BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN HORIZONS THROUGH TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION OF ITS NCP SUPPORT STRUCTURES

The NCP systems are support structures established by MS and AC and recognized by the European Commission in order to help participants to access the different EU Programme opportunities. For Horizon 2020 (H2020) there are 21 NCP defined functions apart from the NCP coordinator, giving support to participants across the different parts of H2020. In order to ensure cooperation among NCPs from different countries, improve mutual learning between them and develop dedicated tools and services for participants, the European Commission has historically funded the NCPs through NCP networks CSA projects, in variable geometry of partners, covering typically one NCP “function” per project and renewing it, with a follow-on project, approximately at the middle of each Framework programme.  Taking advantage that the current H2020 NCP network projects finalize at the end of 2020 and the new NCP network projects will not start at least until Q3 of 2021, this project, under the leadership of the national NCP coordinators has a unique window of opportunity to lead the effective integration of the NCP systems into a coherent frame of work for Horizon Europe. Our project, Bridge2HE, is the agreed response of 22 NCP host organizations across Europe to the challenge of an efficient transition to Horizon Europe, both from the NCP systems’ perspective but also from the support to participants’ perspective. Our project does not only enable a degree of continuity to the current NCP structures and network coordination but also it goes a step further making a real integration of the NCP networks offer under a common portal, the Horizon Europe NCP Portal.  During this transition Bridge2HE will implement more than 20 training activities; tools and services for NCPs and applicants; 6 big brokerage events; 2 full proposal checks events; 2 NCPs Workshops for the continuous improvement of the NCP system and a number of special activities to push the low participant countries.


ADS-C ENables and Supports Improved ATM Operations

The proposal is part of the general principle of Trajectory Based Operations, aiming at improving various features of Air Traffic Control thanks to a better anticipation of how flights would behave.  During the execution of a flight, major elements to feed an accurate and reliable trajectory prediction -or alternate scenarios- can be provided by the aircraft itself. These elements can be: wind conditions, speed schedule or the trajectory prediction computed by the aircraft navigation system itself, which consists in a suite of positions, altitude and time (“4 Dimensions”).  Some aircraft operated by European airlines already have the capacity to send those elements via a datalink communication application.  The objectives of the proposal are to demonstrate both:  ·        the improvements that can be achieved in many common operational situations that Air Traffic Controllers have to manage, and  ·        the efficiency and robustness of a technological infrastructure to support the datalink communications between the aircraft and various ground consumers for trajectory related exchanges.  Implementation of technical and operational solutions will primarily induce a reduction of Controllers’ workload in high traffic condition, hence enhancing airspace capacity. Another effect resulting from earlier and assisted Controllers decision will allow to reduce flight delays, fuel burn and CO2 emissions. They are key to reach the target set for aviation industry in the perspective of reducing its environmental impact.  PJ38 continues previous SESAR initiatives and is the main contributor to prepare the industrial implementation as required by the Common Project #1. The associated implementing rule demands by 2027:  ·        the European Air Navigation Service Providers’ ground systems to be capable to make use of aircraft trajectory data  ·        45% of flights in Europe to have the capacity to share trajectory.


The sense of urgency for a rapid sustainable transformation of our cities has never been greater. There is an increasing need to stake out pathways for such a transition, to reach acceptance of the need for transformation and enabling capacity building. The current approaches to target urban challenges and meet different international goals are often fragmented and incoherent as they are based on different ambitions and understandings of how cities and urban areas operate.   Research and innovation contribute with evidence on how to address urban dilemmas, while supporting capacity building for urban transformation and turning wicked issues into synergistic potential.  This needs to be supported by aligning ongoing related initiatives and activities, as well as building upon existing knowledge in order to achieve stronger synergies towards greater impact.   ENUTC aims at pooling resources from 16 participating research programme owners / managers of 14 countries to implement joint actions, including one main call and one additional call for proposals, in the area of urban transformation capacities.   The objectives of ENUTC are to:   1)	To enable capacity building in research, business, city administration and society for urban transformation;  2)	To support integrated approaches and solutions for sustainable urban development for the three topics of ENUTC: Urban circular economies, community-based developments and urban innovation ecosystems, and robust and resilient urban infrastructure and the built environment;   3)	To support transnational, pan-European research networking, community building and ensure synergies;  4)     To support activities which have a clear impact on transnational and evidence-based urban policies; 5)	To support research and innovation, which make a clear progress to reaching targets of the international policies, goals and missions;

Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials


Copenhagen Airport: a Lighthouse for the introduction of sustainable aviation solutions for the future

The ALIGHT project will address the global need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air emissions in order to adapt to climate change and promote a sustainable future. It will do so through the development and demonstration of two sustainable solutions to be implemented in Copenhagen Airport (the Lighthouse airport), namely 1) the supply, implementation, integration and smart use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and 2) the development, integration and implementation of smart energy system (including renewable energy sources, energy storage and energy management). On the SAF side, ALIGHT will tackle a current challenge, namely the smart, sustainable and cost effective handling of SAF in the operational context of a major airport. The project will address the SAF chain from procurement to integration and demonstration and ensure compliance with all relevant criteria, including sustainability. Within the area of smart energy, ALIGHT will address the full chain from system mapping, energy supply (including renewable energy, energy storage and geothermal energy), smart energy management to planning and demonstration in passenger transport, ground handling equipment and buildings (including heating, cooling and electricity). Field performance monitoring will be performed on aircraft exhaust-, vehicle- and air quality level. Sustainability and the reduction of GHG and other air emissions will be addressed throughout, and all components will be subject to relevant sustainability requirements. ALIGHT will bring forward the necessary solutions, knowledge, guidelines and best practice recommendations in comprehensivWith the Lighthouse project, CPH as Lighthouse with two fellow airports, will demonstrate energy-efficient, climate-friendly, fossil-free and smart solutions in preparation for upcoming massive investments in, among other things. infrastructure for biokerosene airplane fuel and electrification of vehicles and machines both in- and outside the airport.


VALSTYBINIS MOKSLINIU TYRIMU INSTITUTAS FIZINIU IR TECHNOLOGIJOS MOKSLU CENTRAS

Terahertz Photonics for Communications, Space, Security, Radio-Astronomy, and Material Science

The overarching objective of TERAOPTICS is to provide high-level training in the field of THz Photonics to a new generation of high achieving early stage researchers to provide them an inspiring research program and intellectual, scientific, technical and transferable skills trainings to enhance their career opportunities in academia and industry and to create the new generation of excellent, creative and risk-taking researchers and engineers. This goal will be achieved by a unique, internationally renowned, interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial network of academic and non-academic beneficiaries and partners providing both formal (workshop-style) and informal (hands-on) research training in a most stimulating professional environment, non-academic placements and scientific conferences.


INcreasing safety in NPPs by Covering gaps in Environmental Fatigue Assessment - focusing on gaps between laboratory data and component SCALE

The objective is to continue work, advancing ability to predict lifetimes of Nuclear Plant components when subjected to Environmental Assisted Fatigue loading.  Over the five years proposed for INCEFA-SCALE, EPRI in the USA is leading a series of component scale environmental fatigue tests.  These are expected to advance data availability significantly; however, advances in addressing transferability of laboratory scale tests to real component geometries and loadings will still be constrained by limited test data.  This knowledge gap is recognised worldwide as significant.  INCEFA-SCALE will generate significantly increased understanding of the transferability of laboratory scale test data to component scale.  The project strategy will be (1) the development of comprehensive mechanistic understanding developed through detailed examination of test specimens and MatDB data mining, and (2) testing focussed on particular aspects of component scale cyclic loading.  Examples of tests possible include, uniaxial specimens with notches (to address complex loads), membrane tests (to address biaxiality), thermo-mechanical tests (to address thermal cycling and thermal gradient effects), and complex wave tests (to address real plant transient effects).  The project will begin by “data mining” to extract maximum understanding from the vast amount of test data within JRC’s MatDB database (from the predecessor INCEFA-PLUS project, and from other external sources such as USNRC, EPRI, MHI and the AdFaM project).  In parallel the test program needs will be agreed.  Testing will commence after one year and run for 3 years.  Finally, the project will deliver guidance on use of laboratory scale data for component scales.  Industrial support, is demonstrated by over €3M matching funds and positive endorsements from EPRI, ENEN and NUGENIA.  EC support will enable maximum consistency and coordination of testing and assessment.


Promoting & implementing joint programming to reinforce transnational research for the conservation and restoration of degraded ecosystems and their biodiversity, including a focus on aquatic systems

Many of the European and world's ecosystems undergo degradation of terrestrial, aquatic and transitional ecosystems with nMany of the European and world's ecosystems undergo degradation of terrestrial, aquatic and transitional ecosystems with negative impacts on biological diversity and people’s livelihoods. In this context, research actions are needed to ensure the protection and/or restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity whilst meeting the socio-economic, political and cultural needs of current and future generations. By networking 34 funding agencies from 27 countries from Europe & other continents, BiodivRestore aims to promote coordinated international research on conservation and restoration of degraded ecosystems and their biodiversity, in all environments, including a focus on aquatic systems. It will strengthen research & research programmes coordination to support  science-based evidence for the implementation of a relatively wide range of European and International policy initiatives and therefore act for better management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity. This will notably be achieved by launching two calls (one co-funded by the European Commission) for proposals, promoting research collaboration across national borders & disciplines and by supporting dialogue & collaboration between academia & stakeholders, and stakeholder engagement in research projects in order to increase the impact of research on policy & practice. BiodivRestore will also contribute to networking, clustering and capacity building activities for the research community in the field and enhanced synergy coordination between RDI funding programmes (national, EU, International) in the relevant research fields. Lastly, BiodivRestore will contribute to reinforce the links between BiodivERsA and the WATER JPI, to enhance their collaboration for issues at the crossroad of water resources, aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity sustainable management.


