence in well-known social media channels, focusing on Twitter and LinkedIn, posting content and generating leads. • Newsletters: Newsletters will broadcast main activities and opportunities in a given period and anticipate planned actions for the upcoming stages, emphasising on webinars/ events. • Press Releases: ELASTIC prepared a joint press release within M02 to present the ambition and our partners. • Printing / Merchandising: Materials necessary for participating in events and meetings, including brochures, flyers, posters and other laid out paper-based resources. The material will be available as e-files and the project foresees distributing 3,000+ hard-copy items. • Multimedia Material: The project will produce at least 2 videos and use clips to have self-explanatory and appealing material for the website and social media, leveraging other available distribution channels of promotion (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo). Public webinars and live training modules will be recorded and made available. • Logo & Templates: ELASTIC will keep a brand that will be used, refined and protected throughout the project. A recognisable visual identity was provided at the beginning of the project. 3.4 ELASTIC Dissemination and Communication activities plan To effectively promote and showcase the ELASTIC platform, the project team has devised a comprehensive plan encompassing various activities. These efforts are designed to ensure the successful dissemination of the project’s outcomes to a broad audience. To reach different target groups, ELASTIC employs a diverse range of communication channels, carefully selected to resonate with each specific audience. From traditional channels, such as the project website, to dynamic social media platforms, the project ensures that its message is conveyed effectively. The Gantt chart shown in Figure 2 indicates communication and dissemination activities foreseen for the ELASTIC project that will be performed to achieve the KPIs. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 22 - August 31, 2024 Figure 2. Gantt plan for the communication and dissemination activities A consistent and professional visual identity is maintained throughout the project by developing a project logo, templates for deliverables, milestones, presentations, and posters. By the second month, the project has launched a website, aiming to attract over 10,000 unique visitors by the end of the 36-month period. This website will serve as a central hub, providing engaging content and highlighting the platform's features and benefits. To build a strong social media presence, the project aims to gather a substantial following of at least 1,000 followers by its conclusion, with a goal of generating over 80 monthly impressions to maintain high visibility. Consistent communication is key, with plans to publish a minimum of 10 newsletters, keeping subscribers informed about progress, milestones, and updates. Additionally, the project plans to issue at least six press releases to generate media coverage and create buzz around the platform’s development. Understanding the value of engaging with the developer community, ELASTIC aims to make a minimum of five contributions to developer communities such as Linux kernel, BCC, FALCO, and Kubernetes, establishing its presence as a developer project with high-quality developer output. Offline promotion is also a priority, with plans to distribute at least 3,000 hard copies of brochures, flyers, posters, and other promotional materials, ensuring that the platform's message extends beyond the digital realm. To further engage the audience, the project team will produce at least two short videos offering insights, demonstrations, and tutorials related to the platform, enhancing user understanding and interest. Additionally, the project commits to publishing at least 15 technical publications, including public deliverables, and aims to produce a project brochure to provide comprehensive information and insights. For scientific outreach, ELASTIC plans to publish a minimum of 10 peer-reviewed scientific articles in journals and present at least 10 papers at conferences. To reach a broader, nonscientific audience, the project will publish at least 30 articles, blog posts, position papers, and interviews, effectively conveying its message to end-users and stakeholders. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 23 - August 31, 2024 To support developers, the project will publish at least one paper on deployment guidelines, offering best practices and recommendations. The commitment to open access is emphasised by a target of achieving at least 1,000 downloads of ELASTIC materials. Additionally, the project will organise a minimum of 5 webinars, 2 workshops, 2 meetups with the goal of engaging at least 1000 unique participants, alongside other events to further disseminate knowledge and foster engagement. 3.4.1 ELASTIC Logo and Visual Identity ELASTIC aims to achieve a high-quality presence in different media, which is why a consistent visual identity has been developed that will be used throughout the ELASTIC project. The goal is to build a recognisable brand presence from the beginning of the project. This involves designing a distinctive logo and creating a series of templates that align with the project's visual style and objectives. The logo (Figure 3) and templates (Figure 4) are designed to embody the project's goals and values, and they are consistently applied across all communication materials, including presentations, reports, and promotional items. This unified visual identity not only strengthens brand recognition but also solidifies ELASTIC’s presence in the minds of its target audience. Figure 3. ELASTIC logo ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 24 - August 31, 2024 Figure 4. ELASTIC PowerPoint template 3.4.2 ELASTIC Website The ELASTIC project's website (https://elasticproject.eu/) has established an online presence for dissemination according to project objective O6.3. As illustrated in Figures 5 to 8, it functions as the central platform for disseminating information and promoting the project's activities and outcomes to a wide range of target audiences. It provides detailed insights into the project's objectives, the consortium members, and the support received from the European Union. Designed with a mobile-friendly interface, fast loading times, and full accessibility features, the website is optimised for an enhanced user experience. Additionally, the site is integrated with social media platforms to ensure broader visibility and increased engagement. The website's structure (Site Map) is outlined below: ● Home page ○ Project