Centre of Excellence in IT Science and Technology

To address and promote growth in several technological sectors in Lithuania and encourage EU teaming in ICT-related research and innovation, the overall objective of the project is to create a new Centre of Excellence (CoE) in IT Science and Technology for the Internet of Things and Smart Living Systems, which will be referred to as “InnoITeam”.  The long-term vision for InnoITeam is to: ● Become the leading provider of innovative technologies for IoT and Big Data for the improvement of the growing technological personal and industry needs in Europe; ● Consolidate research and development, education and training, and networking and promotion resources activities in Information and Communications Technology (ICT);  ● Coordinate, integrate and support research excellence and innovation development in Lithuania, the Baltic Sea region, and Europe; ● Support researchers, academics, industry partners and entrepreneurs in the field of ICT, particularly in IoT, to produce innovations beneficial for the society and economy of Lithuania and beyond. To achieve this long-term vision, the CoE will leverage the knowledge, experience and resources of three Lithuanian institutions – KTU, VGTU and SECR- with the support of two advanced EU partners from Sweden – LiU and TII – in four strategic research and innovation (R&D) topics:  R&D Topic 1: User interfacing and interaction design approaches for Smart Environments based on IoT; R&D Topic 2: Cybersecurity aspects in the Smart Environments based on IoT; R&D Topic 3: Data analysis and visualization approaches for data intensive IoT environments; R&D Topic 4: Cognitive IoT technologies for Smart Home Environments. This project has the full support of the Lithuanian Government because it fits perfectly with several of the national priorities within the SMART Specialisation Strategy approved by the Government, and, will allow an enhanced usage and further growth of the recently upgraded infrastructure for ICT research in Lithuania.

Teaming of excellent research institutions and low performing RDI regions


Support to the implementation of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI CH)

Joint Programming is a process combining a strategic framework, a bottom-up approach and high-level commitment from the Member States (MS). It builds on the experience gained from existing schemes, coordinating national programmes by contributing to the reduction in fragmentation of research efforts of MS, stepping up the mobilisation of skills, knowledge and resources, advancing research and innovation in the specific field. The JPI in "Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new Challenge for Europe" - JPICH - was approved by the Council was launched in January 2010. The JPICH has defined the Vision Document, the Terms of Reference, the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), an Action Programme and a monitoring and evaluation procedure. The experience gained over the past 4 years in JPICH development and implementation has been achieved through the active participation of 17 EU MS and AC and 8 Countries participating with the role of Observers. The present CSA JHEP2 Proposal intends to support the implementation of the Strategic Research Agenda following the recommendations emerging from the High level Group for joint programming (GPC) in the Biennial Report 2014 and in the Report on "Alignment in the context of Joint Programming", which specifically address the recommendation to develop alignment of national research and innovation programmes and activities and application of qualitative and quantitative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).The main objectives addressed within the present proposal are: - Develop effective and efficient governance of the alignment of the national research and innovation programmes. - Reinforce common activities on cultural heritage. - Apply quantitative and qualitative KPIs for monitoring an assessing the JPICH alignment process. The support to the JPICH with the present JHEP2 Proposal will be essential for achieving the above-mentioned objectives and proceed with the integration of the research area on Cultural Heritage.

Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials


Advanced direct biogas fuel processor for robust and cost-effective decentralised hydrogen production

BioROBURplus builds upon the closing FCH JU BioROBUR project (direct biogas oxidative steam reformer) to develop an entire pre-commercial fuel processor delivering 50 Nm3/h (i.e. 107 kg/d) of 99.9% hydrogen from different biogas types (landfill gas, anaerobic digestion of organic wastes, anaerobic digestion of wastewater-treatment sludges) in a cost-effective manner. The energy efficiency of biogas conversion into H2 will exceed 80% on a HHV basis, due to the following main innovations: 1) increased internal heat recovery enabling minimisation of air feed to the reformer based on structured cellular ceramics coated with stable and easily recyclable noble metal catalysts with enhanced coking resistance; 2) a tailored pressure-temperature-swing adsorption (PTSA) capable of exploiting both pressure and low T heat recovery from the processor to drive H2 separation from CO2 and N2; 3) a recuperative burner based on cellular ceramics capable of exploiting the low enthalpy PTSA-off-gas to provide the heat needed at points 1 and 2 above.  The complementary innovations already developed in BioROBUR (advanced modulating air-steam feed control system for coke growth control; catalytic trap hosting WGS functionality and allowing decomposition of incomplete reforming products; etc.) will allow to fully achieve the project objectives within the stringent budget and time constraints set by the call. Prof. Debora Fino, the coordinator of the former BioROBUR project, will manage, in an industrially-oriented perspective, the work of 11 partners with complementary expertise: 3 universities (POLITO, KIT, SUPSI), 3 research centres (IRCE, CPERI, DBI), 3 SMEs (ENGICER, HST, MET) and 2 large companies (ACEA, JM) from 7 different European Countries. A final test campaign is foreseen at TRL 6 to prove targets achievement, catching the unique opportunity offered by ACEA to exploit three different biogas types and heat integration with an anaerobic digester generating the biogas itself.


VALSTYBES SIENOS APSAUGOS TARNYBA PRIE VIDAUS REIKALU MINISTERIJOS

Through-foliage detection, including in the outermost regions of the EU

In the last years irregular migration has dramatically increased, and is no longer manageable with existing systems. Improved methods for border surveillance are necessary to ensure an effective and efficient EU border management.   FOLDOUT focus is on through foliage detection in the inner and outermost regions of the EU. Foliage penetration is an unsolved  important part of border surveillance. By solving the problem of unreliable detections in such harsh environments border guards’ workloads are reduced, costs are reduced and, last but not least, lives can be saved. Detecting people through dense foliage in extreme climates with only a penetration technology is prone to high fault rates. FOLDOUT will build a system that combines various sensors and technologies and intelligently fuses these into an effective and robust intelligent detection platform. Fusing several sensor signals increases the effectiveness of detection. Further, sensors will be influenced (i.e. detection parameters adapted) by events detected by other sensors in the vicinity.  By integrating data, such as vehicle traffic, from outside the immediate border area pre-events can be detected and learned. The events will be analysed with machine learning tools to continuously increase the systems detection and tracking capability.  FOLDOUT will make the tasks of Border Guards simpler and faster by combining events from various sensors to give a complete situation threat assessment combined with suggested reaction scenarios.  A two year pilot in Bulgaria and demonstrators in Greece, Finland and French Guiana FOLDOUT will provide fundamental enhancements in the domain of border surveillance and improved search & rescue scenarios.

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


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.

Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies (LEIT)


Servo drives are small devices that have an output shaft, which can be positioned to specific angular positions by sending the servo a coded signal. Development of autonomous vehicles, drones, advanced robotic manipulators, camera stabilizers and other innovations require servo drives that are able to react and imitate the force of a living being. Absence of such solution creates a market gap in these industries and stagnate revolution of autonomous devices. Currently, there are no commercially available servo drives on the market that can fulfil the performance requirements needed for development of new generation autonomous devices. Force Servo (TRL 7), developed and patented by My Research is a new type of servo drive with controllable action force. The value of force is proportionate to the control signal and does not depend on the position of the arm, while the force is controlled with a force sensor. Force Servo improves technical characteristics of many autonomous devices, by providing simplicity, accuracy, lightness, energy efficiency, and replicating the force of a living being. To demonstrate advantages of Force Servo, the company will first commercialize a video camera stabilizer integrated with Force Servo drives. Such stabilizer is smaller, lighter and better performing than any alternative on the market. In the future, My Research will standardize and commercialize Force Servo drives in all relevant market segments – video stabilization, robotics, bionics, remote controlled vehicles, interactive interface, etc. To ensure successful commercialization, in Phase 1 of SME Instrument, Nord Robos Holding intends to develop an elaborate feasibility study for My Research Force Servo drive commercialization that would include: identification and contacting target users, verification of technological and economic viability, redesign of the product, and a business plan with an extensive financial, pricing, and IPR strategy.