Multi-Agent Systems for Pervasive Artificial Intelligence for assisting Humans in Modular Production Environments

European industry has been very competitive on the global markets by utilizing highly efficient Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and massively producing high quality products. The advent for mass customization has been stressing the capability of modularization and flexibility of production processes through the incorporation of AI technologies. However, the communication between the different automation systems has not been yet accomplished efficiently since they lack interoperability and are restricted to their own system of coordination. The MAS4AI proposal proposes a system that allows the deployment and synchronization of different AI agents in manufacturing for autonomous modular production and human assistance. The MAS4AI system will be heavily driven by large industrial cases and will aim towards digitalising European industry with AI tools according to the Industry 4.0 paradigm. MAS4AI will develop its overall ambition by the means of four Scientific and Technological objectives namely: a) Multi-Agents-System (MAS) for distributing AI components in different hierarchy layers, customers and suppliers for realising refurbishment activities, b) AI agents using Knowledge-based Representation with Semantic Web Technologies, c) AI Agents for hierarchical planning of production processes, d) model-based Machine Learning (ML) AI agent. MAS4AI research and technological activity will be strongly driven by a set of industrial use cases which will be then used as demonstrators. The demonstrators involve important industrial sectors of high value added for Europe, namely AI technologies used for automotive, contract manufacturing, bicycle industry, bearings production and wood processing industry.

Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies (LEIT)


While the electrical grid is moving from being a fully centralized to a highly decentralized system, grid operators have to change their operative business to accommodate for faster reactions and adaptive exploitation of flexibility. The topic has been subject of several research projects in the past years and reached a maturity that allows now the consideration of a final level, proposing an integrated view on the grid operations beyond the traditional barriers. OneNet aims at performing this critical step creating the conditions for a new generation of grid services able to fully exploit demand response, storage and distributed generation while creating fair, transparent and open conditions for the consumer. As result, while creating one network of Europe, the project aims to build a customer centric approach to grid operation. This ambitious view is achieved by proposing new markets, products and services and by creating a unique IT architecture. While a single platform for Europe is not thinkable, OneNet proposes innovative mechanisms of platform federation which are the key technical enablers for the proposed vision. The project has also very ambitious exploitation goals aiming at creating consensus on the solution far beyond the limits of the consortium partners thanks to a variety of actions including a large-scale forum for discussion within the international energy community. The complete concept is also proven in 4 cluster demos creating an involvement of an unprecedented number of countries and their grid operators in a single project.  The consortium, in addition to a significant list of grid operators, includes also key IT players, leading research institutions and the two most relevant associations for grid operators, jointly providing a unique set of expertise in support to these challenging tasks.


A novel decentralized edge-enabled PREsCriptivE and ProacTive framework for increased energy efficiency and well-being in residential buildings

PRECEPT ambitiously aims to set the grounds for the deployment and operation of proactive residential buildings. The proposed framework introduces a “plug-n-play” Pred(scr)ictive and Proactive building energy management system (PP-BMS) installed locally at building level, at the Edge-Enable Proactiveness (EEP) device. The proposed PP-BMS is self-adapted, self-learned, -managed, -monitored, -healing and -optimized, requiring no (or minimum) installation costs and no maintenance. PP-BMS transform traditional reactive buildings to proactive ones, increasing their performance (both energy efficiency and occupants’ well-being), exploiting RES, storage, forecasts and energy tariffs. PRECEPT also targets to the development of a real-time digital representation of the intelligent proactive residential buildings by employing 6D BIM technology. Further to that, a set of novel indicators leveraging on the smart readiness rationale will be introduced for rating the Smart Proactiveness of buildings. The proposed indicators will enable the introduction of a reliable framework under which the comparative assessment of the level of smartness and proactiveness of buildings can be regulated and assessed. Also, PRECEPT approach will deliver advanced data visualizations, utilizing big-data and visual analytics techniques, which in conjunction with a social collaboration platform will engage stakeholders to exchange best-practices. Interaction with the grid will be supported in a secured (Hyperledger Fabric) manner through the decentralized EEP device, supporting the implementation of D/R strategies. To maximize its potential impact, PRECEPT demonstrates novel sustainable business models for rendering traditional reactive buildings to proactive buildings that go beyond the energy-related benefits and cost-optimal analysis but include occupants’ well-being, and other services. PRECEPT framework will be demonstrated in relevant environments in 5 use cases, including 250 apartments.


Fracture mechanics testing of irradiated RPV steels by means of sub-sized specimens (FRACTESUS).  The European Union has defined clear short and long term objectives to achieve its energy transition towards sustainable energy and climate neutral economy by 2050. The success of this transition relies on the combination of energy efficiency and low carbon energy in all sectors of the economy. In particular, the industry and transport sector will need to rely more heavily on electricity to achieve this goal.  In all electricity mix scenarios up to 2050, one needs to rely on one or a combination of existing nuclear power plants, long term operation, new nuclear build and future nuclear systems. Safety and operability of any nuclear systems heavily relies on a defense in depth strategy where the integrity of structural material plays an essential role. Due to material availability and/or irradiation constraints, the use of small size specimen to obtain reliable measurement of the resistance to fracture is needed by the nuclear industry to comply with the amended Nuclear Safety Directive. Small size specimen fracture toughness measurement has already been shown possible. However, some effort is still requested to achieve European regulatory acceptance of this approach. The goal of this project is to join European and International effort to establish the foundation of small specimen fracture toughness validation and demonstration to achieve change in code and standards allowing to address the various national regulatory authority concerns.  FRACTESUS is involving in a very early stage regulatory bodies, code and standardization committee, the industry and the international community in order for the consortium to optimize available resources and expertise.


Twinning for Promoting Excellence, Ability and Knowledge to develop advanced waste gasification Solutions

The Lithuanian Energy Institute (LEI) and Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) plan to establish an association to foster the uptake of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) research and innovation in Lithuania and engage the country in pan-European collaborative efforts on this topic. To ensure its success, both institutions need to increase their research excellence in the topic of WtE and develop international networks. To this end, LEI and VMU propose TWIN-PEAKS, a Horizon 2020 Twinning project with the Technical University of Munich (Germany), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) and WIP Renewable Energies GmbH & Co. KG (Germany). TWIN-PEAKS is based on the development of a joint-research strategy between the partners, the pooling of their research infrastructure, the transfer of scientific knowledge and know-how on WtE research and innovation, the building of academic and non-academic networks, the outreach to end-users of WtE solutions, and a plan for joint-applications for research grants to fund further research projects involving the consortium. It is expected that this Twinning collaboration will increase the research excellence of LEI and VMU, build capacities to form the critical mass of researchers in WtE in Lithuania, develop the international networks of LEI and VMU, increase the production and exploitation of intellectual property, grow the opportunities for collaborations with the industry, and allow LEI and VMU to contribute to national and international efforts for increasing the use of renewable energy through the WtE association to be create by LEI and VMU at the end of TWIN-PEAKS.


all-in-one machine for hybrid technologies enabling high value added multi-scale integrated micro.optoelectronics

The new emerging generation of microsystems represents a major opportunity for a substantial EU economic growth, in an industry counting already more than 200.000 workers and a turnover in 2019 of €450 billion. The Mesomorph concept provides the means to overcome the following 4 main hurdles: 1.	The intrinsic physic of microsystems doesn’t allow the simple downsizing of conventional technologies to industrialize micromanufacturing processes. Mesomorphallows to limit the number of micromanipulation tasks by integrating an all-in-onemachine featuring novel processes for the direct creation of functions (electronic, fluidic, optic) directly on a substrate, with a RESOLUTION down to 300nm, by combining multi-material addition (Two-Photon Polymerization, Atomic Layer 3D nano printing) and subtraction (Femtolaser micro-ablation) in a self-contained white room. 2.	Because of the intrinsic slowness of physical processes at microscale, productivity cannot be achieved by sequencing multiple single steps. Mesomorph proposes a scaleup throughput by PARALLELIZATION and batch processing UP TO 50k PARTS/YEAR, leveraging a new multiple micronozzles system to extend the SADALP working area from 10x10mm up to 500x500mm, and concurrently leveraging on the beam splitting technique of a high-power fs laser for ablation. 3.	Microsystems cannot be conceived with subcomponents. Mesomorph includes a specific Design-to-Lifevalue Platform to guide the development of new microsystems by fully exploiting the new processes. 4.	Innovation cannot be limited by the financial risk associated with the necessary investments. Mesomorph implements a new “Manufacturing as a Service” business model in which all the value chain’s actors can benefit from a positive net cash flow since production's start, effectively removing entry barriers for innovators. Mesomorph consortium is composed of 13 partners from 5 different countries. Each partner represents excellence in its own field.