resume ○ Project objectives ○ Project partners ○ Project Use cases ● About the ELASTIC Project ● Overview of Novel Technologies and Tools: Research and Innovation ● Experimentation in ELASTIC ● News & Updates ○ Meet Our Partner: Technical University of Crete ○ ELASTIC Project Insights Shared at SNS Call 2 Webinar by Prof. Sotiris Ioannidis from TUC ○ First Press Release: ELASTIC Project Embarks on Advancing 6G Network Service Orchestration ○ ELASTIC Project Website Now Online ○ ELASTIC Project Meeting (April 24-25, 2024, Chania, Crete) ● Contact Us ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 25 - August 31, 2024 Figure 5. ELASTIC project website Figure 6. ELASTIC project website - about us page ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 32 - August 31, 2024 3.4.5 ELASTIC press release Engagement with the press and broader media is also a priority for ELASTIC. Early in the project, a joint press release was prepared to introduce the project's goals and the organisations involved. Additionally, ELASTIC benefits from corporate press releases issued by consortium partners, which help extend the project's reach across their networks. In Figure 14 below, the first press release of the ELASTIC project is presented. Figure 14. ELASTIC First press release 7 3.4.6 ELASTIC Campaigns Email campaigns are a highly effective tool for reaching out to end-users, key technology communities, and partners within the "Partnerships & Networks" domain. The ELASTIC project carefully designs and implements a range of email templates that are tailored to specific target audiences, incorporating clear calls to action to drive engagement and traffic. All email communications strictly comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), using market solutions that ensure adherence to these standards. An example of an already started Campaign, ‘Meet the Partners,’ is provided below: • Website blog post (Figure 15): Meet Our Partner – Technical University of Crete 8 • LinkedIn post 9 7 Link to press release: ELASTIC Project Embarks on Advancing 6G Network Service Orchestration, available online, accessed 17.08.2024; 8 https://elasticproject.eu/meet-our-partner-technical-university-of-crete/ 9 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elastic-project_elastic-elastic-elastic-activity-7225987620688785408_git?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 33 - August 31, 2024 Figure 15. Campaign - Meet the Partners 3.4.7 ELASTIC Materials For physical promotion, ELASTIC understands the impact of tangible materials at events and meetings. The project has already created flyers (Figure 16), and roll-ups will be created that incorporate its visual identity, ensuring a consistent and professional brand presence. These materials have been effectively used at conferences to capture attention and convey key information in a visually engaging manner. Beyond printed resources, ELASTIC is also exploring the use of attractive and reusable merchandise, such as T-shirts and stickers, to broaden its audience and enhance brand visibility. These creative strategies aim to strengthen the project's presence and recognition across various platforms. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 34 - August 31, 2024 Figure 16. ELASTIC Flyer Front and Back 3.4.8 ELASTIC Collaboration with Other Projects As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance collaboration and maximise the impact of our project, we have actively reached out to several other projects and initiatives with the goal of forming a strategic cluster. This clustering approach is intended to facilitate knowledge sharing, joint activities, and a unified dissemination strategy that can amplify the reach and significance of our collective work. To date, we have established contact with key projects such as CONFIDENTIAL6G 10 and HARPOCRATES 11 , and we are currently exploring the possibility of including TITAN 12 and RIGOUROUS 13 in this collaborative network. These projects share similar goals and areas of focus, making them ideal partners for joint initiatives. The collaboration with these projects will allow us to pool resources, expertise, and dissemination channels, thereby enhancing the visibility and impact of our project outcomes. Preliminary ideas for collaboration include: 1. Common Website or Existing Cluster Participation: • We are considering the creation of a common website that would serve as a central hub for the dissemination of our project results. This platform would provide a 10 https://confidential6g.eu 11 https://harpocrates-project.eu 12 https://titan-eosc.eu 13 https://rigourous.eu ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 35 - August 31, 2024 unified space for all cluster members to share their findings, tools, and resources with a broader audience. • Alternatively, we may opt to join an existing cluster, which could already have an established platform and audience, thereby accelerating our dissemination efforts. The identification of such a cluster is currently underway. 2. Organisation of Webinars: • We propose the regular organisation of webinars where cluster members can present their research findings, methodologies, and tools. These webinars would serve as an excellent opportunity for knowledge exchange and engagement with the broader research community. 3. Common Whitepaper/Publications: • The development of joint whitepapers or publications is another key area of collaboration. By combining insights and data from all cluster members, we can produce high-impact publications that reflect the collective knowledge and contributions of the entire cluster. 4. Live Events and Joint Participation in SNS Events: • We plan to organise live events, such as workshops or conferences, where cluster members can present their work and engage in discussions with stakeholders. • Additionally, we aim to coordinate joint presentations at major events such as EUCNC, leveraging these platforms to showcase our combined efforts and achievements to a wide audience. These collaborative efforts will not only strengthen the ties between our projects but also significantly enhance the dissemination and impact of our work. We look forward to further developing these ideas and working closely with our partners to achieve our shared goals. 