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.


Responsible Research and Innovation Networked Globally

The overall project aim is to bring RRI into the linked up global world to promote mutual learning and collaboration in RRI. This will be achieved by the formation of the global RRING community network and by the development and mobilisation of a global Open Access RRI knowledge base. RRING will align RRI to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global common denominator. The RRING project acknowledges that each region of the world is advancing its own agenda on RRI. Therefore, RRING will not be producing a Global RRI framework or strategy that is meant to be enforced in a top-down manner. Rather, increased coherence and convergence will be achieved via a bottom-up approach, learning from best practices in RRI globally and from linkages, via the new RRING community, to develop the RRI linked-up world. Six Objectives of RRING  Objective 1: Promote a linked up global world of RRI by creating the global RRING community network, thereby enabling mutual learning, collaboration, mobilisation of RRI concepts. Objective 2: Mobilise, promote and disseminate a global open access knowledge base of RRI based on the State of the Art (SoA) and comparative analysis across the key geographies, all stakeholders and sectors. It will cover key platforms, spaces and players, role and influence of stakeholders, drivers and policies for R&I, regulation in public,private sectors and nation states and international organizations. Objective 3: Align RRI to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to provide a global common denominator for advancement of RRI, and address Grand Challenges globally. Objective 4: Determine the competitive advantages of RRI and also understand how and where RRI is perceived as a barrier and/ or disadvantage. Objective 5: Create high level RRI strategy recommendations for the seven geographic zones, trial RRI best practice learning in 2 EU case studies Objective 6: Promote inclusive engagement of civil society and researchers

Develop the governance for the advancement of responsible research and innovation


VALSTYBES IMONES VALSTYBINIU MISKU UREDIJOS

Alternative models and robust decision-making for future forest management

European forests are expected to provide a broad range of ecosystem services (ES). This capacity is however threatened by the uncertainties of climate change, the complex dynamics of evolving global markets and the pressures for increased use of bioenergy. Such challenges cannot be effectively addressed with an uncritical regional or national commitment to traditional forest management models (FMMs), as these are unlikely to ensure the sustained long-term provisioning of desired ES, let alone their optimised delivery. ALTERFOR’s goal is thus to facilitate the implementation of FMMs better suited to meeting the challenges of the 21st century by: (1) Identifying and developing FMMs robust in their capacity to deliver ES and overcome projected socio-ecological risks and uncertainties; (2) Assessing the impact of different FMM combinations in terms of resultant ES baskets on the European and landscape level, and (3) Facilitating the implementation of desired FMMs and improving cross-national knowledge transfer regarding their benefits, costs, management, and utilization. The project will involve a consortium of 19 organisations from nine countries chosen due to their possession of the transdisciplinary expertise necessary to achieve these objectives, and for ensuring an encompassing representation of Europe’s socio-economic conditions and prevailing forest management paradigms. Based on carefully designed case studies, the consortium will make sure realistic models of forest owner behaviour are employed; guarantee the involvement of forest stakeholders throughout the project; anchor the desired FMMs to relevant forest actors; and help disseminate project findings to local, national and European stakeholders. The main long-term impact of ALTERFOR is the implementation of FMMs that secure the capacity of Europe’s forests to continue providing a balanced ES basket that societies will depend upon over the coming century.

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


VARTOTOJU ALJANSAS LITHUANIAN CONSUMERS ALLIANCE

CLEAR-X - Consumers Leading the EU’s Energy Ambition Response, Expansion - is an ambitious extension of a tried-and-tested methodology, designed and developed to address consumers’ needs. The overall objective is to enable consumers to lead the energy transition by investing in renewable energy and sustainable energy (RES) and energy efficient (EE) technologies. It aims to facilitate consumers’ access to household renewables at an affordable price, through the provision of trusted information, collective purchase schemes and an improved regulatory framework. By the conclusion of CLEAR-X, consumers will have improved the energy performance and comfort of their homes and reduced their energy bills in the long term.   The CLEAR-X project will engage 38,000 consumers in collective purchase campaigns in 6 target countries and will trigger over 27M EUR in installations of RES technologies. The project is expected to result in an additional 40 GWh of renewable energy production and trigger 2.15 GWh of primary energy savings within the project duration. Furthermore, the project will help inform a significant number of consumers in the target countries about potential benefits of EE and RES technologies and influence an additional 17,000 consumers to act and save energy.   Building on CLEAR (Intelligent Energy Europe) and CLEAR 2.0 (Horizon 2020), CLEAR-X will expand the proven collective purchase model, by engaging and supporting consumer organisations in Eastern and Southern Europe to launch schemes for their national consumers. Consumer organisations participating in CLEAR 2.0 developed considerable expertise in setting up and running collective purchase schemes and CLEAR-X will draw on this experience, both human and technological, to equip consumer organisations in the target countries with the necessary skills to run collective purchases.


Advanced Plug-in Hybrid Electric Drive System for Commercial Fleet Trucks

Economic, environmental and energy security factors provide a rational basis for switching to more efficient and less polluting vehicle technologies. Another even more important reason for the development of such technologies is the need to improve the air quality in the cities. Fleet users keep looking for cost-cutting solutions in order to remain competitive; they need to adapt to their customers' requirements for more sustainable transport solutions and to prepare for the future market demand and regulations. We have a multiple value proposal for commercial fleet managers – a cutting-edge iPHEV system that can be installed in new LCVs to save fuel costs per work cycle, reduce emissions and noise, improve capacity, and cut operation and maintenance costs. The system can be installed in different OEMs models with a retarder. iPHEV can be used in 3.5t LCV: utility work trucks, delivery vans, and minibuses. Furthermore, we are planning to develop and implement the system in MCV. The iPHEV proved to be an efficient part of the vehicle and the tests confirmed the compliance to the specification of the overall system and proper operation under real on-road conditions. The performance indicators show the viability of the prototypes in Iveco Daily models. Development of high-impact Plug-in Hybrid technologies that may lead to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency is an urgent need in many global areas, including Europe. iPHEV demonstrations have already received a lot of attention from potential customers and government representatives in Norway, Sweden, Denmark. For the purpose of the iPHEV project justification, we are going to prepare a technical/practical and economic feasibility study, including business plan. Subject to positive recommendations of the feasibility study, we are going to submit a proposal under H2020 SME Instrument Phase 2.


Research and Development in support of the GEMINI Initiative

GEMINI+ project proposal will be submitted to the European Commission addressing the 2016 Euratom call for proposals (deadline October 5th, 2016). GEMINI+ project will provide a conceptual design for a high temperature nuclear cogeneration system for supply of process steam to industry, a framework for the licensing of such system and a business plan for a full scale demonstration . It will rely on modular High Temperature Gas cooled Reactor (HTGR) technology, which is a mature technology with several industrial prototypes that have been constructed and operated in the world. Therefore the time scale for the industrial deployment of such nuclear cogeneration systems is the decade. With available materials and technology, such a system can provide steam to industrial steam distribution networks presently operating on industrial sites up to 550˚C, simply substituting to fossil fuel fired cogeneration plants, without any need for adaptation of the steam distribution infrastructure or of the industrial applications. In the longer term, HTGR technology can be further developed to provide higher temperature process heat. Based on its huge thermal inertia, its refractory fuel and core structural materials, on the use of helium, which is chemically inert, as coolant, and of a specific design limited to a few hundred Megawatts, modular HTGRs have a unique intrinsic safety concept preventing in any circumstances significant degradation of the nuclear fuel and consecutive radioactive releases, with no need of any human intervention.  Beyond industrial cogeneration, the flexibility, robustness and simple design of modular HTGR will allow extending application of the system developed by GEMINI+ to small isolated electric grids, to electric grids with increasing proportion of intermittent renewables, to new nuclear countries, etc.


VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS

Advancing fail-aware, fail-safe, and fail-operational electronic components, systems, and architectures for fully automated driving to make future mobility safer, affordable, and end-user acceptable.