An AI Platform integrating imaging data and models, supporting precision care through prostate cancer’s continuum

In Europe, prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most frequent type of cancer in men and the third most lethal. Current clinical practices, often leading to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of indolent tumors, suffer from lack of precision calling for advanced AI models to go beyond SoA by deciphering non-intuitive, high-level medical image patterns and increase performance in discriminating indolent from aggressive disease, early predicting recurrence and detecting metastases or predicting effectiveness of therapies. To date  efforts are fragmented, based on single–institution, size-limited and vendor-specific datasets while available PCa public datasets (e.g. US TCIA) are only few hundred cases making model generalizability impossible. The ProCAncer-I project brings together 20 partners, including PCa centers of reference, world leaders in AI and innovative SMEs, with recognized expertise in their respective domains, with the objective to design, develop and sustain a cloud based, secure European Image Infrastructure with tools and services for data handling.  The platform hosts the largest collection of PCa multi-parametric (mp)MRI, anonymized image data worldwide (>17,000 cases), based on data donorship, in line with EU legislation (GDPR). Robust AI models are developed, based on novel ensemble learning methodologies, leading to vendor-specific and -neutral AI models for addressing 8 PCa clinical scenarios.  To accelerate clinical translation of PCa AI models, we focus on improving the trust of the solutions with respect to fairness, safety, explainability and reproducibility. Metrics to monitor model performance and a causal explainability functionality are developed to further increase clinical trust and inform on possible failures and errors. A roadmap for AI models certification is defined, interacting with regulatory authorities, thus contributing to a European regulatory roadmap for validating the effectiveness of AI-based models for clinical decision making.

Health, demographic change and wellbeing


LIETUVOS SVEIKATOS MOKSLU UNIVERSITETO LIGONINE KAUNO KLINIKOS

A European Cancer Image Platform Linked to Biological and Health Data for Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence and Precision Medicine in Oncology

The goal of EuCanImage is to build a highly secure, federated and large-scale European cancer imaging platform, with capabilities that will greatly enhance the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in oncology. Firstly, the EuCanImage platform will be populated with a completely new data resource totaling over 25,000 single subjects, which will allow to investigate unmet clinical needs like never before, such as for the detection of small liver lesions and metastases of colorectal cancer, or for estimating molecular subtypes of breast tumours and pathological complete response. Secondly, the cancer imaging platform, built by leveraging the well-established Euro-Bioimaging infrastructure, will be cross-linked to biological and health repositories through the European Genome-phenome Archive, allowing to develop multi-scale AI solutions that integrate organ-level, molecular and other clinical predictors into dense patient-specific cancer fingerprints.  To deliver this platform, the consortium will build upon several key European initiatives in data sharing for personalised medicine research, including EUCANCAn (cancer genomics and health data sharing), euCanSHare (cardiac imaging and omics data sharing) and EUCAN-Connect (federated data analytics). Furthermore, to foster international cooperation and leverage existing success stories, the consortium comprises the coordinators of The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA), the US cancer imaging repository funded by the National Cancer Institute. This will allow EuCanImage to leverage a unique 10-year long experience in cancer imaging storage, anonymisation, curation and management. Finally, a close collaboration between world renown clinical, radiomics, AI and legal experts within the consortium and beyond will establish well-needed guidelines for AI development and validation named FUTURE, for delivering Fair, Universal, Traceable, Usable, Robust and Explainable decision support systems for future cancer care.


Future-oriented Science EDucation to enhance Responsibility and engagement in the society of Acceleration and uncertainty

The relation between science and society is strongly influenced by the impressive acceleration of scientific and technological development. Within this society of acceleration (H. Rosa), the young are experiencing a sense of derangement and an alarming sense of loss of future and hope.  FEDORA will develop a future-oriented model to enable formal and informal science education to equip the young with thinking, foresight and action competence skills needed to grapple with the societal challenges.  In particular, the project aims to address three forms of misalignment that emerge from the difficulties of the educational systems to keep the pace of societal changes: a) the clash between, on one hand, the vertical and hyper-specialized organization of teaching in disciplines and, on the other, the inter-multi-transdisciplinary, multi-actor and open character of the new modus operandi of R&I; b) the mismatch between the formalized and exclusive languages used in schools and the needs for new languages to enhance imagination and the capacity to talk about the contemporary challenges; c) the clash between the a-temporal or historically oriented teaching approaches and the need to support the young to construct visions of the future that empower actions in the present. These forms of misalignment represent blind spots for science education that FEDORA will explore through a multi-layer (institutional, conceptual, cultural) research approach, an articulated structures of actions and a multiform set of research methodologies (qualitative and quantitative surveys, design-driven and Delphi Study methodologies,..).  The actions and results will feed into recommendations for anticipatory policies aimed to mobilise visionary attitudes on open-schooling and to orient concrete institutional transformations to nurture, in secondary school students, a new sense of trust and desire needed to support an aware, responsible and sustainable participation in science-related societal issues.

Integrate society in science and innovation


VIESOJI ISTAIGA LIETUVOS INOVACIJU CENTRAS

KAM and innovation management improvement services for Lithuanian SMEs

The overall aim of SME Coach LT 2015 is to increase effectiveness and efficiency of investment in R&D and Innovation by enhancing innovation management capacity of Lithuanian SMEs -beneficiaries of the new dedicated SME instrument under Horizon 2020, and SMEs with significant innovation activities and a high potential for internationalisation.  Specifically, the project will support SMEs - beneficiaries of the SME instrument- in identifying project-specific barriers and weaknesses and gaps in their innovation capacities that hinder realization of growth opportunities, and pointing to suitable coaches to address the identified weaknesses. The second specific objective is supporting  SMEs with significant innovation activities and a high potential internationalization in enhancing their innovation management capacities. The proposed support concept differentiates between two types of support: the case level of the innovation project led by the SME - beneficiary of the SME instrument of the Horizon 2020 and in intervention at the corporate level (or "subject") in the case of companies having high innovation and internationalisation potential. The nature of barriers and challenges related to each situation is different. The Key Account Manager will support SMEs SME Instrument beneficiaries in identifying critical issues and gaps with regards to their innovation idea and guide them to relevant lead coach who will support the company throughout their innovation journey. The Key account Manager will use a holistic and dynamic business innovation model, supported by Business Innovation Roadmap Tool, available under Creative Commons License from smE-MPOWER  network.  When supporting companies having innovation and internationalization potential, but not part of SME instrument, we will use IMP3rove Academy’s diagnostic tool which measures the performance of the company’s innovation management system.


VILNIAUS MIESTO SAVIVALDYBES ADMINISTRACIJA

MOST (Meaningful Open Schooling Connects Schools To Communities) supports European school students and citizens in developing science knowledge, transversal skills and competences in working scientifically. MOST enables and encourages its target groups to pursue scientific careers and long-term,  will raise the numbers of scientists in Europe. To achieve this, our Consortium of 23 partners from 10 European countries (higher education institutions, schools, non-formal education providers, ministries, municipalities and enterprises) proposes a powerful Open Schooling idea.  The project opens up formal science education and establishes partnerships between schools and their communities (families, science education providers, citizens, businesses, etc.) to work jointly on environmental school-community-projects (SCPs). These participatory projects directly respond to the needs and values of those involved, benefit the communities as a whole and make schools agents of community well-being. MOST’s learning impact is boosted through an educational research-based approach that raises interest in science, scientific literacy and environmental responsibility.  MOST works on a threefold geographical structure: within communities (schools as hubs), at regional level in our 10 partner countries (connecting all open schooling communities from one region) and, ‘creates a bigger picture’ by establishing an Open Schooling Network at the European level. MOST fairs in each partner region maximise impact and strengthen regional efficacy. A final MOST Conference connects all SCPs across Europe to a vibrant science-learning network that opens up to further countries and communities.  Planning and implementation involve all relevant actors: formal/non-formal education, research /practice, policy, innovation-driven businesses and society as both benefactor and innovation driver. This raises actors’ willingness to engage long-term and thus, helps ensure impact beyond project lifetime.


OPtimal strategies to retAIN and re-use water and nutrients in small agricultural catchments across different soil-climatic regions in Europe

Natural/Small Water Retention Measures (NSWRMs) can help mitigate the conflicts between agricultural water uses (e.g. plant production, animals) and other human and environmental demands for water, including drinking water or maintaining environmental flow. This is crucial, since these conflicts will be probably exacerbated by an increasing number of extreme events such as droughts and heavy rainfall. A more careful management of head watersheds will significantly contribute to a more resilient agriculture and society. Moreover, NSWRMs are contributing simultaneously to the achievement of different Sustainable Development Goals and environmental targets formulated in several water- and agriculture-related European Union policies. Despite a comprehensive set of techniques available to increase water retention on both catchment and farm levels, knowledge is still lacking on the effectiveness of different scale- and region-specific measures across various soil-climatic regions and agricultural systems, especially under changing climate conditions. OPTAIN aims to (i) identify efficient techniques for the retention and reuse of water and nutrients in small agricultural catchments across Continental, Pannonian and Boreal biogeographical regions of Europe, taking into account potential synergies with existing drainage-irrigation systems, and - in close cooperation with local actors - (ii) select NSWRMs at farm and catchment level and optimize their spatial allocation and combination, based on environmental and economic sustainability indicators. By building on existing knowledge and addressing these objectives, OPTAIN will improve the Technological Readiness Level of NSWRMs for the benefit of both humans and ecosystems. All gained knowledge will be translated into a learning environment allowing analysis of trade-offs and synergies between multiple values/goals in the management and design of NSWRMs.

Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research


VIESOJI ISTAIGA LIETUVOS ZEMES UKIO KONSULTAVIMO TARNYBA


Smart ELECTrodeposited Alloys for environmentally sustainable applications: from advanced protective coatings to micro/nano-robotic platforms

SELECTA is a highly inter-disciplinary initiative which has the primary goal of training young researchers in the field of smart electrodeposited metallic alloys suitable for environmental / sustainable development applications. The Network encompasses the fabrication and in-depth characterization of: (i) innovative protective coatings, (ii) resilient micro/nano-electromechanical systems, and (iii) wirelessly actuated micro/nano-robotic platforms for cutting-edge environmental applications. The project will explore new types of electrodeposited alloys (based on Fe, Cu or Al; free from hazardous and scarce raw elements), with tunable structure (amorphous, nanocrystalline), morphology (dense, nanoporous) and geometry (films, micropillars, nanowires), to meet specific technological demands (high wear/corrosion resistance, superior magnetic properties or hydrophobicity). SELECTA aims to integrate technological progress with environmental sustainability concerns, which is one of the major “Societal Challenges” listed in the Horizon 2020 Work Programme. Several disciplines (Physics, Electrochemistry, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Biology and Robotics) converge together to provide a holistic approach to accomplish the SELECTA goals. The project brings together 10 Beneficiaries and 7 Partner Organizations (including 5 private companies), belonging to 10 EU Member States (plus Switzerland and Serbia). Special efforts will be devoted to bridge fundamental science with commercialisation of the research outcome. The complementarities among partners will render a high-level, multi-faceted educational programme. World-class research will be combined with unique training opportunities in soft skills, such as career planning, dissemination, intellectual property rights, entrepreneurship or management. The Network aims to provide highly-qualified specialists able to face future professional challenges in either Academia or Industry in an independent manner.


Next-generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness

D^2EPC ambitiously aims to set the grounds for the next generation of dynamic Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for buildings. The proposed framework sets its foundations on the smart-readiness level of the buildings and the corresponding data collection infrastructure and management systems. It is fed by operational data and adopts the ‘digital twin’ concept to advance Building Information Modelling, calculate a novel set of energy, environmental, financial and human comfort/ wellbeing indicators, and through them the EPC classification of the building in question. Under the project vision, the proposed indicators will render dynamic EPCs a realistic, accurate and comprehensive tool that can lead the transformation of the European building stock into zero-energy buildings and stimulate energy efficient behavioural change of the building occupants. To this direction, D^2EPC proposes a digital platform that will enable the issuance and update of new EPCs on a regular basis, integrate a GIS environment and provide, on top, value added services including user-centred recommendations for energy renovation, benchmarking and forecasting of buildings’ performance as well as performance verification services. The proposed scheme will contribute to the redefinition of EPC-related policies and to the update of current standards, along with guidance for their implementation and will introduce incentivisation and restriction practices into the EPC rationale. Additional benefits include enhanced user awareness and engagement on buildings’ energy efficiency, facilitated planning and decision making on local and regional policy level. To accomplish the above, the D^2EPC framework will be demonstrated in 6 sites, while its 12 partners coming from 7 European countries will collaborate and provide their expertise and resources within the 36 months of the project’s lifetime


National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC

The EuroCC activity will bring together the necessary expertise to set up a network of National Competence Centres in HPC across Europe in 31 participating, member and associated states, to provide a broad service portfolio tailored to the respective national needs of industry, academia and public administrations. All of this to support and increase strongly the national strengths of High Performance Computing (HPC) competences as well as High Performance Data Analytics (HPDA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities and to close existing gaps to increase usability of these technologies in the different states and thus provide a European excellence baseline.


Increase Friendly Integration of Reliable PV plants considering different market segments

TRUST-PV will demonstrate increase in performance and reliability of PV components (e.g. module O&M friendly design, inverter enabled O&M solutions, aftermarket coatings, extended testing beyond standard) and PV systems (e.g. more accurate yield models and assessment, data-driven mitigation measures from monitoring and advanced field inspection, reliability of novel system concepts such as floating PV) in large portfolios of distributed and/or utility scale PV. The TRUST-PV results will be tested and demonstrated from fab to field and all data gathered along the value chain will flow into a decision support system platform with enhanced decision-making using AI. The innovation at component level in TRUST-PV will be driven by the needs of stakeholders operating in a later stage of a PV project, i.e. Asset managers, EPC and O&M operators. TRUST-PV PV modules will thus become O&M friendly and inverter will enable rapid and cost-effective field inspection.  The innovation at system level will fully exploit the digitalisation of the PV sector by linking 3D design with BIM concepts, developing more accurate models for yield assessments, and closing the gap between performance and failure detection through monitoring and field inspection.  The innovation at the point of connection is based on the deployment of tailored strategies for the residential sector (better observability of performance with cost-effective monitoring solution, use of storage to enable renewable energy communities) and the utility sector (e.g. combination of advanced forecasting with storage and regulation through power plant controllers) with the final aim of improving the hosting capacity and increase stability. Finally, in TRUST-PV we envision a path of circular economy which enhances disposed components/material recovery for further use in the industry, to support progressive steps of plant repowering, aimed at increasing their production and lifetime without requiring additional land.


INNOvative tools FOR dismantling of GRAPHite moderated nuclear reactors

The decommissioning of closed graphite moderated nuclear reactors worldwide is still in its early stages with the majority of reactors in “safe store” condition. For these reactors, there are still considerable industrial and technical challenges that remain to be tackled even after more than 30 years of operational shutdown of the first unit. Challenges related to the dimension and complexity of the structure as well as costs for decommissioning urge for novel, more performant, safer and cost-efficient solutions for dismantling operations. INNO4GRAPH aims at developing a set of physical and digital tools and methods to be used both upstream of dismantling operations (for material characterisation and decision-making) and during dismantling operations (for handling and cutting). Tools such as 3D modelling of dismantling scenarios, measurement tools for mechanical and physical properties, mock-ups of the graphite stack and laser-cutting during dismantling operations will be developed. To ensure the cost-efficiency of dismantling scenarios and tools, INNO4GRAPH partners will collect and compare existing cost data for tools, in reference with the different scenarios, to create a benchmarking database for a future decommissioning cost estimate. The launch by EDF of a full-scale graphite power plant demonstrator in Chinon, France, in 2022 will facilitate the uptake and further development of the tools developed during the project.  The participation of all European graphite reactor operators in the consortium will not only be the launch of a sector of excellence in the graphite reactor decommissioning field, but will also ensure a large uptake of results by the end-users and will contribute to achieve the highest impact both on scientific/technological, innovation and economic level.


LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKOS SVEIKATOS APSAUGOS MINISTERIJA

X-eHealth: eXchanging electronic Health Records in a commom framework

X-eHealth’s project stands herein for a project of strategic relevance for tomorrow’s European eHealth Union. Assembling at the time of this proposal submission a shared commitment of 47 health actors, the underlying idea of this project is to develop the basis for a workable, interoperable, secure and cross border Electronic Health Record exchange Format in order to lay the foundation for the advance of eHealth sector while using the 3 pillars put forward by the EC as reference. Aimed at promoting a faster and sustainable EU digital transformation, this Cooperative and Support Action is made up of 8 Work Package in which 4 exclusively focus on technical-functional activities (WP4 to WP7). From Generic Aspects to System Architecture and Integration, passing by Functional and Technical Specifications, X-eHealth objective is to move towards a uniform interoperable data-sharing format framework. In addition, to enhance EU’s public health state of play, WP1 and WP8 are responsible for implementation studies, practicality and continuity of eHealth interoperability development. On this basis and building upon the already in place Patient Summary, X-eHealth purpose is to develop the foundations for a common framework for medical imaging, discharge letters, laboratory results and rare diseases to flow both alongside citizens care pathway and across health entities between EU Member States and Neighbour Countries.  Focus on cross-border services, this consortium aims to advance an interoperable Common European Health Data Space for citizens and health providers engagement in accordance with privacy and cybersecurity regulations. To achieve this end, X-eHealth gathers 36 consortium partners plus 5 collaborative partners and 6 eHealth skilled experts, eager to develop the abovementioned 4 domains, and distinguished by policy and political actors mixed with national competent authorities to indeed concretely plan, implement and maintain national eHealth infrastructures.


POLICIJOS DEPARTAMENTAS PRIE LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKOS VIDAUS REIKALU MINISTERIJOS

DARLENE aims to investigate means by which AR can be deployed in real time to aid in LEA decision-making by employing AR capabilities and combining them with powerful ML algorithms, sensor information fusion techniques, 3D reconstruction, wearable technology and personalized context-aware recommendations. Hence DARLENE will offer European LEAs a proactive security solution which will provide an IoT level of Situational Awareness, detection and recognition, combining cutting edge technology and public security in all security verticals.  It will enable LEAs to reduce and prevent crime, and to more quickly respond to crimes already in progress, by enabling them to sort through massive volumes of data to predict, anticipate and prevent criminal activities, make better informed tactical decisions and provide enhanced protection services for European citizens. DARLENE will therefore develop practical and beneficial policing applications through the use of affordable, light-weight and inconspicuous AR glasses. Such applications will capitalize on cutting edge research that will combine with AR Technology to create innovative methods for combating crime and even terrorist acts. To align technology development with actual security needs and requirements, DARLENE will build a community of LEAs organization and security stakeholders that will guide the development process and evaluate the entire DARLENE ecosystem. In this regard, DARLENE foresees extensive demonstration and training activities for LEAs while the entire solution will be demonstrated and validated in realistic scenarios during the pilot phase of the project, thus paving the way to its field deployment and commercial uptake.

Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens


Monitoring of Environmental Practices for Sustainable Agriculture Supported by Earth Observation

ENVISION aims to fulfil the need for continuous and systematic monitoring of agricultural land, shifting the focus from fragmented monitoring limited to specific fields and dates to territory-wide and all-year-round monitoring.  It will make use of heterogeneous types of available data (EO-based, in situ, open data, and historical on-field check data) and state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies (automatic pixel/texture/object oriented change detection and classification methods, machine learning, data fusion, multi-source and multi-temporal data management) for providing a fully-automated and scalable toolbox of services, built in close interaction with its future customers. ENVISION will fully exploit the wealth of data made available through GEOSS and Copernicus and its synergetic use with other data to develop data products such as: Cultivated crop type maps; Soil Organic Carbon; Vegetation status; Crop growth (distinction of organic – conventional farming); Grassland mowing/ploughing; Soil erosion. The ENVISION toolbox will be comprised of: a monitoring service of sustainable agricultural practices, tools that PAs & CBs can provide to farmers for adhering to environmentally friendly agricultural practices, an Add-on Development Tool. The project will be tested and validated in a pre-operational environment by potential future customers of its products and services. ENVISION will have three categories of business cases (Monitoring of: multiple environmental and climate requirements of CAP, soil condition, organic farming requirements) and will also be tested by a group of Lighthouse Customers. A market analysis, business model experimentation techniques and appropriate decision-making tools will determine the commercially viable business models for the services and products of ENVISION, and define alternative business models, understand their implications and identify those that will create the greatest value.


PRE-DISposal management of radioactive waste

The PREDIS project targets the development and implementation of activities for pre-disposal treatment of radioactive waste streams other than nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Member States will profit from measurable benefits including the further development and increase in Technological Readiness Level of treatment and conditioning methodologies for wastes for which no adequate or industrially mature solutions are currently available, including metallic material (WP4), liquid organic waste (WP5) and solid organic waste (WP6), and by testing and evaluating innovations in cemented waste handling and pre-disposal storage (WP7). These technical Work Packages align with priorities formulated within the Roadmap Theme 2 of EURAD and with those identified by the project’s industrial End Users Group (EUG), and follow the 50% co-funding principle. Furthermore, PREDIS will produce tools guiding decision-making on the added value of the developed technologies and their impact on the design, safety and economics of waste management and disposal (WP2).  PREDIS will also liaise with EURAD to provide complementarity on areas including the adaptation and update of the reference founding documents of the EJP (vision, roadmap, governance and implementation mechanisms) (WP2), and the organisation of training courses and mobility training schemes to enhance sharing and transfer of knowledge and competences as part of knowledge management activities (WP3). The PREDIS consortium, which includes 47 partners from 18 Member States, and EUG, which specifically targets Radioactive Waste Producers (RWP) as a separate group within the radioactive waste management process. PREDIS also encompasses the wider European Community, allowing cross-fertilisation and interaction between different national programmes. Numerous dissemination activities (WP1), including with Nugenia, IAEA and NEA, will be undertaken to maximize PREDIS’s impact to all the identified Stakeholders in the field


Fostering the PAN-European infrastructure for empowering SMEs digital competences in laser-based advance and additive manufacturing.

Digitizing European industry is essential for European competitivity in the 21st century, but only 1/5 of EU SMEs is highly digitised. Laser Based Advanced and Additive Manufacturing (LBAAM) technologies are regarded as Key Enablers for Digital Production and offer important advantages to the adopters. SMEs have strong entry barriers for the technology: Investment cost, technology complexity, system integration and awareness/adoption readiness. PULSATE aims to lower all said barriers to boost the adoption of Laser Based technologies by SMEs and promote the development of SME-friendly laser based equipment and solutions. PULSATE will establish a Pan-European Network to stimulate SMEs to take part in Innovation Ecosystem of LBAAM, by connecting Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) to a support structure of knowledge, infrastructure and services, designed to tackle the issues currently limiting the adoption of LBAAM technology. A balanced combination is proposed between wide outreach using interconnected Virtual Communities and ICT tools (a Single Entry Point will connect a wide range of networking and servicing tools), and close exchange and interaction via DIHs. The project relies on a consortium of 6 competence centres (AIMEN, FTMC, MTC, SINTEF, Fraunhofer, CEA), service community and marketplace providers (FBA, CLESGO) and a photonics industry association (EPIC). With >50 previous projects outcomes, existing tools and services, connections with 74 running DIHs, Clusters and regional initiatives, PULSATE counts with the explicit support of companies and institutions (>80LoS), and an independent Board of Stakeholders gathering key players in LBAAM will ensure the quality and pertinence of PULSATE orientation. PULSATE will operate under 4 action areas: Business, Technology, Competence & Awareness, addressing the following technology domains: Nano/Micro Fabrication, AM, High Power Laser Manufacturing and Digitisation, and implementing 4 Open Calls and a catalogue of services.


NACIONALINIS VISUOMENES SVEIKATOS CENTRAS PRIE SVEIKATOS APSAUGOS MINISTERIJOS

Demonstration of intelligent decision support for pandemic crisis prediction and management within and across European borders

STAMINA develops an intelligent decision support toolset for pandemic prediction and management and demonstrates its use by practitioners at national and regional levels within and across EU borders. The STAMINA toolset enables national planners and first responders to anticipate and respond to the the “known-unknowns” in their daily effort to enhance health security. Main functionality of the toolset includes:  •	Real-time web and social media analytics aiming at public trust monitoring and flagging possible disease outbreaks  •	POCT and smart wearable diagnostic devices for first line screening  •	Predictive modeling of pandemic outbreak and its impact, along with decision-making support in implementing mitigation strategies,  •	Early Warning System •	Crisis management tool defining the roles and actions of key actors during crisis management •	Scenario Generation tool for creation of training scenarios •	Common Operational Picture as the main interface of the solution enabling timely and coordinated response The toolset is accompanied by a set of Guidelines on effective implementation of risk communication principles and best practices in cross-organisational preparedness and response plans. The use of the STAMINA toolset will be demonstrated through 12 national and regional small-scale demonstrators and one large-scale cross-border simulation exercise involving all consortium partners.


VIESOJI ISTAIGA LIETUVOS ENERGETIKOS AGENTURA

Streamlining Energy Savings Calculations

streamSAVE will support Member States in harmonizing accurate, bottom-up energy savings calculations of technical priority actions under Article 7, as well as Article 3 of Member States’ EED reporting. The actions will be targeted to those measures with high energy saving potential and considered as priority issues by Member States. To understand Member States’ priorities, the consortium performed an online survey in May 2019 (explained below).  For each of the identified priority actions, streamSAVE is fostering transnational knowledge exchange between public authorities and other key-stakeholders along the following axes: -	Axis 1: Knowledge facility where Member States are guided through the status of energy saving methodologies in the EU28 and how they can streamline and improve their bottom-up energy savings calculations. -	Axis 2: Peer-to-peer dialogues among public authorities and other key-stakeholders to share experiences, reflect on and validate the streamlined calculation methodologies.  -	Axis 3: Capacity support facility assisting Member States in implementing streamlined energy savings calculations for specific requests to improve their obligations under Article 3 and Article 7 of the Energy Efficiency Directive  An online streamSAVE platform will be set-up to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experiences among Member States according to the three axes, which is illustrated in the next figure. The project would assist Member States to deliver rapidly scalable savings and hence maximize their chances of successfully meeting the EED energy savings targets. Methodologies developed in this way would be eligible for use on a voluntary basis, but would benefit from the pooling of European expertise and experience and thus support best practice while avoiding duplicative effort.


VARTOTOJU ALJANSAS LITHUANIAN CONSUMERS ALLIANCE

Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation

The countries in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and in the former Soviet Union republics (CIS region) have the most energy-poor people in Europe. Main reasons contributing to energy poverty for people with low income are due to high energy prices and poor energy efficiency of the buildings, building heating systems and household appliances. The ComAct project is focusing on these regions and in particular on their specificity that the housing stock (characterised with large percentage of multi-family apartment blocks) is predominantly in private ownership and consequently energy-poor households live in their privately-owned apartments. To address the complex roots of energy poverty, there is a need to develop a new approach in order to influence the energy costs substantially and make the energy efficiency (EE) interventions affordable, and consequently reduce the high energy poverty level in the CEE and CIS region.  The ComAct project aims to make high-impact/high-cost  energy-efficient improvements in multi-family apartment buildings in the CEE and CIS regions affordable and manageable for energy-poor communities as well as to create the necessary assistance conditions for lifting them out of energy poverty.   To achieve this main goal, firstly, an approach to identification and selection of energy-poor communities is developed, followed by interventions in three main dimensions: 1) empowering and activating the communities of homeowners’ associations; 2)  developing/adapting financial tools that provide financing for low income families; and 3) optimising technical solutions that provide most favourable cost-benefit ratio for the energy efficient improvements at a multi-family apartment building level. In order to demonstrate applicability, benefits and potential for alleviating energy poverty, 5 pilot cases take place in Hungary, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Lithuania and Ukraine.