3.4.9 ELASTIC KPIs and Project Monitoring This section outlines the key performance indicators (KPIs) and the project monitoring approach for the ELASTIC dissemination and communication activities. The primary objective is to align our dissemination and communication activities with measurable targets and to establish an effective monitoring system. The success of ELASTIC hinges on the implementation of well-structured dissemination and communication strategies. To this end, specific KPIs have been identified for each activity to assess progress and measure the impact of our efforts. Regular monitoring of these KPIs will allow us to track the effectiveness of our dissemination and communication actions, enabling timely adjustments as necessary. To support this monitoring process, project partners will have access to an Excel file designed for tracking dissemination activities throughout the project's lifecycle. This tracking system will cover various parameters, including press coverage, contributions to specialised journals, presentations at events, and mentions by relevant target groups in public documents. By regularly updating this monitoring file, we can evaluate our performance against the communication KPIs and ensure that we remain on course to achieve our objectives. Table 3 provides an overview of the main KPIs related to dissemination and communication activities in the ELASTIC project. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 36 - August 31, 2024 Table 3: ELASTIC Dissemination and communication KPIs DEC-KPI No KPI Description Status at M6 Comments Started (Y/N) Numbers DEC-KPI-1 Technical publications (including public deliverables ≥15) Y 2 One deliverable started, One SNS Journal Publication DEC-KPI-2 Project brochure: 1 Y 1 One Project Flyer DEC-KPI-3 Peer Reviewed scientific items in journals: ≥10 Y 0 Publication writing in progress DEC-KPI-4 Peer-reviewed papers in conferences ≥10 Y 0 Publication writing in progress DEC-KPI-5 Publications in articles, blog posts, position papers, interviews, and any other non-scientific publication ≥30 Y 6 News/ blog published on project website DEC-KPI-6 Target Values: Deployment guideline paper: ≥1 N 0 Not Started DEC-KPI-7 Software repositories: =1 N 0 Not created DEC-KPI-8 Number of contributions to open source projects (such as Linux kernel, BCC, FALCO, Kubernetes): >=5 N 0 Not started DEC-KPI-9 Downloads of ELASTIC material ≥1000 Y 15 Press Release download from website DEC-KPI-10 Online repository:1 Y 1 Zenodo14 DEC-KPI-11 Openly available publications ≥15 N 0 Not started DEC-KPI-12 Webinars ≥5 Y 0 Planning phase DEC-KPI-13 Meetups ≥2 N 0 Not started DEC-KPI-14 Workshops ≥2 N 0 Not started DEC-KPI-15 Panels ≥3 (one per Year from TID) N 0 Not started DEC-KPI-16 Unique participants total ≥1000 (Webinars/ Workshops/ Meetups/ Panels) N 0 Not started DEC-KPI17 Fairs to Participate: ≥3 N 0 Not started DEC-KPI18 Participation to Working Groups: ≥5 Y 2 Started 14 ELASTIC Zenodo https://zenodo.org/communities/elastic ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 37 - August 31, 2024 4 ELASTIC Standardisation Strategy and Plan Standardisation plays a pivotal role in promoting the widespread adoption of new technologies among various stakeholders. However, the standardisation process is typically lengthy, often extending well beyond the lifecycle of individual research and innovation projects. The standardisation strategy and plan outlined in this deliverable are designed to go beyond traditional Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) by adopting a more comprehensive approach that includes collaboration across SDOs, open-source communities, industrial alliances, and various fora. The objective is not only to achieve formalised standards but also to foster "standards"—in the broader sense of the term—that result in open markets and interoperable technologies across different technology stacks and end-to-end solutions. These "standards" encompass widely adopted best practices, even when they are not formalised into a specific standards specification or schema. By incorporating these best practices, the strategy aims to lower barriers to adoption and ensure that the technologies developed within the project are accessible, scalable, and widely accepted across the industry. This holistic approach to standardisation is crucial for driving innovation, promoting interoperability, and ensuring the long-term impact and success of the project's outcomes. ELASTIC partners are actively involved in the standardisation process by contributing to the development of new signature schemes, participating in working groups, and attending relevant events. Specifically, partners of ELASTIC have been engaged in the standardisation and analysis of building blocks and protocols within organisations such as IETF, ETSI, W3C, and others. The current tangible outcomes of these efforts will be used to actively participate in working groups and standardisation bodies to work on specific items and disseminate its findings and contribute to the development of new standards. • IETF: TID is an active IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) member and contributes to standardisation on how to build standards for cryptographic cloud storage and analysing data in a privacy-preserving way. ELASTIC will contribute to IETF Trusted Execution Environment Platforms (TEEP) and IETF Remote AttesTation procedureS (RATS) working groups and will promote and reflect the project's results in these forums. TID is also a member of the 3GPP SA3 Security working group. ERF is active an participant and co-chair of the IETF CoRE working group and participant in the CBOR working group and contributes to standardise enhancements to the relevant protocols (e.g., CoAP), data models (e.g., SenML), and formats (e.g., CBOR) to enable efficient interworking between IoT data fabric and the secure infrastructure developed in the project. For topics that go beyond the scope of existing IETF working groups, ERF will work with the IRTF Thing-to-Thing Research Group (T2TRG), which ERF is also co-chairing, and the Computing in the Network Research Group (COINRG) to explore research topics relevant for potential IETF standardisation. • ETSI: TID is a Chair of the Network Operator Council (NFV ISG), founding member (NFV SEC) and participant of SAI and RIS ISG, active contributor to the TC of TC CYBER; THD is an active contributor in NFV SEC and editor of specifications concerning the threat analysis and requirements to enhance the security of infrastructure and the NFV system in general. THD is also a contributor to SAI and participant of TC CYBER, and CYBER QSC. THD is monitoring the work of the ISGs ZSM and MEC. • OSM/O-RAN: Open source MANO: TID leads the initiative and is one of the main contributors and in O-RAN TID: TSC/EB/WGs Members of TSC and EB. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 38 - August 31, 2024 • Kubernetes: IMEC will work with the Kubernetes Apps Special Interest Group 15 and the IoT Edge working group to standardise a framework for lightweight event-driven serverless controllers and operators. IMEC has worked with Kubernetes SIGs in the past and is currently working on standardising network and topology-aware scheduling in the Scheduling Special Interest Group. • W3C: IMEC will work with the WASI Subgroup of the W3C WebAssembly Community Group (CG) to standardise WASI extensions needed to run serverless Kubernetes controllers inside of WebAssembly. IMEC will work with the WASI Subgroup of the W3C WebAssembly Community Group (CG) to standardise WASI extensions for easy interaction with IoT hardware including I2C and GPIO sensors supported by a Hardware Abstraction Layer. (T1.4) IMEC is currently working on two such proposals (currently TRL 2) in this CG and intends to propose a number of other interfaces. AAL will collaborate with IMEC to develop and standardise interfaces for access control (T1.2, T1.4) and remote attestation (T3.1, T3.3), with support from LUN. • Linux: POLITO will work with Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation to promote eBPF-based technologies in open-source projects targeting network processing and monitoring topics (e.g., “bcc” project, “libbpf” project, “falco” project), and/or cloud/edge environments (e.g., Cilium, Kubernetes, Multus). POLITO has close links with the Linux kernel community, given its past contributions to the Linux kernel development process. This will facilitate the interaction with Linux kernel developers to possibly extend the Linux kernel with the primitives defined in this project. • OSF: OpenStack - ZEN is a member of the OSF OpenStack Edge Computing group and will contribute to the pre-standardisation discussion in regular WG meetings coordinated by OpenStack. • GlobalPlatform: THD is a member of the executive team of GlobalPlatform and of the board. THD has also held leadership positions in several working groups. GlobalPlatform-based secure components – Secure Element (SE) and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) – offer device makers and developers a secure platform upon which to build their solutions, founded on a Root of Trust (RoT) and enabling Chains of Trust using GlobalPlatform TPS APIs. The TEE Committee of GlobalPlatform defines an open security architecture for consumer and connected devices using a TEE to secure those devices and enable the development and deployment of secure services from multiple service providers. GlobalPlatform is focussing on: extending TEE architecture specifications and APIs to include support for hypervisors, making it possible to have two TEEs and two TEE operating systems on the same device; the collaboration on RISC-V to support the evolution of chip architecture and address new use cases for Root of Trust services in devices embedding TEE and MCU technologies the TEE security – Identifying and analysing the latest attacks and updating the TEE Protection profile with the latest methodologies. • Confidential Computing Consortium - Linux Foundation: UVC is a member of Linux Foundation’s Confidential Computing Consortium, an organisation through which it actively participates in the creation of new documents, API, demos, terminology definitions and standards in the domain of TEE-enabled privacy-preserving cloud and edge technologies. • OASIS: TUC aims to contribute to the standardisation activities of the ELASTIC project by leveraging its existing engagements with OASIS, FIRST.org, and ENISA. Through its involvement in the OASIS CACAO v2.1 standardisation, TUC can 15 https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/sig-apps/README.md ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 39 - August 31, 2024 incorporate ELASTIC security frameworks, aligning them with existing standards and proposing enhancements. Additionally, TUC’s participation in the FIRST.org Automation SIG allows for the exploration and alignment of cybersecurity standards and reports with the objectives of the ELASTIC project. Furthermore, TUC’s involvement in the ENISA Ad-hoc Working Group on SOCs enables the integration of ELASTIC security playbooks into key industry reports. TUC will try to apply existing standardised security frameworks on the ELASTIC platform and will disseminate the outcomes through workshops and conferences. By monitoring and testing ongoing standardisation trends, TUC ensures that ELASTIC contributions are recognised, thereby promoting long-term impact and industry-wide adoption. • Other: IMEC will work with the SLICES-SC project to ensure standardised access to the CloudNativeLab testbed, including its edge and IoT extensions. LUN will promote and reflect the project’s results in the EU Observatory for ICT standards (EUOS). 4.1 Action plan ELASTIC plans to facilitate existing memberships and partner engagement within standardisation working groups. The action plan is outlined as follows: • Lachlan Gunn (AAL) will present a talk at the ETSI Security Conference. • IMEC has joined the bytecode alliance and the W3C WebAssembly Community Group and will draft and (co-)champion multiple WASI standards including wasi-i2c and wasiusb. AAL will collaborate with IMEC on the standardisation of additional interfaces, such as for filtering and TEE functionality, with support from LUN. • IMEC will work with the SLICES-SC project, ensuring access to the CloudNativeLab testbed. • TUC will contribute to OASIS and ENISA standardisation processes in order to ensure that they can be aligned with ELASTIC's security framework. • TUC will contribute to the ENISA ad-hoc working group on SOCs. • ERF will contribute to CBoR-related IETF standards. • TID and THD will continue to contribute to NFV SEC and CYBER ISC. • TID will contribute to the Open-Source Mano. • THD will contribute to GlobalPlatform working groups, particularly in relation to multiTEE/multi-OS support. • UVC will contribute to the Linux Foundation Confidential Computing Consortium's API, documentation, and demo creation efforts. • ZEN will contribute ELASTIC frameworks to the OpenStack Edge Computing working groups. We propose the plan below as a model for these engagements; however, individual contributions may commence at different times, as some partners have pre-existing involvement with relevant working groups, while some other partners’ contributions may not begin until later in the project. The following preliminary plan was drafted with three main phases: ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 40 - August 31, 2024 M06 – M09 - Initiation Phase • Identification of relevant Working Groups • Cluster Formation M09 - M12 - Development and Contribution • Establish working group involvement • Drafting initial proposals for new standards • Collaborative Events M12 - M36 - Refinement and Dissemination • Proposal refinement and ongoing contribution to working groups • Monitoring and Reporting ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 41 - August 31, 2024 5 Exploitation Strategy and Plan Under Horizon Europe, it is essential for projects to actively engage in exploitation activities to ensure that the research outcomes benefit a broad segment of society. Since the program is funded by the EU Commission, there is a strong emphasis on making sure that the results are utilised in business, industry, and the public domain. ELASTIC is committed to developing a robust exploitation plan that outlines various activities and actions to be implemented throughout the project's duration. The goal is to identify the most appropriate exploitation scenarios to transform innovative ideas into marketable products. Navigating the journey from a groundbreaking concept to a commercially viable product involves overcoming numerous challenges to successfully bring the idea to market. The exploitation strategy, which is detailed in this Deliverable by Month 6 of the project, will evolve alongside the scientific and technological outcomes. This strategy will be informed by both collective and individual exploitation activities and is intended to be guided by the IPR management strategy defined in the Consortium Agreement. The final version of the exploitation plan will deliver a reliable strategy for sustaining the partners’ results beyond the project’s end. ELASTIC identifies three main approaches for exploiting project results: 1. Commercial exploitation model, which involves the paid provision of project results to end-users, governed by a licensing scheme to be defined later; 2. Research exploitation model, which focuses on utilising the research expertise gained for future research activities; 3. Technological exploitation model, which leverages the technological know-how acquired to develop innovative products and offer advanced services. Each potential outcome of the ELASTIC project will be approached independently regarding exploitation, with the most suitable model selected for each. The project anticipates producing multiple exploitable results, each treated equally. The appropriate model for each result will be proposed based on factors such as the interests of project partners, target groups, and the distribution of IPRs for each as well as among the partners. Industrial partners will likely favour commercial exploitation, while academic and research organisations may prefer a research exploitation model for open-source components. External industrial partners are expected to adopt a technological exploitation model, aiming to offer exploitation opportunities through open-source components for knowledge transfer to other products and services. 5.1 Exploitation plan ELASTIC identifies several key target groups that are integral to the commercialisation and application of the project's outcomes. These groups include stakeholders from the Telco ecosystem and service providers, such as telecom operators and network infrastructure providers; the digital technology ecosystem, including system integrators and application developers; and the broader industrial ecosystem, which encompasses ICT vendors, AI engineers, and cybersecurity service providers. Additionally, academia, researchers, policymakers, and European technology and industry associations are crucial stakeholders. Each of these groups will benefit from tailored exploitation strategies designed to maximise the impact of ELASTIC’s innovations. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 48 - August 31, 2024 computing platform for migrating sensitive IT services to the cloud [THS, THD, UVC, TUC] currently implemented in private data centres to the cloud while complying with cybersecurity rules defined by the company CISO and industry and privacy regulations. IT services. THS will support THD in leveraging assets around data security with dynamic security orchestration solution for a dynamic security policies enforcement. Confidential computing platform for migrating sensitive IT services to the cloud: UVC will exploit the confidential computing platform use case in two ways: 1) the platform will be directly used in UVC's commercial product as a basis for migrating sensitive IT services to the cloud; 2) the platform will be prototyped into a separate product that can be marketed as a service to various IT/OT organisations. The platform will leverage the confidential computing HW platform abstractions and remote attestation handling developed in WP3 to provide easy enablement of Intel and AMD VMs in an automated manner and independent of the actual HW platform or CSP. It will also leverage the efficient, portable, and secure edge workload orchestration developed in WP4 to extend the lift & shift capability to edge and far edge networks to ensure lower latency and higher availability for users of the service. TUC will exploit the applied cybersecurity frameworks over data centres in two directions. First, new research directions will be integrated into its master and PhD research programs based on cybersecurity services over data centres. Also, TUC will move on using, testing and proposing the ELASTIC framework over other research European programs that focus on such cybersecurity research directions. Automation tooling for confidential computing environments (LUN) Deployable or usable tools for secure execution application update deployment, monitoring, migration and governance of confidential computing environments. LUN will exploit the expertise gained in ELASTIC and the related tooling to validate the technology in a broad range of industrial use cases together with its technology partner CanaryBit AB. The target use cases for the application of the Automation tooling for confidential computing environments are telecom, automotive industry, cybersecurity monitoring services and cloud computing providers. The automation tooling can also be contributed as a project under the umbrella of the confidential computing consortium (an industry organisation defining confidential computing) in order to ensure its continued development. Lifecycle management and Wasm HAL for TEEs (UVC) Management service for TEE provisioning and initialisation, alongside with Wasm runtime that provides HAL and application deployment platform inside baremetal TEEs UVC will exploit results of ELASTIC in the domain of TEE initialisation, setup and monitoring, and especially in the domain of runtime HAL inside the TEE that will be Wasm-based. UVC will use those results in its product called Cocos AI, which is targeting secure multi-party computation for AI/ML. With the results from ELASTIC, product