Automated driving is a disruptive technology which opens the door to future multi-billion markets providing business opportunities to value chains in automotive and semiconductor industry.The European industry has leading competitive strength in the development and manufacturing of highly reliable electro-mechanical systems. In order to preserve this capability Europe needs to setup European standards for high level control such as real-time computing or big data processing. In order to respond on the global challenge AutoDrive has gathered Europe’s leading semiconductor companies, suppliers, OEMs, and research institutes committed to create a pan-European eco-system, which has the critical mass to initiate standards and provides the components and subsystems for automated driving. Currently, even the most sophisticated vehicle automation technology on the road is not able to surpass human driving capabilities – especially considering context awareness in any situation. Moreover, there is no common agreement on quantifiable dependability measures which hardware and embedded software have to achieve to allow safe automated driving for SAE Levels 3-5. AutoDrive aims for the design of (i) fail-aware (self-diagnostics), (ii) fail-safe, (iii) fail-operational (HW and SW redundancy) electronic components and systems architecture that enable the introduction of automated driving in all car categories. AutoDrive results will significantly contribute to safer and more efficient mobility. It will raise end-user acceptance and comfort by supporting drivers in highly challenging situations (active safety) as well as in regular driving situations. Combining both will reduce the number of road fatalities especially in rural scenarios and under adverse weather conditions. AutoDrive will contribute to Europe’s Vision Zero and to improved efficiency. This will sustain Leadership and even grow the market position of all AutoDrive partners.


Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain

ZeroW has set the ambitious target of playing a key role in the transition of current food systems towards halving Food Loss & Waste (FLW) by 2030 and reaching near-zero FLW by 2050.  ZeroW provides significant impacts through the demonstration of innovations in nine real-life food chains, by employing a systemic innovation approach, to effectively address the multidimensional issue of FLW. This involves:  (i) pre-identifying systemic innovations, that incorporate multiple interlinked dimensions (process, organisational, strategy, marketing, product, technological, governance, etc.), which are tested and demonstrated;  (ii) steering the evolution of innovations towards higher levels of systemic readiness and impact, using a Living Lab co-creation and multi-actor collective learning approach; (iii) enhancing the Living Lab actors’ innovation advancement capability with shared resources facilitating new ways and means of cooperating and co-developing innovations;  (iv) developing context-specific trajectories for the systemic innovations (from ideation to scaling-up and commercialisation) leading to the provision of currently missing end products and services that align with consumer attitudes, food actor needs and policy trends.  Moreover, ZeroW establishes a clear ‘FLW impact trajectory’, from demonstrator results (2025), scaled up to meet the F2F 2030 goals, and steered through a ‘just transition pathway’ towards a near-zero FLW in 2050.


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.


INFORMACINES VISUOMENES PLETROS KOMITETAS PRIE LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKOS VYRIAUSYBES ISTAIGA

For a completely working Digital Single Market, effectively enabling the cross-border exercise by citizens and businesses of their Single Market rights, Member States must address several challenges on delivering better services. DE4A is a Member State-driven pilot, aligned with strategic eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 and EIF Implementation Strategy and with full regulatory compliance (SDGR, GDPR, eIDAS, Services Directive…), establishing a culture of co-creation, transparency, accountability and trustworthiness. Its goal is facilitating migration towards European Digital Public Services co-delivered across borders, across sectors and with different participants, reinforcing trust in public institution, and unleashing multiple measurable positive impacts on efficiency gains and reduction of administrative burden and costs. Starting from needs and capacities of Member States, DE4A’s scalable, holistic, flexible approach focuses on high-quality fully online procedures accessible through the SDG by building on an extended interoperability Toolbox and on state-of-the-art. It enables an open and comprehensive environment and platform for collaboration and innovation, leveraging common eGov baseline patterns for secure, privacy-preserving and trustworthy realisation of essential Once-Only and Relevant-Only principles, and with re-use of existing and new building blocks and Digital Service Infrastructures at national and EU-wide levels. Innovative technologies like blockchain, machine learning, self-emerging ontologies and zero-knowledge proofs will be addressed for effective sharing of common services. Pilots involving secure access to key administrative procedures of real life and business events, shall highlight aspects of the technical ecosystem available for the SDG implementation, prove their technical viability and gauge the performance and degree in which non-functional requirements can be accommodated. DE4A includes 27 partners and has a duration of three year

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


Up to University - Bridging the gap between schools and universities through informal education

The key objective of our project is to bridge the gap between secondary schools and higher education and research by better integrating formal and informal learning scenarios and adapting both the technology and the methodology that students will most likely be facing in universities.  We are focusing on the context of secondary schools, often referred to as high schools, which provide secondary education between the ages of 11 and 19 depending on the country, after primary school and before higher education. The learning context from the perspective of the students is the intersection of formal and informal spaces, a dynamic hybrid learning environment where synchronous activities meet in both virtual and real dimensions. For this, we propose to develop an innovative Up to University (Up2U) ecosystem – based on proven experiences in higher education and big research – that facilitates open, more effective and efficient co-design, co-creation, and use of digital content, tools and services adapted for personalised learning and teaching of high school students preparing for university. We will address project based learning and peer-to-peer learning scenarios.   We strongly believe that all the tools and services the project is going to use and/or make available (i.e. incorporate, design, develop and test) must be sustainable after the lifetime of the project. Therefore, the project is going to develop business plans and investigate appropriate business models using the expertise of the Small Medium Enterprise and National Research and Education Network partners and their contacts with third-party business actors. Our plan is to make it easy for new schools to join the Up2U infrastructure and ecosystem that will form a federated market-place for the learning community.


Physical principles of the creation of novel SPINtronic materials on the base of MULTIlayered metal-oxide FILMs for magnetic sensors and MRAM

The main goal of the project is the elaboration of research and development principles and technology, as well as creation of novel nanoheterostructures for application in spintronic devices, first of all, in magnetic field sensors and magnetoresistive random access memories. The key research and technological aspects are focused on the formation of layers and/or nanosized grains of a ferromagnetic material with an ultimate degree of conduction electron spin polarization, separated by dielectric interlayers. The main research, technological and innovation aspects of the work are aimed at an increase of the devices’ sensitivity to magnetic fields thanks to the high degree of spin polarization and to the magnetoresistance due to electron quantum tunneling through dielectric barriers.   The proposed creation methods of the device prototypes can be rapidly implemented in the automotive, electronic and biomedical industries by means of a rather simple technology, which makes them attractive for the industry across the EU, as only the standard technological equipment is used. The new generation spintronic devices to be developed in the present project will possess high sensitivity, speed performance and low energy consumption.  The project aims as well at the creation of a stimulating and interdisciplinary training partnership, with actors from the academia and private sector, promoting the exchange of ideas, methods, techniques as well as enabling an accelerated technology transfer from science to industry through a continuous collaboration between the stakeholders. Working on spintronics demands strongly innovative and interdisciplinary skills, since there is a lot of pressure from the private sector to develop new original solutions for the modern devices. Training of the high-level personnel possessing complementary interdisciplinary skills is thus a key issue.


SMART, SUSTAINABLE & CONVENIENT UNIT DOSE PACKAGING

Of the total plastic demand, approximately 40% is used to make packaging that is discarded within weeks or days. These short-life plastics bottles, containers, unit dose packaging, secondary packaging have important disadvantages regarding their usage and disposal. Traditional plastics are derived from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, used to produce large quantities of plastics that go to waste (38% go to landfills). Due to the increasing awareness of such environmental impact, there is a growing demand for packaging made from bioplastics (polymers derived from renewable resources or biodegradable polymers). For almost every conventional plastic there is now a bioplastic alternative available on the market that has the same properties with additional advantages. Currently bioplastics represent around 1% of the total plastic produced annually (2M in 2017) but the market is booming (20% growth annually) and many big firms are introducing bio-packaging in an attempt to position their products as green and include the sustainability claim. Moreover, about 80% of European consumers want to buy products which have minimal impact on the environment and will be willing to accept an additional charge in their shopping bag for sustainable packaging. Our project, BIOSNAP aims at taking full advantage of the bioplastics market growth and opportunities towards more sustainable products. We are providing a ready-to market, sustainable unit dose packaging that is 100% bio-based for food applications (olive oil, ketchup, or mayonnaise). Furthermore, it will be made of biodegradable and compostable materials in compliance with UNI EN13432. Our end users (food firms) will benefit from a premium and unique unit dose packaging on the market, and final consumers will benefit from its versatility and ease of use (one hand opening system), being able to safely dispose the packaging with the organic waste. The consortium expects to achieve a ROI of 15.3 from BIOSNAP.