Trustable architectures with acceptable residual risk for the electric, connected and automated cars

Independent validation is fundamental to emphasise the capability and safety of any solution in the electric, connected and automated (ECA) vehicles space. It is vital that appropriate and audited testing takes place in a controlled environment before any deployment takes place. As the software and hardware components come from multiple vendors and integrate in numerous ways, the various levels of validation required must be fully understood and integration with primary and secondary parts must be considered.    The key targets of ArchitectECA2030 are the robust mission-validated traceable design of electronic components and systems (ECS), the quantification of an accepted residual risk of ECS for ECA vehicles to enable type approval, and an increased end-user acceptance due to more reliable and robust ECS. The proposed methods include automatic built-in safety measures in the electronic circuit design, accelerated testing, residual risk quantification, virtual validation, and multi-physical and stochastic simulations.    The project will implement a unique in-vehicle monitoring device able to measure the health status and degradation of the functional electronics empowering model-based safety prediction, fault diagnosis, and anomaly detection. A validation framework comprised of harmonized methods and tools able to handle quantification of residual risks using data different sources (e.g. monitoring devices, sensor/actuators, fleet observations) is provided to ultimately design safe, secure, and reliable ECA vehicles with a well-defined, quantified, and acceptable residual risk across all ECS levels. The project brings together stakeholders from ECS industry, standardization and certification bodies (e.g. ISO, NIST, TUEV), test field operators, insurance companies, and academia closely interacting with ECSEL lighthouse initiative Mobility.E to align and influence emerging standards and validation procedures for ECA vehicles.


Unleashing future-facing urban hubs through culture and creativity-led strategies of transformative time

T-Factor challenges the waiting time in urban regeneration - i.e. the time in-between the adoption of the masterplan and its actual realization - to demonstrate how culture, creative collaboration and wide engagement can unleash vibrant urban hubs of inclusive urban (re)generation, social innovation and enterprise.  The project targets early stage regenerations in a diversity of historic urban areas in London, Bilbao, Amsterdam, Kaunas, Milan and Lisbon, and provides their PPPs with a unique ecosystem of capacity-building for radically new city-making approaches. Leveraging local coalitions of actors, we will use the masterplans of the targeted regenerations as the starting point to steer collective inquiry into their meanings and narratives, co-create visions of future spaces, and put them on stage via meanwhile uses and experiences. Throughout the process, culture and creativity will support voice and engagement, and help enrich and steer the masterplans towards heritage and culture-relevant innovation and enterprise, and social and cultural integration. Via trans-disciplinary action research, we will keep track of change, and build on the insights to add iteratively new layers of collective reflection and action. This learning by making will continuously inform masterplans and PPPs, consolidating, adjusting and providing new directions of urban development rooted in shared goals of sustainable city-making. T-Factor will work as an international community of practice, delivering an innovative city-mentoring model which will create multiple collaborations between the pilot cities, advance cultural and creative hubs, universities, enterprises and social organizations partnering the project, so as to shape an international movement of capacity-building and knowledge co-creation for the transformative time in urban regeneration leveraging heritage, culture and creativity.


KAUNO MIESTO SAVIVALDYBES ADMINISTRACIJA


LIETUVOS KIBERNETINIU NUSIKALTIMU KOMPETENCIJU IR TYRIMU CENTRAS

End-to-end Security of the Digital Single Market’s E-commerce and Delivery Service Ecosystem

ENSURESEC is a sociotechnical solution for safeguarding the Digital Single Market’s e-commerce operations against cyber and physical threats. It combines an automatic, rigorous, distributed and open-source toolkit for protecting e-commerce, with monitoring of the impact of threats in physical space and a campaign for training SMEs and citizens aimed at creating awareness and trust. ENSURESEC addresses the whole gamut of modern e-commerce, from standard physical products purchased online and delivered via post, to entirely virtual products or services delivered online. It addresses threats ranging from maliciously modifying web e-commerce applications or rendering them unavailable to legitimate customers, to delivery issues or fraud committed by insiders or customers. It achieves this by focusing on the common software and physical sensor interfaces that sit along the e-commerce, payment and delivery ecosystem. At technical level, it integrates proven state-of-the-art inductive (machine learning) with deductive (formal methods) reasoning tools and techniques so that e-commerce operations are protected by design, as well as through continuous monitoring, response, recovery and mitigation measures at run-time. Importantly, trust of the infrastructure’s operations among its users is established, benefiting from distributed ledger technology ensuring transparency of the operations and that information has not been modified. Although ENSURESEC innovations are applicable to any critical infrastructure that relies and is monitored by networked software systems, its design and integration philosophy make it uniquely prepared to protect distributed and evolving e-commerce infrastructures with its various forms of payment and delivery (virtual, online and physical). ENSURESEC also enhances citizens’ resilience to threats and their trust in e-commerce companies, especially SMEs, thus contributing towards the vision of a reliable and trusted digital single market.


VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS

Enhanced Physical Internet-Compatible Earth-frieNdly freight Transportation answER

ePIcenter will create an interoperable cloud-based ecosystem of user-friendly extensible Artificial Intelligence-based logistics software solutions and supporting methodologies that will enable all players in global trade and international authorities to co-operate with ports, logistics companies and shippers, and to react in an agile way to volatile political and market changes and to major climate shifts impacting traditional freight routes.  This will address the ever-increasing expectations of 21st century consumers for cheaper and more readily available goods and bring in Innovations in transport, such as hyperloops, autonomous/robotic systems (e.g. “T-pods”) and new last-mile solutions as well as technological initiatives such as blockchain, increased digitalisation, single windows, EGNOS positional precision and the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme.  ePIcenter thus addresses MG-2-9-2019 of H2020 Mobility for Growth “InCo Flagship on Integrated multimodal, low-emission freight transport systems and logistics”, particularly in what refers to new logistics concepts, new disruptive technologies, new trade routes (including arctic routes and new Silk routes) and multimodal transfer zones.  ePIcenter will speed up the path to a Physical Internet  and will benefit peripheral regions and landlocked developing countries.  ePIcenter will reduce fuel usage (and corresponding emissions) by 10-25%, lead to greater utilisation of greener modes of transport reducing long distance movements by trucks by 20-25% and ensure a smoother profile of arrivals at ports which will reduce congestion and waiting/turnaround times.


Global Response Against Child Exploitation

The use of the Internet to distribute CSEM is an abhorrent crime. Referrals from Online Service Providers are key to fighting CSE. OSPs, detection technologies and users reporting suspicious material are improving. However, this leads to an increase in the sheer volume of referrals coupled with the increase in the distribution of CSEM online that is pushing MS LEAs to their limits and affecting their their capacity to prevent harm to infants and children, rescue those in immediate danger, and investigate and prosecute perpetrators. The NCMEC process has improved LEA capability. But, a typical CSE case contains 1-3 TBs of video, 1–10 million images. Limited human resources, manual analysis and the 4,000% increase in referrals since 2014 obligates a new approach. GRACE will apply proven techniques in ML to the referral and analysis process while embracing the very technical, ethical and legal challenges unique to fighting CSE. GRACE will leverage resources already in place at EUROPOL and its 9 MS LEAs and attempt to provide results early, frequently and flexibly, prioritising easy wins in the research plan (e.g. deduplication). By applying Federated Learning approach to the challenge of optimising analysis and information flow, GRACE will enable cooperation between LEAs in improving their own capabilities and harness experiential knowledge. The results of GRACE will be handed back to EUROPOL and MS LEAs for unrestricted use in their missions, helping to ensure their future technological autonomy.


Chalcopyrite-perovskites for infrared photovoltaics

Solar energy reaching Earth is ubiquitous and unlimited. However, current solar technologies in the market converting light directly to electricity theoretically can harvest only 33% of this energy. Stacking several solar cells with appropriate optical properties, power conversion efficiency (PCE) can be almost doubled. Albeit, current multiple junction (MJ) solar cells are very expensive and unaffordable for large scale applications. Combination of well-established thin film solar technologies is a promising strategy for fabrication of high-efficiency and cost-effective MJ solar cells. Dual junction solar cells combining Si and wide bandgap thin films are extensively studied. Infrared (IR) part of solar spectrum is not utilized by such dual junction. PCE can be boosted up to 49% by adding IR solar cell. However, there are only few materials with suitable bandgap for IR solar cells, and they contain toxic chemical elements and/or are expensive to synthesize. Evidently, there is an urgent need to explore novel materials for IR solar cells which is the main goal of the current Marie Skłodowska-Curie project. Chalcogenide-perovskites (CP) is an emerging class of materials that has been highly regarded for optoelectronic application. However, little experimental evidence of photovoltaic (PV) properties has been demonstrated. This project aims to unravel the potential of CP materials for IR PV. First bulk material will be synthesized and characterized to filter out CPs with 0.7 eV bandgap. Then, CP thin films will be fabricated and tested to evaluate potential for PV. The researcher dr. Rokas Kondrotas will be returning after a two-year post-doc in China. He will be contracted with Fiziniu ir Technologijos Mokslu Centras (FTMC) and supervised by prof. Arūnas Krotkus. Through the course of the project, applicant will adopt new competence, research and academic skills, and strengthen his position as the leading scientist in the newly emerging PV group.