will become more lightweight and efficient, as the Linux kernel inside TEE will be replaced by the Wasm runtime, which will be sufficient for deploying various applications. Product will become more secure as well, as TCB inside of the enclave will diminish. eBPF/XDP monitoring of edge gateway network traffic and security (AMA) A component of opensource IoT platform that enhances edge gateway telemetry and network monitoring, adding lowlatency characteristics As a part of Mainflux open-source IoT platform, edge Agent and other services are used on edge gateways for their management and telemetry and network monitoring purposes, AMA is one of the authors and maintainers of the Mainflux platform and is using it in business solutions - for example to monitor oil & gas setups for big corporations. By using results from ELASTIC, AMA will improve the security of edge SW components and will add low-latency processing capabilities. Remote Attestations Platform A service that is able to provide a trusted remote attestation independently THD will exploit results of ELASTIC in the domain of remote attestation of confidential computing platforms and especially confidential virtual machines. With the result of ELASTIC, it will ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 49 - August 31, 2024 (THD, UVC) of the TEE technology and of the CSP be possible to execute a workload or a virtual machine on a public CSP while preventing the CSP and other users of the CSP to access the data and the program. The remote attestation platform will be designed to support any CSP (Google GCP, Microsoft Azure, etc.) and any TEE architecture (Intel SGX/TDX, AMD SEV, etc…). The remote attestation platform is a core asset to enable many other key exploitable assets of ELASTIC. UVC will also exploit advancements in remote attestation handling, specifically targeting unification over AMD SEV and Intel TDX architectures, and improving the library for attestation measurements and report generation as well as client tool that are the part of their Cocos AI collaborative computation platform. Federated Learning as a Service (TID) Federated Learning as a Service, executed in a heterogeneous, hierarchical, highly scalable and privacypreserving fashion on edge / resourceconstrained devices. TID envisions that through the ELASTIC project, and its various scalable, privacy-preserving ML methods, as well as serverless security-preserving methods built within the different components, will be able to improve existing services as well as offer new ones in both B2C and B2B manner, improving compliance with GDPR and related regulation, as well as go beyond mere compliance by offering even stronger privacy guarantees to all kind of users, from single individuals to large corporate customers involved in complex ML model training. In fact, such ML computation technologies developed within ELASTIC, and especially inference-attack free FL modelling as a Service, as well as security-hardened serverless computation, will be easily applicable to Telefonica’s B2B Services such as the Living Apps (which can support internal Telefonica Apps or external 3rd-party services), as well as the Smart Steps service from the LUCA platform. Also, privacy-preserving FL models could be trained on TID’s home devices, and queried in a privacy-preserving fashion from TID’s more than 300 B2B partners that it collaborates with for different proof of concept technological projects and demonstrations coming out of Telefonica's innovation funnels and other business unit. Light-weight security orchestration solution for edge devices (THS) A lightweight orchestration agent for security functions that is able to take into account the security service level agreements related to verticals and to orchestrate security functions of various service providers based on security policies. THS as a major actor of 5G security deeply involved in NFV security and active on Software defined security for 5G networks, targets to exploit the light-weight security orchestrator to first enrich the offering of the existing NIS Business Line. THS also plans to make use of the results in support of Internal Initiatives working on cloud-native platforms and functions for edge devices. Thales will work during project lifetime in close cooperation with entities interested by the work performed and disseminate the results through various internal channels to support wide adoption of outcomes from Research, Technological and Business perspectives. 5.4 Individual Exploitation In this section of the deliverable, the individual exploitation plans are detailed. These plans outline specific strategies and actions designed to maximise the utilisation and impact of the project's outcomes. Each plan is customised to meet the unique needs and objectives of different stakeholders, align with partner solutions, or support the organisation's mission and development goals. The exploitation plans aim to leverage the transparency and communication capabilities provided by ELASTIC technologies to promote sustainable practices, build trust, and encourage collaboration within the industry. By executing these individual exploitation plans, we can ensure that the benefits of the project are effectively realised and contribute to ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 50 - August 31, 2024 long-term positive change within the sector. The exploitation plans for project partners are as follows: ● TID: Telefonica is one of the largest telco providers, operating in 14 countries and serving more than 300 million end-user subscribers, and more than 5.5M B2B corporate customers of all sizes. Its latest focus is in 4 principal countries (Spain, Germany, UK and Brazil), in which Telefonica constantly releases new products and services, including AURA (built on the novel data strategy called "4th Platform"), LUCA and Living Apps. Telefonica envisions that through the ELASTIC project, and its various scalable, privacy-preserving, secured methods, modules and toolkits built within the different components, will be able to improve existing services as well as offer new ones in both B2C and B2B manner, improving compliance with GDPR and related regulation, as well as go beyond mere compliance by offering even stronger privacy guarantees to all kind of users, from single individuals to large corporate customers involved in complex ML model training. In fact, such ML computation technologies developed within ELASTIC will be easily applicable to Telefonica’s B2B Services such as the Living Apps (which can support internal Telefonica Apps or external 3rd-party services), as well as the Smart Steps service from the LUCA platform. Also, FL models built