VIESOJI ISTAIGA SVIETIMO IR KULTUROS MOBILIUJU TECHNOLOGIJU INSTITUTAS

Managing Affective-learning THrough Intelligent atoms and Smart InteractionS

The MaTHiSiS learning vision is to provide a product-system for vocational training and mainstream education for both individuals with an intellectual disablity and non-diagnosed ones. This product-system consists of an integrated platform, along with a set of re-usable learning components (educational material, digital educational artefacts etc.), which will respond to the needs of a future educational framework, as drawn by the call, and provide capabilities for:  i) adaptive learning, ii) automatic feedback, iii) automatic assessment of learner’s progress and behavioural state, iv) affective learning and v) game-based learning. To achieve these educational innovative goals, the MaTHiSiS project will introduce a novel methodology in the education process. The so-called learning graphs which, acting as a novel educational structural tool and associated with specific learning goals, will foster novel ways to guide how the different learning material and artefacts can be deployed throughout a prespecified learning scenario. The building materials of these graphs are drawn from a set of Smart Learning Atoms (SLAs) which will constitute the vertices of the graphs. SLAs are learning elements that carry stand-alone pieces of learning materials, targeting certain problems. More than one SLAs, working together on the same graph, will be able to help individuals reach their learning/training goals. The learning goals as well as the SLAs involved will be decided and pre-agreed based on common practices, goals derived from formal and non-formal education (general education, vocational training, lifelong training or specific skills learning) as well as learner’s own goals (so as to equally serve in-formal education contexts).


The PJ18-W2 4D Skyway project aims to continue the research on Trajectory Management (TM) to enable the deployment of the SESAR Trajectory Based Operations (TBO).  PJ18-W2 will deliver mature TM operational improvements to accelerate their deployment and to get the associated benefits and will also work on a longer term on the definition of the consolidated TM solution to drive the coherence and efficiency of the research on TM and on architecture alternatives to address the European ATM fragmentation. In details, PJ18-W2 will: •	Prepare the deployment of improvements to the ground trajectory prediction and separation management/ monitoring tools by using aircraft trajectory data, more precise meteo data, improved algorithms and machine learning techniques. This will decrease trajectory uncertainty and thus will reduce ATCO workload and increase airspace capacity. •	Prepare the deployment of complex CPDLC clearances sent in advance of the horizontal, vertical and longitudinal trajectory change to enhance the synchronisation of the airborne trajectory with the ground trajectory. Automation will keep the flight crew and the ATCO workload to a low level. It will decrease trajectory uncertainty and increase airspace capacity. •	Define the Ground-Ground and Air-Ground TM exchanges between the European ATM actors by consolidating the different initiatives and bridging the gaps. This will drive the current and the future TM research and the ICAO FF-ICE discussions. Also, explore new automation for Trajectory exchanges (big data, machine learning, voice recognition…). •	Define a trajectory common service as an alternative architecture for Trajectory exchanges between ground ATM actors compared to the current European ATM fragmented approach to improve its cost effectiveness. PJ18-W2 will work on the definition and validation of operational TM solutions using prototypes and the expertise of European ANSPs, Ground and airborne industries, Research centres and EUROCONTROL.


Innovative Cluster for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies

INCLUDING connects 15 Partners from 10 EU Member States (MS), bringing together infrastructure, equipment and experts coming from Medical Organizations, Fire Corps, Government Department, Municipalities, Law Enforcement Agencies, Ministries, Governmental and Civilian Research Institutes and Industries operating in the field of radiological and nuclear emergencies. Far from being a simple aggregation of entities separated geographically and with complementary expertise, INCLUDING pursues to develop a Federation in which individual Members will cooperate together to provide a common framework to standardize access to their respective facilities, enhance interoperability and to allow a more intensive use of expensive equipment. The operative tool to manage the Federation will be a web-based platform with a sophisticated architecture and whose functionality has been proven in a previous EU project. At the same time the project aims to enhance practical know-how and to boost a European sustainable training and development framework for practitioners in the Radiological and Nuclear Security sector. The INCLUDING project will be  flexible in order to include new facilities and innovation in technology, organizations and procedures. The plurality of facilities and expertise in the INCLUDING Federation reflects the complex and intertwined structure of the prevention and response phases of RN threats and will provide to the practitioners a set of real or emulated scenarios where  to test concept of operations in a controlled environment.  The Joint Actions will be the focal points of the project. They are multidisciplinary field exercises, tabletop exercises, training, serious gaming and simulation organized at their premises by the project partners and with the objective of demonstrating the added value of the Federated scheme and of the use of an innovative tool like the INCLUDING web based Platform to manage a pan European network of training facilities and resources.


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.


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.


Feasibility study for Bioapplications – BioBalanced Farm probiotic

A rapid emergence of resistant bacteria occurs worldwide, endangering the efficacy of antibiotics, which have transformed medicine and saved millions of lives. The antibiotic resistance crisis has been attributed to the overuse and misuse of these medications. 700 000 patients die annually as a result of infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. Due to a growing demand to substitute medicine and hazardous chemical usage in agriculture, Bioapplications developed the BioBalanced Farm Probiotic – a unique probiotics blend, which is misted in the facility, naturally excludes pathogenic bacteria and prevent mutation and development of resistant bacteria. The Solution also strengthens immune system, improves the welfare and increases the mass of the livestock, reduces bad odours, and generally improves a quality of meat. Consequently, farmers are able to fight.  According to Eurostat, there were 331.16 million Livestock Units (LSUs) in 2017 – 44.47% were pigs, 26.9% were cows, 26.3% were sheep’s and 3.9% were goats. Since pigs are the most prevalent in Europe and antibiotics are heavily overused in pig farms, the commercialisation of the solution will be firstly focused on pig farms. With a total of 147.24 M pigs in EU-E8, the total available market size for BioBalanced Farm probiotic is 88.34 M square meters. Bioapplications will enter the market by targeting large pig farms in home market Denmark, followed by Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. After a successful commercialisation, Bioapplications plans to scale-up by expanding into other EU regions and providing the service to poultry and cows farms. Commercialisation strategy includes three steps: preparation for market entry (home markets), market replication (large pig farms in target countries) and scaling-up (large pigs/poultry/cow farms in other EU countries). The Solution developed by Bioapplications is currently at TRL 6: prototype that is validated in industrially relevant environment stag


VALSTYBINE VARTOTOJU TEISIU APSAUGOS TARNYBA VI

Market Surveillance Action for Tyres 2015

MSTyr15 (Market Surveillance Action TYRes 2015) will help deliver the economic and environmental benefits of Regulation (EC) No. 1222/2009 on the labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency. It will achieve this by: • Coordinating the monitoring, verification and enforcement activities of 13 Market Surveillance Authorities (MSAs) across the Single Market  and Turkey; • Improving the effectiveness of the MSAs through skills-building training, the provision of guidelines and the promotion of Best Practices. MSTyr15 will enhance the functioning of the European Single Market by ensuring that the tyres regulatory measures are effectively enforced across MS. It will deliver energy savings >105 GWh/year through removing incorrectly labelled tyres from the market. Experience and resources for enforcement have been very limited in many MS since the tyres regulations were introduced in 2009. MSTyr15 includes mechanisms for assisting the skills development of less experienced staff and their authorities, supporting the adoption of common best practices and providing budgets to cover the high costs of testing tyres to the required standards. It will coordinate market surveillance actions involving checks on in excess of 15,000 tyres. It will deliver a higher level of surveillance activities that go beyond testing. The consortium will work closely with other non-participating MSAs across the EEA though its liaison with the Tyres ADCO. Additionally, the MSTyr15 consortium will work together with an Advisory Board comprising of supply-side business, consumer organisations and environmental NGOs.  The expected results are:  - Adoption of best practices; - Market surveillance being undertaken in a more cost effective and consistent manner; - Increased awareness of and respect for market surveillance by tyres suppliers and users;  - Effective enforcement of EC Regulation on the labelling of tyres resulting in substantial energy savings expected to be better than 105 GWh/year.


