Projects

Identity theft is rapidly expanding, causing substantial financial loss to millions of people all around the world. This invisible crime is also widespread across EU countries, where a growing number of citizens is targeted by sophisticated fraudulent attacks each year, both offline and online. 56% of Europeans have experienced at least one type of fraud in the last two years. European security officials speak of an “epidemic” created by a spike in demand from asylum-seekers and from terrorists carrying counterfeit documents to enter the EU. Security documents are increasingly being counterfeited or tampered with by criminals to facilitate transnational crime. The continued vulnerability of different types of identity and travel documents makes it extremely difficult to combat this problem. SafeTravellers value proposition aims at a) strengthening the security at the borders, b) improving the productivity of the Border Authorities and LEAs by providing them with the appropriate tools to combat identity fraud at the hardware, identity and travel document, and biometrics level, while c) offering a frictionless border crossing experience for EU/TCN citizens as they will not have to stop at the border checkpoints. SafeTravellers is both proposing a new way of citizen identification based on multiple biometrics instead of the problematic identity document, as well as an enhancement of the current way of identity verification at the borders through a set of tools that will detect attacks at the biometric hardware, identity and travel document fraud and attempts to falsify biometrics. The proposed solution is GDPR compliant and introduces various privacy-preserving mechanisms to safeguard the citizens' rights. Through the distributed European Multi-Biometric Data Space offered by SafeTravellers, each Member State will keep in its jurisdiction the personal data of its country nationals while allowing cross-border identity checks without transferring or revealing any biometric data.

Accurate and reliable analyses of medical images have become a key step to determine the presence or severity of diseases, directly impacting the clinical care for patients. Among the numerous and various biomedical image analysis, the identification of blood vessels and the associated vascular trees is one of the most central topics for diagnosis of the coronary, lungs, liver, or retina, which require detection methods to assist physicians. Many such methods show intrinsic limitations due to the required pre-processing of the images, to the approach used, e.g. limited training databases, etc. Complex filamentary patterns, such as the vascular trees, are common and widely observed in geology, astrophysics, etc. In astrophysics, elongated structures made of the alignment of galaxies, called filaments of the cosmic web (CW), reveal the nature of matter in the Universe and the way it assembles over the ~14 billion years’ history of the cosmos. For these reasons, detecting CW filaments and studying them is an increasingly important topic in astrophysics and is one of the aims of the ERC-Advanced project ByoPiC (Baryon Picture of the Cosmos). This proposal is a direct offspring of ByoPiC. It is the first step of a multi-step technology transfer strategy which aims at transferring an innovative algorithm to detect filaments in the distribution of galaxies to the analysis of biomedical images, laying the ground for applications in scores of other domains, e.g., satellite imagery, geophysical tomographic data, engineering, etc.

The ocean absorbs 90% of the heat associated with global warming and 30% of anthropogenic CO2. How such tracers are accumulated and redistributed within the turbulent ocean is a central issue of long-term climate prediction. The challenge stems from the existence of ocean mesoscale eddies: turbulent vortices tens of kilometers wide that are not resolved by climate models despite being key contributors to ocean transport. In the absence of a better theory, the associated transport is parameterized in global models using ad hoc coefficients with arbitrary depth dependence. The present project will improve upon this unsatisfactory state of the art. Based on a multi-method approach combining theory, laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and satellite data analysis I will derive a physically-based parameterization for turbulent transport in the 3D ocean. The derivation hinges on my recent quantitative theoretical advances for the magnitude and 3D structure of turbulent transport in the canonical models of oceans and atmospheres (the Charney, Eady and Phillips models): - I will augment these theories by including the additional physical ingredients of the real ocean: bottom slope, arbitrary large-scale flow and density stratification, etc. - I will determine the frictional dissipation on the ocean floor by combining rotating-platform laboratory experiments with 3D-printed realistic ocean-floor topography. - I will infer transport and bottom friction independently through the combination of satellite and profiler data. - I will derive the resulting parameterization using multiple-scale expansion before implementing it in a state-of-the-art climate model. As opposed to the current practice of adjusting transport coefficients to the current state of the ocean, the physically-based parameterization will remain valid in a warming climate, a necessary condition both for paleoclimate studies and for reliable climate forecast over the coming centuries to millennia.