with a privacy-preserving fashion could be traded or shared across borders and 3rd party companies (e.g., other telcos, advertisers, etc.) via the Living Apps and the 4th Platform strategic effort of Telefonica. In particular, Telefonica has more than 300 B2B partners that it collaborates with for different proof of concept technological projects and demonstrations coming out of Telefonica's innovation funnels and other business units. Telefonica's LUCA, with its AI-powered decisions platform, has helped more than 75 companies and other organisations in different sectors such as retail, tourism, utilities, public administration, banking, transport, energy, etc., to deploy successful marketing, business and other corporate strategies. In addition, Telefonica invests a lot in business development, marketing and sales, and participates in the largest industrial events such as the Mobile World Congress of GSMA, to promote its new products and services across the globe. The various attack detection and mitigation components can be exploited by the telco's IT and security departments to identify incidents of data leakages and attacks monitoring network traffic and enhancing anomaly detection models and techniques. Finally, being part of such a large telecom operator, TID is especially interested in the novel edge/cloud data services built within ELASTIC, and how they could be applicable in both fixed and mobile environments, transferring results to the ElevenPaths business unit88 focused on cybersecurity B2B services. The work done within the project can provide guidelines for edge/cloud network planning, orchestration and design, as well as to understand trade-offs between resource and QoE for ELASTIC. ● ERS/ERF Ericsson is the driving force in the Digitalisation of Society - a world leader in communications technology and services. Ericsson’s services, software and infrastructure - especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud - are enabling the communications industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve user experience and capture new opportunities. The organisation within Ericsson that will be engaged in the project, called Ericsson Research, provides Ericsson with system concepts, technology and methodology to secure long-term competitive product provisioning. Ericsson is deploying 5G networks and capillary networks, which are technologies designed to bring global connectivity to all things, including noncellular radio devices. Ericsson will address TEE agnostic attestation, which is currently a pertinent issue in the context of adoption of Confidential Computing solutions in, e.g., ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 51 - August 31, 2024 telecom systems, and contribute to the experimental proof-of-concept prototype for observability of serverless WebAssembly workloads. Ericsson will also develop the IoT data fabric concept and implementation utilising the secure and efficient deployment capabilities developed in the ELASTIC project. ● THD/ THS: Thales DIS is a global leader in digital identity and security products. It offers to its customers a comprehensive portfolio of products and solutions to guarantee the security of data over the full life cycle. The technologies that will be developed by the ELASTIC will help reinforce the product offering in the area of securing data during processing in public clouds (HSM, Data at Protection at Rest, Key management, CipherTrust transparent Encryption), helping Thales solutions to comply with data privacy and data sovereignty regulations. THD will also leverage the technologies developed in WP4 of ELASTIC to create end to end privacy-preserving solutions for the IoT, leveraging the root of trust provided by its existing secure elements products for various markets (SIM/eSIM/iSIM for telecom market, eSE for banking market, etc). THS-Thales SIX is one of the world’s major actors in communication and security. The 6G architecture and all associated technologies are a key factor for the network of tomorrow. That is why THS is strongly involved in the ELASTIC project in order to take benefits for the next generation of communication infrastructure and to respond to the requirements that THS business lines have in terms of efficient deployment and orchestration of services and functions at the edge and far edge and dynamic scaling and optimisation of service delivery. THS targets to transfer research results to Business lines supporting the project with a special focus here on Network and Infrastructure Systems and confidential computing. Results coming from the project will be used to leverage and extend existing product and/or service offerings moving from 5G to 6G (with focus on mission-critical applications). In particular, THS will integrate ELASTIC into its professional 5G/Cybersecurity/Privacy service offerings. ● IMEC will expand its research and innovation activities in network and cloud orchestration, foster new national and international collaborations and pursue valorisation opportunities via licensing mechanisms, joint ventures and spin-off creation. ELASTIC will enforce IMEC’s position as a centre of expertise in cloud-native network and service management. The IMEC Internet Technology and Data Science Lab (IDLab) will include the resulting technologies in its university courses and labs, and in its doctoral training program. IMEC will expand its large-scale testbed offerings for experimental validation with the cloud technologies developed in ELASTIC. ● UVC is an SME oriented towards confidential computing and new paradigms of protecting data “in use” and their applications in the telecom, cloud and AI/ML domains. UVC is extensively working on the Cocos AI 16 platform, a confidential multiparty computation platform for training and using AI/ML algorithms on combined data sets from mutually distrusting parties. Over the years of development UVC faced a number of still unsolved challenges - especially handling of remote attestations and lightweight in-enclave runtimes. UVC plans to exploit these improvements from the ELASTIC project, but also to leverage on research that will be executed in the domain of Federated AI/ML. That way the distributed feature can be added to the CocosAI product. Additionally, optimised FHE and SMPC schemes developed in ELASTIC will be used to replace hardware-dependent components for use-cases where they can 16 Cocos AI - https://cocos.ai/ ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 52 - August 31, 2024 present a viable option. TEE abstractions are still immature, and UVC expects to develop a secure Software Management Agent throughout the ELASTIC project. This SMA would be capable of