Separation Management and Controller Tools

This project is part of the Industrial Research & Validation phase, developed under the SJU Private Public Partnership and will contribute to the SESAR2020 Programme Lifecycle. It will build upon previous work in SESAR2020 Wave 1.  The project will further mature the concept of “Flight Centric ATC” where an air traffic controller is responsible for a certain number of aircraft throughout their entire flight segment within a given airspace whereas other controllers are responsible for different aircraft within the same airspace. Another objective is to enable collaborative control operations, where ATCOs will be able to issue instructions to aircraft that involve out-of-sector manoeuvring, without the coordination required in conventional operations. This will be accompanied by an activity to identify and validate needs that might allow a Controller to operate in any airspace classified as a particular type. That is, the ATCO will be validated on method and tools rather than a geographic specified airspace.  In addition, the project will investigate and develop the Contingency and Delegation of Airspace Operational Use Cases. It will identify the impacts on the services defined in the Virtual Centre concept and validate the concept within a realistic environment based on contingency needs or on organisation needs (either static, on a fixed-time transfer schedule, or dynamic, when the traffic density is below/above a certain level).  In order to reduce the workload and mental strain on the controllers in the ATC centre, especially under high traffic density/complexity situations, the project will investigate new human machine interface interaction modes and technologies. This work will consider modern design and development approaches as well as methodologies such as modularity, service-oriented architecture, adaptive automation. The project will in  particular address Automatic Speech Recognition, Attention Guidance and enhanced User Profile Management Systems.


OpenAIRE-Advance continues the mission of OpenAIRE to support the Open Access/Open Data mandatesinEurope. By sustaining the current successful infrastructure, comprised of a human network and robust technical services, it consolidates its achievements while working to shift the momentum among its communities to Open Science, aiming to be a trusted e-Infrastructurewithin the realms of the European Open Science Cloud.In this next phase, OpenAIRE-Advance strives to empower its National Open Access Desks (NOADs) so they become a pivotal part within their own national data infrastructures, positioningOA and open science onto national agendas. The capacity building activities bring together experts ontopical task groups in thematic areas(open policies, RDM, legal issues, TDM), promoting a train the trainer approach, strengthening and expanding the pan-European Helpdesk with support and training toolkits, training resources and workshops.It examines key elements of scholarly communication, i.e., co-operative OA publishing and next generation repositories, to develop essential building blocks of the scholarly commons.On the technical level OpenAIRE-Advance focuses on the operation and maintenance of the OpenAIRE technical TRL8/9 services,and radically improvesthe OpenAIRE services on offer by: a) optimizing their performance and scalability, b) refining their functionality based on end-user feedback, c) repackagingthem into products, taking a professional marketing approach  with well-defined KPIs, d)consolidating the range of services/products into a common e-Infra catalogue to enable a wider uptake.OpenAIRE-Advancesteps up its outreach activities with concrete pilots with three major RIs,citizen science initiatives, and innovators via a rigorous Open Innovation programme. Finally, viaits partnership with COAR, OpenAIRE-Advance consolidatesOpenAIRE’s global roleextending its collaborations with Latin America, US, Japan, Canada, and Africa.


Eco-friendly corrosion protective coatings based on smart nanotechnology platforms for a circular economy

The need to develop and use products made out of residues or sub-products from industry is creating pressure over fields where more traditional, linear economy concepts prevail. In this project we address one important stage of the life cycle of products, particularly trying to extend its service life, thereby contributing for advances towards circular economy via increase in durability of materials and use of greener materials. In particular, this proposal addresses the problem of protection and monitoring of corrosion of metallic substrates used in different applications. Structured in previous experience with a recently finished MSCA-RISE project SMARCOAT (ref. 645662, 2015-2018), this project aims at developing eco-friendly multifunctional coatings with capacity to protect and detect corrosion based on different mechanisms combining nanostructured inhibiting and sensing additives. Two types of coating systems are intended to be developed, one for temporary protection during storage and transportation based on biodegradable materials and another on thermosetting polymers obtained using raw materials from sustainable sources. A relevant part of this project includes the study of fate and ecotoxicity of different coating components and Life cycle analysis, which will be equaled as a figure of merit with performance factors to select the most promising systems and launch demonstrators for standard and field tests.


Researchers' Night: It's Your Friday to Discover!

The LT2016 Researchers’ Night projects for 2016 and 2017 will take place in major Lithuanian cities, i.e. Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda, Siauliai and Moletai, as well as in rural areas. The project aims to enhance public recognition of researchers and their work through bringing scientists and public closer to one another and thus increasing an understanding of the impact of researchers' work on citizen's daily life as well as encouraging young people to choose careers in science and research. Both events will offer a broad range of varied activities addressing all categories of the public at large, regardless of age and scientific background, i.e. notably: Meetings and activities together with researchers; Lectures, discussions; Visits to open laboratories; Real life observations and experiments; European corners; Various contests, games, exhibitions, movie and online broadcast watching. All the activities planned will actively involve researchers and will offer a balanced combination of "serious" activities and funny ones to be attractive for the general public. Activities will be hosted in labs, lecture halls, meeting places, cafes, while in the rural areas they will take place in schools or public spaces. Some activities conducted in the main sites will be broadcasted online. Common concept for the Night in 2016 and 2017 will be Learning about Technology Futures. Therefore activities of Researchers’ Night projects in 2016 will be organised with focus on Virtual Reality thus building foundations for the Night in 2017 which will focus of "science futurity" or Futures of technologies. Both events will be finalised with the grand event unifying different fields - music, science and cinema. We expect at least 500.000 people made aware of the Researchers' Night and its objectives through the awareness campaign and 11.500 direct attendees to the various events planned in 2016 as well as in 2017.


vilniaus universiteto medicinos fakultetas

INnovative Life sCIence Phd Programme in South ITaly

INCIPIT is a novel international PhD programme, which aims at providing innovative multidisciplinary and intersectoral training in Life and Biomaterial Sciences. Currently, there are several nodes of excellence in the South of Italy, capable of providing competitive scientific training. However, comprehensive training programmes addressing multidisciplinarity, transferable skills and internationalization are lacking. INCIPIT addresses this gap by pooling the different and complementary expertise of 8 research institutes (from biology and genetics to statistics, engineering, computer science, chemistry and medicine) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), as well as the competencies of 3 Doctoral Schools and several academic, non-profit and industrial Partner Organizations. INCIPIT will apply transparent and equitable selection procedures, based on merit and on equal opportunities to recruit 35 Early Stage Researchers. INCIPIT will guarantee 1) a supportive, stimulating and multidisciplinary research environment to carry out the research projects; 2) theoretical and practical courses on developmental/stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, structural biology and biocatalysis, human disease mechanisms, cancer development and treatment, metabolism and inflammation, drug design, discovery and delivery, and computational biology; 3) a comprehensive training on transferable skills on several topics, from communication, project management, clinical trials, the principle of the 3 Rs for the use of animals, to intellectual properties and entrepreneurship; and 3) exposure to the industry sector. The ultimate goal is to train the next generation of researchers to become a very attractive source of employment in both the Italian and European labour markets. INCIPIT will be a pilot project, paving the way to the consolidation in the South of Italy of an international PhD programme, with close collaboration among the CNR, the Universities and the industrial sector.


