On September 19, 2024, the 6G-NTN consortium members gathered to present the overall project progress and the first technical and scientific achievements to the European Commission. The whole-day meeting gathered all project partners, the 6G-NTN Project Officer, Oana Radu, and three experts appointed by the European Commission, namely Carmen Guerrero, Alistair Munro, and Berna Ozbek.
During the meeting, Alessandro Vanelli-Coralli, the 6G-NTN Project Coordinator (University of Bologna), Nicolas Chuberre, the Technical Project Coordinator (Thales Alenia Space France), and all 6G-NTN Work Package leaders (UniBo, Orange, CTTC, Thales Six Gts France SAS, and Martel), presented the work performed in the first 18 months of the project, including submitted deliverables and published research results. Plans for the remaining 18 months of the project, including exploitation possibilities and strategies to maximize the impact of 6G-NTN were also presented. Throughout the presentations, the consortium emphasized its collaborative approach, highlighting both internal and external liaisons. Each presentation was followed by an interactive Q&A session, during which the Project Officer and Reviewers asked follow-up questions and provided the consortium with valuable feedback.
During the final feedback session, the Project Officer and Reviewers expressed their appreciation for the high quality of the delivered presentations, commenting on the strong collaboration between partners and the alignment across project tasks. They emphasized the importance of maintaining this level of teamwork moving forward and encouraged the consortium to put a strong focus on the project’s market impact to ensure that innovations are aligned with industry needs. The review meeting concluded on a highly positive note, further strengthening the consortium’s commitment to leading the effort of promoting the integration of the NTN as a native component of 6G.
As stated by Alessandro Vanelli-Coralli, the 6G-NTN Project Coordinator, “A project review is an essential part of any EC-funded project, offering the consortium an excellent opportunity to present the achievements and gather valuable feedback from the funding agency and the appointed experts. We are very happy we had the opportunity to gather at the DLR premises to jointly present midterm results to the Commission. We are also proud to say that thanks to the work conducted in the last 18 months, 6G-NTN is now recognized as a flagship European research project on the NTN component of 6G.” Complementing these remarks, Nicolas Chuberre, the Technical Project Coordinator added, “We would like to thank the Commission, which gave us this unique opportunity to bring together the terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks stakeholders to create an impactful R&D project that is shaping the future of NTN in 6G. As mentioned earlier by our project partner, Eduardo Lins de Medeiros of Ericsson Sweden, ‘this is the first time the two ecosystems are working together delivering highly-impactful results and we are glad to be a part of this important undertaking.’”