accepting secure TLS traffic and scheduling AI/ML workloads within the secure enclave. Because of this, an ELASTIC orchestration agent will be used, coupled with Wasm runtime and WASI support for secure networking. ● AMA is an SME behind the Mainflux IoT platform 17 , oriented towards IoT security and fine-grained access management. In order to increase the security and monitoring capabilities of its edge gateways, AMA will leverage on ELASTIC results in the domain of Wasm and especially eBPF/XDP technologies, incorporating these results into the Mainflux components and services. ● TUC is committed to actively promoting the commercial exploitation of R&D results through various strategies. These include offering services, licensing specific products to industrial partners, collaborating on joint product development, and engaging in startups, spin-offs, and joint ventures. To further leverage the innovative outcomes of the ELASTIC project, TUC plans to publish research achievements and innovations in peerreviewed journals and present them at international conferences, ensuring wide dissemination within the scientific community. Additionally, TUC will develop new courses based on the project results, integrating cutting-edge knowledge into the curriculum. TUC also plans to offer master’s and PhD thesis opportunities focused on topics related to ELASTIC, fostering further research and academic growth in these areas. ● AAL is a university with demonstrated excellence in computer science and engineering, especially in the field of information security, and has a history of collaboration with the telecom and information technology industries. ELASTIC provides an opportunity to develop this collaboration, not only with local but also with wider European industry, allowing AAL to develop new research and teaching programs that match the needs of industry, while exposing masters and Ph.D. students to real-world industrial concerns, and at the same time providing a venue by which ELASTIC's industrial partners can be exposed to and take advantage of new academic developments in networking, security, and cloud computing. ● LUN is a university with excellence in a broad range of fields and deep expertise in technical subjects. LUN will exploit the results of ELASTIC and the related tooling to validate the technology in a broad range of industrial use cases together with its technology partner CanaryBit AB. The target use cases for the application of the Automation tooling for confidential computing environments are telecom, automotive industry, cybersecurity monitoring services, and cloud computing providers. The automation tooling can also be contributed as a project under the umbrella of the Confidential Computing Consortium (an industry organisation defining confidential computing) in order to ensure its continued development. ● ZEN is an SME that operates in different verticals, with commercial solutions for Web 3.0, IoT and DLT. ZEN will exploit the knowledge gained in ELASTIC and integrate the resulting components and modules into the company’s existing solution. Most specifically, Wasm and Federated AI/ML will be deployed in the distributed multiparty 17 Mainflux - https://github.com/Mainflux/mainflux ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 53 - August 31, 2024 computation framework service. The service will be extended and offered to existing clients, as an upgraded service with licence including new features, as well as next client and markets that we want to target. Additional selling point will be the accommodation and fine-tuning of Zentrix's Distributed infrastructure for different verticals enriched with new Wasm lightweight nodes. ● POLITO is a large Technical University that will participate in ELASTIC with its NetGroup, a research group in the Department of Control and Computer Engineering with a strong background in the eBPF and XDP technologies and in formal methods. ELASTIC will be an opportunity for POLITO to further develop and expand its expertise in these areas, with a specialisation on their security-related aspects, and to consolidate its reputation in the corresponding research communities. The expertise acquired in ELASTIC will be exploited (1) in new research collaborations, (2) to provide consulting services to interested companies, (3) to elevate the coverage and quality of teaching in Master and PhD programs, and (4) to further strengthen the position of the recently established ArubaKube spin-off, a company that focuses on technology maturation and commercialisation of multi-cloud and edge-to-cloud continuum solutions. ELASTIC D6.1 HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023/№ 101139067 ELASTIC - 54 - August 31, 2024 6 Conclusion and next steps This document outlines a comprehensive strategy for effectively communicating the outcomes of the ELASTIC project to various target groups, with the goals of raising awareness and inspiring action. The dissemination and communication plan includes a wide range of methods to share results, such as the ELASTIC website, guidelines, training materials, flyers, brochures, peer-reviewed publications, non-scientific publications, videos, blogs, webinars, conferences, workshops, newsletters, email campaigns, and open access repositories for research. The plan emphasises the importance of forming focus groups with external experts from different target groups to deepen their involvement with the ELASTIC project. Additionally, the communication strategy involves developing and executing campaigns to promote the project and its achievements, utilising existing networks and ecosystems to ensure effective communication. The ELASTIC website will serve as a central hub for disseminating project information, providing a platform for sharing updates, engaging with target audiences, and enhancing project visibility. The plan also highlights the use of social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, enabling researchers to connect with peers, exchange ideas, and disseminate their work. Furthermore, the document addresses the exploitation strategy, which will evolve alongside scientific and technological progress, and be based on both collective and individual exploitation activities. The final version of the exploitation plan will deliver a robust strategy for sustaining the partners' outcomes beyond the project's completion. It is important to note that the dissemination, communication, and exploitation plans are dynamic documents that will be continuously updated to reflect the project's progress. They will be adjusted as needed to enhance and expand the project's outreach to target groups, ensuring effective communication of the ELASTIC vision.