Controller Tools and Team Organisation for the Provision of Separation in Air Traffic Management

Single European Sky – the vision is clearly described in the ATM Masterplan. Reaching the goals for the European Airspace is only possible with focused technical developments on European level. The air traffic controller is the main player in the traffic management at tactical level. This project aims at providing the air traffic controller with more automated tools, thus freeing capacity for situations where human intervention is crucial. This provides even safer service for an increasing amount of traffic and with lower costs, as required by airspace users. This project is a part of the SESAR programme and addresses separation management. It will not only improve current conflict detection tools, but also develop new tools aiding the air traffic controller with resolution advisory and monitoring of flight trajectory.  The project also addresses new ways of working together.  Air traffic controllers traditionally work in pairs and in specific airspace. Could we change this to multi-planner setup, sector less airspace and seamless cross-border operations? Our project will ensure the research is developed to a stage where it can be used in operational air traffic management systems in Europe. This ensures that anyone can fly safer, cheaper and quicker in Europe in 10 years.  Another really important issue is the integration of “Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems” – drones.  Drones are new to European Air Traffic Management, and it is urgent to address concepts and technological developments needed to handle this kind of traffic safely. The companies involved in this project are the only ones that can deliver this kind of result. Not on their own – but as the unique cooperation between air navigation service providers and air and ground industry. The capabilities to provide sustainable results usable throughout Europe by fast-time, real-time simulations and live trials ensures that developed prototypes are working in the context of future traffic and ATM systems.


MUITINES DEPARTAMENTAS PRIE LIETUVOS RESPUBLIKOS FINANSU MINISTERIJOS

Pan-European Network of Customs Practitioners (PEN-CP) project builds a network between distinct customs administrations to create an ecosystem for interoperability, knowledge sharing and innovation to improve European security though more efficient control of the illicit trade flows. Organized collaboration across customs organizations forms a platform for excellence in customs practices and their continuous improvement through the means of technology, regulatory changes and organisational restructuring. The project complements the fundamental objective to improve the security of people, businesses and institutions in modern society through technological innovations, collaboration with police, border guards and private operators. The project evolves through orchestrated collaborative activities to build confidence and trust among the customs administrations leading to transparent information sharing and social build-up of common norms and values. The created network effect is a precursor for innovation and continuous improvement to battle against the plethora of criminal acts the societies are facing. Despite common aims different customs organizations operate and are being managed in different ways. Strong country specific traditions and national focus have prevented the natural evolution and improvement of customs operations to mitigate the risks hidden in global trade flows. PEN-CP enables cross-fertilization of ideas, working procedures and technological experimenting beyond the existing practises. A social network of practitioners from the same field with heterogeneous backgrounds is the source of creative thinking and progress, which the project aims to unleash for common good. Like any social network the impact is scalable to all operators in the customs realm, thus the project and its results will have an impact to all customs administrations, including the ones not partnering the PEN-CP project.


One of the main obstacles of reaching Single European Sky’s objectives is management of flight trajectories. Inaccuracies are difficult to spot and information given to stakeholders about the trajectory is limited, arriving late, and full of inconsistencies and wrong assumptions. Military Flights are currently not integrated in the ATM-system, so demanding special treatment.  Additionally, there is a lack of complete, updated, unique and coherent aeronautical and meteorological information at European level, which again limits the accuracy of the predicted trajectory and so difficult detecting incoming issues and designing optimum solutions.  This project addresses solutions for the above limitations. Harmonized and global trajectory information sharing, including improved negotiation mechanisms, will enable significant operational benefits on flight management. The aim is to enable a unique and integrated view of all flights trajectories (including military ones) among the stakeholders. This is improved thanks to new tools and capabilities ensuring all stakeholders are managing a single, updated and complete view of the forecasted meteorology and airspace configuration.  Both solutions above will increase safety and efficiency - a very important step towards ensuring that anyone can fly safer, cheaper and quicker in Europe in 10 years.  As so many stakeholders are involved, this issue cannot be solved at national level. All stakeholders (mainly air navigation service providers, as well as air and ground industry partners) need to be involved as all will need to perform changes to ensure successful implementation. The SESAR 2020 Programme is the only place where this can happen.  In this project we have ensured participation of the major ATM stakeholders which ensures having the knowledge and expertise to come up with the concepts, prototypes and platforms to provide sustainable results usable throughout Europe.


EU-STRAT - The EU and Eastern Partnership Countries: An Inside-Out Analysis and Strategic Assessment

Ten years after its inception, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has fallen short of accomplishing its mission. The war in Ukraine and the rising tensions with Russia have made a re-assessment of the ENP both more urgent and more challenging. EU-STRAT will address two questions: First, why has the EU fallen short of creating peace, prosperity and stability in its Eastern neighbourhood? Second, what can be done to strengthen the EU’s transformative power in supporting political and economic change in the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries?  Adopting an inside-out perspective on the challenges of transformation the EaP countries and the EU face, EU-STRAT will • develop a conceptual framework for the varieties of social orders in EaP countries to explain the propensity of domestic actors to engage in change; • investigate how bilateral, regional and global interdependencies shape the scope of action and the preferences of domestic actors in the EaP countries; • de-centre the EU by studying the role of selected member states and other external actors active in the region; • evaluate the effectiveness of the Association Agreements and alternative EU instruments, including scientific cooperation, in supporting change in the EaP countries; • analyse normative discourses used by the EU and Russia to enhance their influence over the shared neighbourhood. • formulate policy recommendations to strengthen the EU’s capacity to support change in the EaP countries by advancing different scenarios for developmental pathways. EU-STRAT features an eleven-partner consortium including six universities, three think-tanks, one civil society organization and one consultancy. This consortium will achieve the research and policy relevant objectives of the project by bringing together various disciplinary perspectives and methodologies and strengthening links with academics and policy makers across six EU member states, Switzerland and three of the EaP countries.


Thermal treatment for radioactive waste minimisation and hazard reduction

Safe management of radioactive waste is challenging to waste producers and waste management organisations. Deployment of thermal treatment in an optimised waste management lifecycle can provide significant volume reduction, waste passivation and organics destruction, with benefits for waste storage and safety cases for geological disposal. Relevant technologies include in-container vitrification, gasification, plasma treatment and hot isostatic pressing. THERAMIN aims in utilisation of all these methods.  THERAMIN will provide an EU-wide strategic review and assessment of the value of thermal technologies applicable to a broad range of waste streams (ion exchange media, soft operational wastes, sludge, organics and liquids). THERAMIN will compile an EU-wide database of thermally treatable wastes, will document the strategic benefits of thermal treatment, and will identify the opportunities, synergies, challenges, timescales and cost implications to improve radioactive waste management. THERAMIN will evaluate the applicability and achievable volume reduction of the technologies through ‘first-of-a-kind’ active and non-active full-scale demonstration tests, and will assess the disposability of residues.   The project benefits from the large investments made by partners in thermal treatment R&D facilities, which will be used to maximise the benefit across Member states. THERAMIN will benefit from close engagement with an End User Group (waste producers and waste management organisations). The partners will encourage the mobility and training of staff for the development of the next generation of engineers and scientists, and the proposal includes a technical training workshop, a scientific conference, and use of other dissemination tools. THERAMIN will establish a pan-European network of expertise on thermal treatment, will provide for cross-European technology transfer, and will identify prospects for sharing of facilities between countries facing similar problems.


