6G IA Working Groups

The 6G-IA VSC WG develops a comprehensive scientific, technological and socio-economic vision for the Smart Network and Services Joint Undertaking in general and for the upcoming next generation mobile system in particular. VSC WG maintains a high-level technology roadmap, formulating a holistic view of the future networks, systems and their typical environments. It engages the expert communities within the 6G-IA, in the running SNS JU research projects, but also from SNS JU partner organizations like Networld Europe, NESSI and AIOTI. In other words, in addition to the technology development as such, a particular accent of the work in the VSC WG lies on the socio-economic interactions between the actual technological system and its ecosystem. While we identify relevant open research topics paving the way to the realization of the formulated vision and service concepts, we also formulate key performance indicators (KPIs) for the functional and, whenever possible, extra-functional properties. We study suitable economic models for all realizations and services, validate the latter as the technology matures over time and try to understand the value of the proposed system to the society as a whole. With this, we try to analyze societal acceptance on the one hand and develop key value indicators (KVIs), i.e. estimation of the value of the technology for the society, on the other.

Through its work VSC WG directly contributes to the SNS JU work programmes for the different phases. To be aware of and to be able to handle potential overlaps with national research initiatives within the EU member states, we involve a network of rapporteurs and produce a yearly report on the relevant research activities in each member state (research, validation, platforms, trials).

The Vision WG consists of 4 Sub-groups, namely:

• Smart networks and services vision sub-group (SNSV SG) develops the technological vision of the future mobile communication system. It analyzes new technologies, approaches and methods promising for the 6G research at large. For this reason, SNSV often interacts with the expert community of the NetworldEurope ETP.
• Business Validation, Models, and Ecosystem sub-group (BVME SG) is working on business validation, modeling and economical aspects of the existing and future technologies; it studies and analyzes impact of (new) technologies on the economic aspects within the current business ecosystem and vs., i.e. how economics can help technology, how changes in business would be beneficial, etc.
• Societal Needs and Value Creation sub-group (SNVC SG) looks for how 6G will be beneficial for all other players on the market, including the society at large. SNVC analyzes societal acceptance on the one hand and develops key value indicators (KVIs), i.e. estimation of the value of the technology for the society, on the other.
• Member State Initiatives in 5G/6G sub-group (MSI SG) regularly verifies which important aspects of 6G research are covered and to what extent (and how) within the research programmes and initiatives of the Member States. It produces yearly member state report.

The Open SNS WG promotes and supports the evaluation, adoption, deployment, and evolution of open solutions for 5G and beyond 5G/6G networks. One of the first tasks of the WG is to promote and support the evaluation, adoption, deployment, and evolution of open, disaggregated, intelligent and fully interoperable networks as a key technology for future mobile networks (5G and beyond). For this, the Working Group is aiming to bridge the open initiatives in the industrial domain with the ongoing or planned R&D and standardization work (3GPP, O-RAN Alliance…), bringing together subject matter experts from the academy (university, research institutes, etc.) and industry (operators, vendors, SMEs, verticals, etc.), aiming to accelerate the development of a EU wide open ecosystem of technologies that will include hardware equipment and software-defined, virtualized, and automated solutions.
Different open network sub-domains will be considered as part of this working group including Radio Access Networks (RAN), transport, non-terrestrial networks (NTN), platforms, core and services where different members will have the capability to debate and interact on the specific topics that those domains may have.

The overall objectives of the Trials WG are as follows:

• To develop a 5G, 5G Advanced and 6G European Trial Roadmap and leverage the knowledge gained for upcoming trial roadmaps beyond 5G/6G systems to be addressed in the context of Smart Networks and Services (SNS) partnership in Horizon Europe.
• To facilitate the involvement of verticals in the Trials roadmap.
• To discuss and define business principles underpinning the economic viability of trials.
• To consider and coordinate the activity on trials and verticals with other relevant initiatives at the international level.
• To investigate and propose how to link trials to upcoming calls for project proposals to be addressed in the context of the Horizon Europe (HEU) SNS Partnership.
• To increase the visibility of the trials and pilots carried out by SNS projects.
• To keep track and disseminate to the broadest possible audience the work on verticals done by EU-funded projects.
• To support the development of European strategic research and innovation agenda and liaise preparation of SNS work programmes in relation to trials and experimentations.
• To facilitate the transfer of the developed and experimented solutions to the market using the Digital Innovation Hub (Digital Europe Program)

Given the broad scope of its activities, the Trials WG is organized in several streams or sub-working groups, namely:

• 5G Private Trials / Observatory stream
• 5G and towards 6G Verticals stream
• 5G Trials Cities stream
• 5G International Cooperation stream
• Smart Connectivity Digital Innovation Hub stream

The main objectives of the Pre-STandardization WG are:

• To identify standardization and regulatory bodies to align with e.g. ETSI, 3GPP, IEEE and other relevant standards bodies, ITU-R (incl. WPs) and WRC (including e.g. ECC PT1).
• To develop a roadmap of relevant standardization and regulatory topics for 6G: Evaluate existing roadmaps at the international level; Propose own roadmap for 6G being aligned at the international level.
• To influencing pre-standardization on 6G and related R&D: Potentially propose where topics should be standardized; Influence timing on R&D work programs (e.g. EC WPs)

This Working Group (WG) group focuses on 5G and beyond for Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM). It aims to become a meeting point and knowledge base for all activities related to CAM from a connectivity perspective, with a particular focus on 5G and beyond technologies. Among others, its participants represent those partners active in R&I projects funded by the European Commission where there is a particular focus or interest in CAM use cases and deployment. This group constitutes a fundamental element between the 6G-IA and the CCAM community.

The overarching objectives are threefold:

• Work in a coordinated manner on 6G Security with a clear focus on areas of shared interest (e.g. 6G Security architecture, 6G threats and the solutions to get them tackled, 6G security automation …) fostering new concepts and paradigms (e.g. Software-defined Security, Security as a service) while taking advantage of recent advances in all relevant disciplines (e.g. AI).
• Exchange ideas on the design of the security solutions (also relevant Standards and/or SDOs that apply) with the aim of getting them agreed upon and made interoperable.
• Work on validation and/or adoption of the security solutions (in terms of usage to date and or to come).

The aim is thus to bring together the projects within the 6G SNS-IA that have a common interest in the development and progression of topics related to 6G security. The group will ensure, to as great an extent as possible, that the projects are working in a complimentary manner towards consistent goals, exchanging ideas, minimizing the duplication of effort, contributing towards relevant standards and where possible cooperating on the development of compatible components, demonstrators, the exchange of expertise, experience and results.

This WG group focuses on promoting gender equality, inclusion, and empowerment in the 6G Research & Innovation (R&I) community. The “Women in Telecommunications and Research (WiTaR)” group was initiated as part of the European-founded flagship project, Hexa-X in February 2021 and then was expanded for the participation of the whole 5G PPP community in June 2021. The key purpose of this group is to step forward into closing gender gaps and increasing women’s participation in as many social fields as possible in the 6G R&I community. The road to gender equality is still a very long one. This clearly captures the European industry and academia’s need for a major change in relation to their policies that should be implemented in the direction of closing the gender gap.