Artificial intelligence is a pervasive and ubiquitous technology, with fast developments and ever-growing applicative horizons. While achieving outstanding results, estimating the decisions’ reliability is a critical and open problem with strategic outcomes: from estimating uncertainty in numerical simulations to harnessing system reactions in open environments. Uncertainties both in input data and model output should be handled to increase the confidence in AI applications : physics-based models, edge computing, data frugal approaches, interactions with humans, with many applications in energy, climate change adaptation, bioinformatics, engineering, fundamental and material science,… DeMythif.IA is an international doctoral training and career development program driven by UPSaclay, and its 19 research and industrial partners supported by thematic networks to enhance the scientific excellence and career development of 30 PhD fellows in Greater Paris area. The program focuses on 3 interdisciplinary scientific axes 1) handling uncertainties on data and model and quantifying uncertainties on the predictions, 2) managing explainability, so that the trained model outcome can be trusted and explained to a human, and 3) encouraging frugality, both in term of labelled data and energy for training, so that real-life applications (as opposed to proofs-of-concept) emerge. The fellows will benefit from world-class scientific programs, quality supervision and industrial secondments and also from personalized career development activities and transferable skills training (interpersonal, communication, digital, entrepreneurship, open science, gender, ethics). DeMythif.AI’s strength lies in its diversity permitting to fine-tune the content offered to the fellows from a professional perspective. It ultimately allows concretizing dynamic research collaborations and developing strong synergies around the academic and industrial community, opening new perspectives beyond the project.

High resolution optical spectroscopy in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectral range (3-12 µm wavelength) is an unambiguous way to detect and quantify small traces of greenhouse and toxic gases down to sensitivities of parts-per-billion. Such sensitivities are a prerequisite to safeguard low-pollution and toxic-free environment defined by the EU Action Plan: "Towards a Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil.” However, size, cost, and general complexity of the commercially available instruments limits their use to a small number of highly specialized applications, and prevents their deployment with sufficient coverage e.g. in networks, wearable electronics, etc. Particularly in the context of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, on chip integration of spectroscopic systems would constitute a game changer for mid-IR high-precision and portable sensors. The objective of UNISON is to address this challenge and demonstrate a highly scalable platform for infra-red spectroscopy that has both high-end performance and is compact. UNISON sensing scheme relies on dual comb spectrometers obtained by leveraging on electrically pumped cascade lasers (QCL and ICL) and on silicon-germanium (SiGe) mid-IR photonic circuits to surpass current spectroscopic systems in terms of detection bandwidth, point spacing and system compactness. UNISON is organized around 3 main cornerstones each of them relying on ambitious physical and technological challenges: (i) tunable large bandwidth frequency combs will be generated on SiGe photonics circuits by combining electro-optical comb generation, non-linear effects and dispersion engineering ; (ii) the comb sources will be pumped by novel electrically-driven cascade laser sources integrated with the SiGe photonics circuits ; (iii) compact, broadband, and sensitive interaction region for trace gas detection, designed and optimized for the SiGe platform, will be integrated with the dual comb source to showcase the sensing capability of the spectrometer.

The MaxImmun project aims at preventing and treating infections, and situations of conflict between the host and its microbiota, by developing a disruptive technology based on molecules that boost antimicrobial peptides (AMP) of the innate immune system. To face the problem of antibiotic resistance, this high-potential technology may be relevant both in situations of endemic infections in the developing world, and infectious or inflammatory pathologies in industrialized countries. Our objective is to establish the proof-of-concept that among a series of hit molecules identified for their capacity to promote AMPs, a small subgroup may qualify to lead molecules that can then be pushed into the late phases of the R&D pipeline, with the perspective of a phase I clinical trial. To achieve this transition, our project will range from the comprehension of microbial mechanisms leading to antibiotic resistance, to the comprehension of AMP regulations, the identification of molecules and their optimization by medicinal chemistry, and the characterization and evaluation of their protective efficacy in pre-clinical validation models. Thus, we expect to develop innovative molecules as future antimicrobial drug candidates.