After the primary intervention, most of cancer patients are managed at home, facing long-term treatments or sequelae, making the disease  comparable to a chronic condition. Despite their benefit, strong therapeutic regimens often cause toxicity, severely impairing quality of life. This may decrease adherence to treatment, thus compromising therapeutic efficacy. Also due to age-related multimorbidity, patients and their caregivers develop emotional, educational and social needs. CAPABLE will develop a cancer patient coaching system with the objective of facing these needs/issues. The time is right to fully exploit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data potentialities for cancer care and bring them to patients’ home. CAPABLE will rely on predictive models based on both retrospective and prospective data (clinical data, data from unobtrusive environmental and wearable sensors, data from social media and questionnaires). Models will be integrated with existing clinical practice guidelines and made available to oncologists. Thanks to the mobile coaching system for patients, CAPABLE will allow identifying unexpected needs, and providing patient-specific decision support. This feature, together with the chance of discovering unknown adverse effects of new treatments, makes CAPABLE more than a personalised tool for improving life quality, an advance for the whole research community.  Our team includes complementary partners with experience in data- and knowledge-driven AI, data integration, telemedicine, decision support. In addition, the involved patients’ association gives a unique opportunity to access thousands of questionnaires on patients’ needs, which will inform the system design. The project addresses EU priorities such as shifting care from hospitals to home to face scarcity of healthcare resources, facilitating patients’ re-integration in the society and in the labour market, and ensuring all EU citizens to benefit from an effective, novel cancer care model.

Health, demographic change and wellbeing


Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural heritage in creative and Knowledge cities

ROCK aims to develop an innovative, collaborative and circular systemic approach for regeneration and adaptive reuse of historic city centres. Implementing a repertoire of successful heritage-led regeneration initiatives, it will test the replicability of the spatial approach and of successful models addressing the specific needs of historic city centres. ROCK will transfer the Role Models blueprint to the Replicators, adopting a cross-disciplinary mentoring process and defining common protocols and implementation guidelines. ROCK will deliver new ways to access and experience Cultural Heritage [CH] ensuring environmental sound solutions, city branding, bottom-up participation via living labs, while increasing liveability and safety in the involved areas. ICT sensors and tools will support the concrete application of the ROCK principles and the interoperable platform will enable new ways to collect and exchange data to facilitate networking and synergies. The added value is the combination of sustainable models, integrated management plans and associated funding mechanisms based on successful financial schemes and promoting the creation of industry-driven stakeholders’ ecosystems. A monitoring tool is set up from the beginning, running during two additional years after the project lifetime. Main expected impacts deal with the achievement of effective and shared policies able to: accelerate heritage led regeneration, improve accessibility and social cohesion, increase awareness and participation in local decision making process and wider civic engagement, foster businesses and new employment opportunities. Involving 10 cities, 7 Universities, 3 networks of enterprises, 2 networks of cities and several companies and development agencies, a foundation and a charity, ROCK is able to catalyse challenges and innovative pathways across EU and beyond, addressing CH as a production and competitiveness factor and a driver for sustainable growth.


Collaborative Recommendations and Adaptive Control for Personalised Energy Saving

Achieving the European environmental objectives for 2020 requires not only technological progress, but also a major change in energy consumption behaviour. The enCOMPASS project will implement and validate an integrated socio-technical approach to behavioural change for energy saving, by developing innovative user-friendly digital tools to make energy consumption data available and understandable for different stakeholders (residents, visitors, public actors, building managers, utilities and ICT-providers) in ways that empower them to achieve energy savings and manage their needs in energy efficient, cost-effective and comfortable ways. It will demonstrate how this can be achieved with a holistic approach that integrates visualisation of energy data collected from smart sensors, user-generated information and context-aware collaborative recommendations for energy saving, intelligent control and adaptive gamified incentives.   The enCOMPASS system will be realized as an open platform combining 1) context-dependent energy usage information from in-home sensors (smart meters and smart home appliances for heat and electricity), 2) user-generated information (automatic and manual activity tracking), 3) adaptive gamified energy visualisation and 4) intelligent controls and automation. The platform is developed to achieve sustainable changes in user energy consumption patterns without compromising comfort levels. The enCOMPASS system will integrate existing technology, product and service offerings of the utility and technology partners, customize and extend them to offer improved and new types of their offerings. The enCOMPASS platform is the heart of a new business ecosystem that enables players in the energy domain to develop their own white-label solutions on top of the platform, or to integrate and use individual services or platform modules. This set-up results in societal, environmental and economic impact of enCOMPASS above and beyond the reach of the pilots.


GENEROLO JONO ZEMAICIO LIETUVOS KARO AKADEMIJA

Strategic programs for advanced research and technology in Europe

In the domain of Cybersecurity Research and innovation, European scientists hold pioneering positions in fields such as cryptography, formal methods, or secure components.  Yet this excellence on focused domains does not translate into larger-scale, system-level advantages. Too often, scattered and small teams fall short of critical mass capabilities, despite demonstrating world-class talent and results. Europe’s strength is in its diversity, but that strength is only materialised if we cooperate, combine, and develop common lines of research. Given today’s societal challenges, this has become more than an advantage – an urgent necessity. Various approaches are being developed to enhance collaboration at many levels. Europe’s framework programs have sprung projects in cybersecurity over the past thirty years, encouraging international cooperation and funding support actions. More recently, the Cybersecurity PPP has brought together public institutions and industrial actors around common roadmaps and projects. While encouraging, these efforts have highlighted the need to break the mould, to step up investments and intensify coordination.  The SPARTA proposal brings together a unique set of actors at the intersection of scientific excellence, technological innovation, and societal sciences in cybersecurity. Strongly guided by concrete and risky challenges, it will setup unique collaboration means, leading the way in building transformative capabilities and forming world-leading expertise centres. Through innovative governance, ambitious demonstration cases, and active community engagement, SPARTA aims at re-thinking the way cybersecurity research is performed in Europe across domains and expertise, from foundations to applications, in academia and industry.


Consolidating the European Research Area on biodiversity and ecosystem services

The loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems jeopardize the sustainable provision of ecosystem services and are major scientific and societal challenges. Addressing this challenge and providing scientific support to stakeholders and policy makers requires a coherent interdisciplinary research framework, with coordinated strategies and programmes at the national, regional and international levels, which are the relevant scales for many biodiversity issues.  By networking 32 funding agencies from 18 countries, BiodivERsA3 aims to strengthen the ERA on biodiversity. Building on the previous experiences of the projects BiodivERsA1&2 and NetBiome, BiodivERsA3 will promote and support coordinated pan-European research on biodiversity and ecosystem services. It will strengthen research and research programmes coordination with the ultimate aim to provide policy makers and other stakeholders with adequate knowledge, tools and practical solutions to address biodiversity and ecosystem degradation.   The objectives are to:  - Enhance the capacity of the network to coordinate research programmes on biodiversity and ecosystem services more completely in Europe (including overseas territories) and to increase the international dimension of BiodivERsA activities - Develop a strategic, multi-annual vision of the network’s priorities, based on ambitious mapping and foresight activities developed in collaboration with key initiatives in the field - Design and implement a co-funded call and other joint calls to better integrate research on biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe - Develop a range of other joint activities, in particular alignment of national research programmes for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and activities for promoting mobility and equal opportunities for researchers and reinforcing data sharing - Promote effective science-policy and science-society (including science-business) dialogue during the whole research process


Monitoring EU energy efficiency first principle and policy implementation

The ODYSSEE-MURE project aims to support policy makers in EU Member States to fulfill their obligations in the framework of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED). In particular, it provides user-friendly databases and web-tools for monitoring and evaluating the impact of energy efficiency policies. The ODYSSEE database and facilities contain and analyse latest available energy consumption and energy efficiency indicators by sector, end-use in households and services, by mode in transport. The MURE database and facilities contain and analyse energy efficiency policies and measures by sector. These tools have been conceived in the past and will be extended under this project by an experienced team comprising national energy efficiency agencies from 28 EU Member States (plus Norway, Switzerland and Serbia), and a strong technical coordination. Future inclusion of Balkan countries will be prepared under this project. We enhance, update and modernise these tools for support to the Member States through regional and national training events as well as dissemination products such as country/sector profiles, newsletters, policy briefs and webinars. In addition, we focus on operationalising the Energy Efficiency First Principle (EE1-P) for the MS, which is a key requirement in the EU Energy Union Governance Regulation . We will develop an indicator-based approach to EE1, considering wider aspects such as (1) New Societal Trends (e.g. the Shared Economy) which may increase or reduce energy demand, (2) Energy poverty, (3) the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. We will disseminate the analysis developed in this project to national bodies, inter alia by dissmeinating the outputs at key conferences (such as the eceee conferences).


