Joint European Disruptive Initiative

The Joint  European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI) is a European funding agency aiming at promoting disruptive technologies. It funds innovation in different "missions" (environment and energy, healthcare, education, digital, space, and oceans),^[1] with the goal of bringing "Europe in a leadership position in breakthrough technologies".^[2][3] It organizes scientific competitions focused on disruptive technologies.^[4] JEDI also makes policy recommendations to strengthen European technology sovereignty.^[5] As of 2024^[update], JEDI was funding the projects of over 6,000 researchers in 29 countries across Europe and the world. It is operated independently from any European governments with funding from foundations, companies, individuals and public institutions.^[6]

Joint European Disruptive Initiative

Type	Funding agency
Headquarters	Paris, France
President	André Loesekrug-Pietri
Website	https://www.jedi.foundation

JEDI was inspired by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency),^[7] the technology research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense. JEDI calls itself a "precursor" to a European advanced research projects agency.^[6]

Research on Covid-19

The Joint European Disruptive Initiative launched its first "Darpa-type GrandChallenge"^[8] on Covid-19 on May 5, 2020.^[9] The competition consisted in screening "billions of molecules with blocking interactions on SARS-CoV-2" to develop a drug against the coronavirus — with each participant having to use at least three different calculation methods for the simulations.^[10] The foundation claims to have had approximately 54 billions of molecules screened ^[11] and 878 of them being synthesized. A paper published in Nature showed that the protein PDB 6W9C was one of the most used in silico drug design against Covid-19.^[12]

References

1. Loesekrug-Pietri, Andre. "Breaking the Wall to European Tech Sovereignty | Falling Walls". Falling Walls. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
2. "The Next Generation of Climate Innovation". BCG Global. 2021-03-11. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
3. Maward, Marie (5 June 2020). "Meet JEDI: Europe's equivalent to DARPA?". Sifted. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
4. Largue, Pamela (2021-03-02). "JEDI - a force to be reckoned with". Power Engineering International. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
5. "Foresight". JEDI (Joint  European Disruptive Initiative) Foundation. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
6. "About". JEDI (Joint European Disruptive Initiative) Foundation. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
7. "Europe and AI: Leading, Lagging Behind, or Carving Its Own Way?". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
8. "20 Years After 9/11: Achievements and Challenges of EU Counter-Terrorism Efforts" (PDF). Council of the European Union. 8 July 2021.
9. McKee, Selina (2020-05-05). "JEDI launches billion molecules against COVID19 challenge". PharmaTimes. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
10. "Austrians as finalists in the biggest programme searching for drugs against COVID-19". investinaustria.at. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
11. "Billion Molecules". JEDI Foundation. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
12. Croll, Tristan I.; Diederichs, Kay; Fischer, Florens; Fyfe, Cameron D.; Gao, Yunyun; Horrell, Sam; Joseph, Agnel Praveen; Kandler, Luise; Kippes, Oliver; Kirsten, Ferdinand; Müller, Konstantin (10 May 2021). "Making the invisible enemy visible". Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 28 (5): 404–408. doi:10.1038/s41594-021-00593-7. ISSN 1545-9985. PMC 8340564. PMID 33972785.