Press Kit

Short (50 words)

COSA — Collaborative Framework for Smart Agriculture — is a 36-month research project at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (CUNBM Baia Mare), funded under Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan. COSA builds an IoT-based environment for smart agriculture, validated through three real-world use cases: crop yield prediction with land bonitation, aerial crop monitoring with precision treatment, and a local producer marketplace.

Medium (150 words)

The Collaborative Framework for Smart Agriculture (COSA) aims to build a complex Internet of Things environment for smart agricultural applications throughout their entire lifecycle. COSA enables the devices of various actors — farmers with field sensors, suppliers with fleet-management systems, producers with order pipelines — to connect and provide data for complete chain optimisation. Coordinated by Prof. Dr. José António Barata de Oliveira and operationally led by Prof. Dr. Habil. Eng. Oliviu Matei at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, the project runs from July 2023 to June 2026, with a total budget of 7,091,752.82 RON funded under Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR-III-C9-2022-I8). The COSA team — currently 20 researchers including 8 postdoctoral researchers and 7 PhD students — has produced 30 publications including 6 in Q1 journals, and three public platforms that anyone can use today.

Long (500 words)

The Collaborative Framework for Smart Agriculture (COSA) is a 36-month research project running from July 2023 to June 2026, hosted by the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca at its North University Center of Baia Mare. With a total budget of 7,091,752.82 RON funded under Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR-III-C9-2022-I8), COSA brings together computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians to address one of the most strategic challenges of the European Union: the modernisation of agriculture through digital technologies, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

The project director is Prof. Dr. José António Barata de Oliveira (Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon), an internationally recognised expert in intelligent manufacturing, complexity engineering, cyber-physical systems and evolvable production systems. Operations and day-to-day coordination are led by Prof. Dr. Habil. Eng. Oliviu Matei, who supervises the doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers that make up the COSA team.

The COSA framework is structured around five work packages: Project Management (WP1), Conceptualization (WP2), Research & Development (WP3), Verification & Validation (WP4) and Dissemination & Exploitation (WP5). Its scientific core combines federated learning methodologies for privacy-preserving distributed analysis with knowledge translation through ontologies and knowledge graphs, all integrated in a hexagonal Edge–Cloud architecture suitable for Agriculture 4.0 deployments.

The framework is validated through three real-world use cases. Use Case 1, Crop Yield Prediction and Land Bonitation, combines soil studies, GIS technologies and machine learning to evaluate land potential dynamically, including a publicly available GIS application for adaptive land bonitation. Use Case 2, Aerial Crop Monitoring, uses drones equipped with multispectral cameras together with deep-learning classification models to detect crop diseases, pests and nutrient deficiencies — validated in partnership with two Maramureș farms: Fermierul Moroșan (organic tomato greenhouses) and Morile Mătieș (170 ha of cereals). Use Case 3, Local Producer Marketplace, is a public digital platform that connects local producers with consumers in the Baia Mare region, while serving simultaneously as a real-world testbed for vehicle-routing and supply-chain optimisation research.

As of 31 March 2026, the project has already exceeded most of its scientific targets. Total publications reached 30 (vs. 24 target), with 6 of them in Q1 journals — meeting the most demanding indicator of the proposal. The team includes 20 researchers (target 14), among them 8 postdocs (target 4) and 7 PhD students (target 5). Three Horizon Europe project proposals have reached the funding threshold, and four national R&D submissions have been made. Three public platforms are live and three Use Cases have been delivered, exceeding the original target of two.

Daniela Delinschi — Visibility & Communication

For media enquiries, interviews and collaborations, please contact the project's communication officer. For research-oriented questions, contact the operational lead directly.

Operational lead (research): Prof. Dr. Habil. Eng. Oliviu Matei — oliviu.matei@ieec.utcluj.ro