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.


Towards Autonomous Large Area Mass Production Sputtering Plants

Problem: Although manufacturing is moving towards full automation, some industries, such as thin film manufacturing industry, are still heavily reliant on inefficient human labor. There are no commercially available solutions on the market enabling full automation of thin film production plants. That explains low production rates, waste of materials & energy, high operating costs, and increased overall inefficiency of thin film industry, which also has a direct negative impact on other industries dependent on using thin film components for goods they produce, such as smartphones, tablets, computers, cameras, watches, jewellery, various medical instruments, and many more. Solution: Nova Fabrica has already successfully developed and tested a prototype of a plant-wide intelligent Supervisory Process Control System (iSPCS) – the only holistic control system, enabling real-time production/process monitoring for thin film plants, thus fully automating the process side of thin film manufacturing. Initial investigations performed by the biggest thin film plant in the Baltics “Groglass” estimated that the iSPCS at its current state could provide their plant a 30% increase in thin film production volumes and up to 10% decrease in electricity consumption (by 1 GWh) leading to an increase in net profits by 54%. In conclusion, if iSPCS was adopted by thin film manufacturers it would produce a profound impact on many industries reliant on thin films on a European and global level. Next steps: Thorough market analysis and an elaboration of a business plan is needed in order to define strategic commercialization. This feasability study will be a crucial step towards commercialisation of iSPCS and needs to be completed urgently due to current conditions of Nova Fabrica being the first company that offers such product and thus having an opportunity to expand quickly and establish in the market, in addition to contributing to the uptake of advanced manufacturing technologies by SMEs.


Transition metal oxides with metastable phases: a way towards superior ferroic properties

The main objective of the project is development of complex transition metal oxides with perovskite-like structure having improved and controllable (multi)ferroic properties. The mentioned materials are manganites and ferrites with optimal composition having distinct magnetization, polarization, (magneto)transport properties or magnetoelectric coupling. The idea of the project is to utilize reduced structural stability of these oxides which increases their sensitivity to external stimuli. Improved functional properties of these oxides can be controlled via modification of the chemical bond character, structural parameters, stoichiometry, defects etc. The reduced stability is associated with the metastable structural state formed in the vicinity of the phase boundaries, while this state presumably consists of coexistent nanoscale regions of the adjacent structural phases. There are two ideas to create metastable state: the first one – to design ceramics via chemical substitution and post-synthesis treatment by high pressure and/or thermal cycling in gases to induce nanoscale regions, the second one assumes chemical routes synthesis of films and ceramics. Besides the fundamental interest of the phase transitions and related phenomena affecting properties of the oxides the applicants consider them to be effective materials for electronic applications (as sensors, magnetic memory elements, filters etc.). Research of these oxides requires consolidative efforts of specialists in different scientific areas - Materials Science, Theoretical Physics, Solid State Physics etc. as well as an access to unique equipment and facilities. Another important objective of the project is a formation of interdisciplinary network of teams and specialists with different scientific backgrounds which will ensure effective transfer of actual knowledge and skills. Development of the transition metal oxides with controllable properties has promising commercial opportunities for the involved SME.


FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THE RUBEDO CVM – INNOVATIVE OPTICAL COMPUTER VISION MODULE FOR UNMANNED VEHICLES

One of the major driving forces for the depth perception market is the increasing use of mobile robots and drones for multiple applications. Without reliable vision and particularly depth perception unmanned vehicles are unable to detect obstacles and adaptively plan motion paths. Moreover, the new generation of robotic machines strongly depend on the ability to acquire, organize, and interpret surrounding visual data in real-time in order to stay aware of the environmental situation and act adequately. Robot and autonomous vehicle manufacturers or system manufacturers do not have the necessary skills, knowledge and know-how for computer vision development, therefore they would much rather use a standard computer vision solution. Currently in the market there is no truly affordable standardized stand-alone COTS 3D computer vision solution, which is capable of high resolution low power long range real-time optical depth sense with deep learning based natural object perception capabilities out of box – something, that is universally appreciated by many mobile robotic system manufacturers and integrators. Rubedo Sistemos has already developed and successfully tested a prototype of CVM (computer vision module) – the first affordable, compact low power long-range high-resolution real-time depth sense technology for 3D perception at longer distances for mobile robotics. Rubedo CVM has been designed as a maintenance-free standalone product which provides high definition images, accurate measure of the environment depth, and can be trained to extract natural objects of interest in real-time. Thorough analysis of market and user needs as well as an elaboration of a business plan is needed in order to ensure successful commercialization of Rubedo CVM. This feasibility study will help validating the market in addition to providing a stepping-stone for future preparation of investor readiness as well as serve as a roadmap for market replication of the product.


Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to medicine and healthcare. The field takes advantage of the physical, chemical and biological properties of materials at the nanometer scale to be used for a better understanding of the biological mechanisms of diseases at the molecular level, leading to new targets for earlier and more precise diagnostics and therapeutics. Nanomedicine, rated among the six most promising Key Enabling Technologies, is one of the most important emerging areas of health research expected to contribute to one of the strategic challenges that Europe has to face in the future: Provide effective and affordable health care and assure the wellbeing of an increasingly aged population.  EuroNanoMed III (ENM III) builds on the foundations of ENM I & II, which launched 7 successful joint calls for proposals since 2009, funded 51 transnational research projects involving 269 partners from 25 countries/regions, and allocated € 45,5 million to research projects from ENM funding agencies. ENM III consortium, reinforced with 12 new partners  from Europe, Canada and Taiwan, is committed to fostering the competiveness of European nanomedicine actors taking into account recent changes in the landscape and new stakeholders and challenges, as identified in the SRIA in nanomedicine. The first joint call for proposals will be co-funded by ENM III partners and the EC. After the co-funded call, three additional joint transnational calls will be organized and strategic activities will be accomplished in collaboration with key initiatives in the field. ENM III actions focus on translatability of project results to clinical and industry needs.


Understanding and improving the sustainability of agro-ecological farming systems in the EU

The overarching objective of UNISECO is to strengthen the sustainability of EU farming systems, through co-constructing practice-validated strategies and incentives for the promotion of improved agro-ecological approaches. We will enhance the understanding of socio-economic and policy drivers and barriers for further development and implementation of agro-ecological approaches in EU farming systems to identify and facilitate more effective management strategies for European agriculture. This requires a wider systems perspective, considering socio-economic, ecological and political settings at a territorial level. We will operationalise a socio-ecological systems framework that integrates external settings into a sustainability assessment of farming systems, paying particular attention to the role of different types of actors and their roles in sub-systems. UNISECO will provide a methodological toolkit to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of innovative strategies and incentives for agro-ecological approaches in EU farming systems at farm and territorial levels. The methodological toolkit will be tested in participatory case studies in 15 European countries with different biophysical, socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts of farming systems. UNISECO is committed to a genuine transdisciplinary process, reflected in consortium composition of stakeholder and scientific partners, and the emphasis on multi-actor engagement. Group learning processes, integrating practical and theoretical knowledge, will benefit scientists, stakeholders and end-users through improved understanding on how to strengthen sustainability of EU farming systems. UNISECO addresses the work programme topic SFS-29-2017 and contributes to Sustainable Food Security by identifying and supporting farming systems that enable the production of healthy food while preserving the environment and bringing added value to farm households and the different stakeholders of the value chain.


VALSTYBINIS MOKSLINIU TYRIMU INSTITUTAS FIZINIU IR TECHNOLOGIJOS MOKSLU CENTRAS

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