Airborne data collection on resilient system architectures

ADACORSA targets to strengthen the European drone industry and increase public and regulatory acceptance of BVLOS (beyond visual line-of-sight) drones, by demonstrating technologies for safe, reliable and secure drone operation in all situations and flight phases. The project will drive research and development of components and systems for sensing, telecommunication and data processing along the electronics value-chain.  Additionally, drone lead smart industries with high visibility and place for improvement will be developed which will pave the way for a higher public / industry acceptance of the drone technologies.  In particular, ADACORSA will deliver: a) On the component level, functionally redundant and fail-operational radar and LiDAR sensors as well as 3D cameras. In order to reduce risk, time and costs, the project aims to adapt technologies from the automotive sector to the drone market for these components. b) On the system level, hardware and software for reliable sensor fusion and data analytics as well as technologies for secure and reliable drone communication using multipath TCP and registration and identification by developing platforms based on eUICCs/eSIM. c) On an architecture level, fail-operational drone control and investigation a pre-operational Flight Information Management System  (FIMS) the integration with CoTS components for Unmanned Air Vehicle Traffic Management System (UTM).  Within the project, 35 physical as well as virtual demonstrators of BLVOS, long-range drone flight shall pave the way toward certifiable  systems for future integration of drone operations.  ADACORSA's innovations will leverage the expertise of a very strong consortium, comprising world renowned industrial (OEMs, Tier-1, Tier-2 and technology providers) and research partners along the complete aviation, semiconductor and also automotive value chains, providing Europe with a competitive edge in a growing drone and drone technologies market.


Empowering a Pan-European Network to Counter  Hybrid Threats

EU-HYBNET is a Pan-European network of security practitioners, stakeholders, academics, industry players, and SME actors across EU collaborating with each other in ever increasing numbers to  counter hybrid threats.  EU-HYBNET aims to build an empowered, sustainable network beyond the scope of the project through its on-going association with a key partner, The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, and it will: define common requirements that can fill knowledge gaps, deal with performance needs, and enhance capabilities of innovation endeavours; monitor significant developments in research and innovation; deliver recommendations for uptake and industrialisation of the most promising innovations that address the needs of practitioners, and determine associated priorities for standardisation; establish conditions for enhanced interaction among its members; and persistently strive to increase its membership and continually build network capacity through knowledge exchange incl. exercises.   EU-HYBNET's principal objectives align with the H2020 SEC-SU-GM01-2019 call and are of crucial relevance to it. A technology and innovations watch, facilitated by scientific research, will ensure smooth execution of searching, monitoring, identifying and assessing innovations both under development or already proven, including the level of technology readiness for uptake or industrialisation. EU-HYBNET will bring together practitioners and stakeholders to identify and define their most urgent requirements for countering hybrid threats by undertaking an in-depth analysis of gaps and needs and prioritising those that are crucial to address through effective research and innovation initiatives, including arranging training and exercise events to test the most promising innovations (technical and social) which will lead to creation of a roadmap for success and solid recommendations for uptake, industrialisation and standarisation across the European Union.


Micro- and nanofabrication represents important mainstream manufacturing processes across several industrial fast-growing sectors, such as MEMS & sensors, optics & photonics, RF devices, semiconductors, printed electronics, which in turn are significant building blocks in e.g. advanced healthtech, biotech, cleantech, and electronics. Yet, to improve the market stance, the micro-/nanofabrication sector is looking for solutions able to reduce costs and time spent on the prototyping and fabrication process, as well as more flexible, efficient and sustainable solutions, able to utilize a broader range of materials permitting custom-built components. While the most promising technology to address these challenges is found in the 3D printing market, there are currently no available 3D printers or technologies with the capabilities to address these challenges. To this purpose, ATL (DK) has developed the ATLANT3D Nanofabricator, a 3D nanoprinting technology with improved resolution and flexibility, while costing less 27% than the closest 3D printing competitor, and up to 92% less than conventional competitors. It will enable rapid prototyping, shorter time to market and lower barriers for companies and researchers already working in this field, as well as those for whom micro-/nanoprototyping is currently not feasible.   The overall aim of ATOPLOT project is to mature, extend capabilities and prove full functionality and benefits of the ATLANT3D Nanofabricator. ATOPLOT brings together a consortium of three SMEs (ATL, FEM, SEMPA) and two academic partners (FAU, SAS) – in unison representing a technical side specialized in nanofabrication, and a business side with experience in business development and B2B sales & marketing. The consortium expects a successful market introduction of the Nanofabricator within the next 3 years, tapping into a large business opportunity, from which the partners stand to capture more than 400M€ as profit and directly creating 165+ new jobs.


Improved Resilience and Sustainable Reconstruction of Cultural  Heritage Areas to cope with Climate Change and Other Hazards based on Innovative Algorithms and Modelling Tools

YADES aims to efficiently train a network of fellows on the field of the resilience of Cultural Heritage (CH) areas and historic cities against Climate Change (CC) and other types of hazards. Towards this direction, YADES aims to introduce a research framework for downscaling the created climate and atmospheric composition as well as associated risk maps down to the 1x1 km (historic area) scale, and specific damage functions for CH materials. Applying atmospheric modelling for specific CC scenarios at such refined spatial and time scales allows for an accurate quantitative and qualitative impact assessment of the estimated micro-climatic and atmospheric stressors. YADES will perform combined structural/geotechnical analysis of the CH sites and damage assessment under normal and changed conditions, based on the climatic zone, the micro-climate conditions, the petrographic and textural features of building materials, historic data for the structures, the effect of previous restoration processes and the environmental/physical characteristics of the surrounding environment. The data coming from installed monitoring system will be coupled with simulated data (under our cultural heritage resilience assessment platform-CHRAP) and will be further analysed through our data management system, while supporting communities’ participation and public awareness. The data from the monitoring system will feed the DSS so as to provide proper adaptation and mitigation strategies. The produced vulnerability map will be used by the local authorities to assess the threats of CC (and other natural hazards), visualize the built heritage and cultural landscape under future climate scenarios, model the effects of different adaptation strategies, and ultimately prioritize any rehabilitation actions to best allocate funds in both pre- and post-event environments. To train the fellows, the project will make use of extensive workshop and training sessions, as well organise summer schools.


Multidisciplinary European network for research, prevention and control of the COVID-19 Pandemic

I-MOVE-COVID-19 aims to obtain epidemiological, clinical and virological information about COVID-19 and patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, through provision of a flexible  surveillance platform (adaptable to the epidemiological situation), research studies, hypothesis-testing and evaluation of public health interventions (e.g. vaccination, antivirals) in order to contribute to the knowledge base, guide patient management, and inform the public health response. This will be achieved through adaptation and expansion of the existing, long-running, Europe-wide influenza surveillance network (I-MOVE) to include COVID-19. The network includes primary care networks, hospitals, national laboratory reference centres in eleven countries.  I-MOVE-COVID-19 priority activities and research projects will be selected based on ECDC/WHO input and the proposal’s detailed list. These will be conducted by mobilising an existing large European multidisciplinary network, combining the expertise and resources of groups working in surveillance (epidemiological, clinical, virological), respiratory disease research, and evaluation of vaccines/treatments. Through protocol sharing and pooling European results, questions will be answered which could not be efficiently answered by countries acting alone. I-MOVE-COVID-19 will share study results rapidly and widely with national and international partners and with the wider scientific community and contribute to clinical management of patients and public health preparedness and response to COVID-19.


MOKSLO INOVACIJU IR TECHNOLOGIJU AGENTURA

Cooperation Of Space NCPs as a Means to Optimise Services under Horizon 2020

National Contact Points (NCPs) for Space provide support on Space funding under EU Framework programmes. In 2007 under FP7 the EU started funding an NCP Space network which was named COSMOS. This enabled the NCPs to benefit from each other’s experience and thus raise the level of the overall quality of their services. Additional services were established like a joint website and news service providing information about Space and EU Framework Programme related topics. Furthermore they organised international information days in support of the European Commission with emphasis on bringing potential project partners together. Last but not least they implemented a country independent helpdesk for EU framework Space research related questions. While the project partners are core of the network the full group comprises the other Space NCPs from EU member states and Associated Countries as well as Space contact points in international partner countries, mainly from Space faring nations. Within COSMOS2020 the network activities are continued under Horizon 2020. Capacity building, information services, project partner search support and more activities will once again reinforce the cooperation of the NCPs and raise the overall quality level of services. This is even more important since their role as only official support entity was decided for Horizon 2020.


Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe 2020

OpenAIRE2020 represents a pivotal phase in the long-term effort to implement and strengthen the impact of the Open Access (OA) policies of the European Commission (EC), building on the achievements of the OpenAIRE projects. OpenAIRE2020 will expand and leverage its focus from (1) the agents and resources of scholarly communication to workflows and processes, (2) from publications to data, software, and other research outputs, and the links between them, and (3) strengthen the relationship of European OA infrastructures with other regions of the world, in particular Latin America and the U.S. Through these efforts OpenAIRE2020 will truly support and accelerate Open Science and Scholarship, of which Open Access is of fundamental importance. OpenAIRE2020 continues and extends OpenAIRE’s scholarly communication infrastructure to manage and monitor the outcomes of EC-funded research. It combines its substantial networking capacities and technical capabilities to deliver a robust infrastructure offering support for the Open Access policies in Horizon 2020, via a range of pan-European outreach activities and a suite of services for key stakeholders. It provides researcher support and services for the Open Data Pilot and investigates its legal ramifications. The project offers to national funders the ability to implement OpenAIRE services to monitor research output, whilst new impact measures for research are investigated. OpenAIRE2020 engages with innovative publishing and data initiatives via studies and pilots. By liaising with global infrastructures, it ensures international interoperability of repositories and their valuable OA contents. To ensure sustainability and long-term health for the overall OpenAIRE infrastructure, the proposed OpenAIRE2020 project will establish itself as a legal entity, which will manage the production-level responsibilities securing 24/7 reliability and continuity to all relevant user groups, data providers and other stakeholders.


TUneable Multiferroics based on oxygen OCtahedral Structures

The main objective of the project is development of new lead-free multiferroic materialshe  for prospective application in forms of films and/or arranged layers in which the cross-coupling (magnetic-dipolar-elastic) can be tuned by both internal and external factors. This objective is to be achieved through preparation, investigation, and optimization of two kinds of Bi-containing oxygen-octahedral (BCOO) systems with paramagnetic ions involved: metastable perovskites and layered double hydroxides (LDHs). The characteristic feature of such materials is a possibility of supplementary control parameters in addition to temperature and external electric/magnetic field. Polarization in such metastable perovskites is easily switched by application of external pressure (or stress in the case of films). Electric and magnetic characteristics of BCOO LDHs are tuned through appropriate anion exchanges. It makes these characteristics dependent on environment conditions: humidity, pH, and presence of specific anion species. The BCOO materials of both mentioned groups are of interest as new and unusual multiferroics. No LDH materials have been considered as potential multiferroics so far, while the metastable BCOO materials proposed in this project have not been obtained before. Besides, a tuneability and high sensibility of their properties to external impacts make them promising for applications in sensors. Exploration and development of such materials require consolidation of specialists of complementary expertise in Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Science, with access to and skills in using specific and unique equipment and facilities. Therefore, formation of an interdisciplinary network of teams with different scientific culture and ensuring the effective knowledge & expertise transfer is important objective of the project. Advance in development of the BCOO multiferroics has potential market opportunities for R&D SME involved in this project.


Abstract The HERA Joint Research Programme Uses of the Past (HERA JRP UP) consortium will establish a 3rd joint transnational programme for multi-disciplinary research into a topic at the heart of the reflective society: ”Uses of the Past”. The innovative projects funded will fundamentally link past(s), present and future(s) creating valuable new knowledge that gives insights into the forces shaping the social, cultural and political transformation in Europe today.  The HERA JRP UP will also pursue additional activities aiming at international capacity-building in humanities research, promoting embedding of humanities researchers in Horizon 2020, and will explore and prepare new joint actions.  Twenty-four organisations from 23 countries have pooled a substantial amount of their humanities research funding (21 M EUR) for this HERA JRP, thus increasing the efficiency and impact of public funding. The HERA JRP UP involves the launch of a joint Call for Proposals and a commonly-agreed two-stage evaluation process involving an independent, international Review Panel. The consortium expects to fund 21 transnational humanities centred projects of ~1.2 M EUR each. EC support is awarded to the level of 33% of the joint call budget. The HERA JRP UP consortium will actively support knowledge exchange activities and stimulate wider dissemination about the valuable contributions of new humanities research.   With this large transnational JRP and its associated activities the HERA JRP UP will mobilise the intellectual energies and collaborative potential of a wide range of humanities disciplines, and further develop the knowledge base of the European Research Area by sharing and debating interpretations of the human past and its relation to the present and future. While this proposal is for the delivery of the “Uses of the Past” programme, the wider vision of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary and impact-rich humanities sector across Europe is at the forefront of our collective endeavour.

Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective Societies


Scaling up entrepreneurial hubs to Europe

The aim of the innovation action STARTUP SCALEUP is to build a European ecosystem around four consolidated entrepreneurial ecosystems in Spain (Cloud Incubator HUB), the Netherlands (Crosspring Lab), Lithuania (Open Coffee Club) and Ireland (The Ryan Academy) and the largest social network for startups in the European Union (F6S), in order to provide a greater range and quality of services to ambitious entrepreneurs who want to launch and grow companies focused on the Internet of Things and Services (IoTS). These four ecosystems, who have a track record and complementary strengths, will be able to support startups by enhancing the basic business skills of the entrepreneurs to strengthen the business sense of their startups,testing the soundness of technological concept and its uniqueness in the market, providing early exposure to EU market access, enabling talent matching and providing Venture Capital groups and other financiers with access to a critical mass of startups.  To achieve this aim under the call topic (ICT-13-2014, web entrepreneurship), the STARTUP SCALEUP will: • Analyse which of their current services are best-in-class, assess which of these can be offered on a non-local scale and then design and implement a new service model to their entrepreneurs.  • Set up an online platform for mentoring, networking and training through which the ecosystem members can share knowledge, experience, and contacts to support the startups, transcending geographical, cultural and resouce-related barriers.  • Generate awareness and interest in STARTUP SCALEUP by developing a specific communication strategy that enables us to to attract the most talented startups to the ecosystem, pull in resources and  publicize the activities of the ecosystem • Run two sequential acceleration programmes in order to create IoTS-based companies and the validate and readjust the STARTUP SCALEUP ecosystem and services.  • Set up a dissemination plan to maximize the expected project impact.


LearnIng from Failure in a collaborative Entrepreneurship network

The LIFE project is about collaborative learning from failure in entrepreneurship and collaborative actions to bring entrepreneurship forward.  Although cultural diversity is one of Europe’s biggest assets, this also creates severe obstacles for entrepreneurs to scale their efforts at the pan-European level. The distributed markets, language barriers and decentralized policy leads to: lack of access to talent & relevant expertise, to sufficient financing and to adequate facilities & networks.  Hinged on a yearly Failing Forward conference, the project will  - map out all the relevant stakeholders and programs in each of the partnering areas in a systematic way, making this available to all web entrepreneurs across Europe in one centralized platform, - identify, share and discuss best practices & success stories   This yearly pan-European conference in Brussels will be complemented with local spin-off events in the partner regions, to  -	generate and grow awareness that failure is an inherent part of the process of entrepreneurship and innovation; -	share and celebrate the success stories that were built on incremental learning; -	open up the existing startup support programs to web entrepreneurs from all over Europe


A fundamental challenge in design research today is to define the design programs that suggest how we can turn our days scientific knowledge and technical development into design for new forms of living that will provide foundations for a more sustainable way of life. Through a cross-disciplinary and cross-national network in architecture, textiles and interaction design the consortium will build and train a new research community to take on this challenge in practice based design research from a broader perspective, in collaboration between academia and the private sector, combining areas of design where Europe by tradition have a very strong  position. The proposed ArcInTex ETN aims to strengthen the foundations of design for new forms of more sustainable ways of living by connecting architecture, textiles and interaction design in a training network for Early stage researchers. Deepening connections between textile,  architectural and interaction design will open up for new reflective foundations of the design for living in an age of technological innovations, designing for adaptive and responsive environments connecting the scales of the body, the interior and the building. By a combination of in depth specialization, collaborative project work training and company internship, the ESRs of the network will form a highly trained avant-garde ready to take on fundamental challenges both in academia and in the private sector building their work practice on new ideas of material thinking and design thinking with emphasis on sensitive design expressions for reflective living. By strong focus on practice based design research the ETN will contribute to further establish design research at a level similar to that of engineering science in areas of special importance for the design of our future ways of living, which is crusial for academia and private sector collaboration in the given areas of design research.


Strategic investments in European manufacturing to win global challenges

As a coordination and support measure this project is aimed to increase the efforts of the EC and the Member States in pursuing the strategic objective of Europe’s reindustrialization and growth during Luxembourg’s Presidency of the Council of the EU (June-December 2015) through the organization of the MANUFUTURE 2015 conference focused on options for strategic investments in European manufacturing.   The main objective of the conference is to identify and endorse new policy instruments, business models, support mechanisms and technologies that could help to strengthen and improve the manufacturing base in Europe given the existing regulatory framework and the constrains that EU manufacturers face on the global markets at this critical time.  More specifically, the conference aims to involve in the consultation process over 750 stakeholders (policy makers, business leaders, innovators and academics) representing all manufacturing sectors in the EU27. The conference is structured along three major themes, including the issues related to widening access to finance for reindustrialisation and growth, moving European industry to the higher end of value chains, and creating synergy of support initiatives at EU level and in Member States with increased participation of financial markets. For each theme a list of sub-issues to be addressed by speakers have been identified through a consultation process with the High Level Group of Manufuture and the Ministries of Economy and Higher Education and Research which have endorsed the initiative of LXI to host this event. The proposal addresses the work programme topic NMP-38-2014 which calls for organising an event of a major strategic nature during the EU presidency of Luxembourg that could contribute towards creating better synergies between public and private initiatives to the benefit of the coherence of the overall actions within the field of research and innovation for the manufacturing sector.