It has become increasingly clear that the European Union’s manufacturers largely rely on microelectronics components from outside the EU that make them vulnerable to materials supply bottlenecks. To support EU’s high-tech development and enhance its industrial sovereignty, novel technologies engaging radically new concepts are required such as, but not limited to, spin-based electronics. Crucially, these novel technologies must also demonstrate sustainability and resilience to material supply chain interruptions, while at the same time reducing the environmental footprint of this growing sector. OBELIX will contribute to this strategic effort by a twofold paradigm shift: (i) harnessing the orbital degree of freedom shall bring disruptive solutions to existing spin-based technologies, reducing power consumption and (ii) opening entirely new avenues for devices that do not require any heavy metals that are sourced outside EU and are often detrimental to the environment. OBELIX will demonstrate how the orbital moment can be engineered and controlled using electrical as well as optical means, enabling thus a novel information carrier that can be transmitted and used to write and read information thus outperforming conventional spin-based devices.

The new technology envisioned in CIRCULIGHT will establish a breakthrough in Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) capabilities, with impact across a wide range of applications of high economic and societal value. It will lay the foundations of a new class of PICs which are highly functional, miniaturized and low power-consuming, as well as being manufacturable at low cost, thereby contributing significantly to environmental protection and related quality of life. The essential building block that will be created in this project is a truly integrated optical circulator, which protects active and passive integrated functions from each other, distributes light between them, and finally allows very large scale integration of photonic components within diversified PIC architectures. The practical realization of such a structure will be a world-first and a breakthrough in PIC technology. CIRCULIGHT technological decisive progress is based on magneto-optical (MO) nanoparticle-composite sol-gel material and on magneto-biplasmonic (MBP) effect, which will enable the monolithic insertion of circulators on any photonic platform. Within the project, a demonstration will be made on two of them, based on InP and Si respectively, operating at 1.3 or 1.5 µm. While PIC foundries rely on specific and independent technologies, our solution will bypass these specificities, thanks to a universal integration of functional materials. In addition, our interdisciplinary approach is based on the analysis of real world needs, feeding the co-creation of an exploitation roadmap together with end users, industrial and societal stakeholders, in preparation for the scaling up of our technology developments to transform society for the better. To reach these objectives, our consortium of nine partners encompasses competencies in material sciences, photonics, plasmonics, PICs technology and social science, and includes two SMEs.

Cancer is one of the major causes of death in Europe. Pancreatic (PC) and biliary tract (BTC) cancer are rare gastrointestinal adenocarcinomas with an increasing incidence particularly among the elderly and women in an ageing European population, and a poor prognosis poses major clinical challenges and public health burden. Cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) has shown potential regressing various cancer types in the laboratory setting. Owing to their properties, CAP is a unique source of high concentrations of reactive radicals, electrons, ions, UV etc. that may induce various effects in living tissue. CAP has shown selectivity in where cancer cells are treated with minimal effect to healthy ones; this renders plasma suitable to treat carcinomas in very sensitive areas or organs where an unmet need to minimise damage/side-effects exists. CAP can be delivered through dielectric tubes of variable length, which makes it ideal for minimally invasive and precise laparoscopic and endoscopic operations. Despite the great promise and potential of this concept, there is no single laparoscopic or endoscopic medical platform in the market today based on CAP to treat carcinomas. This project proposes a novel solution using cutting-edge plasma technology, in-silico models, and a system-level approach. It will combine plasma with tumour multiscale simulations and will take input from pre-surgery diagnostics for in-silico model initialisation and CAP operational window determination. The developed technology will be demonstrated through in-vivo experiments, while the foundations for clinical trials and market introduction for CAP-based care of PC/BTCs will be laid out in this project.

We aim at realizing a novel class of high-temperature Josephson junctions (JJs) that behave as artificial neurons and synapses. These JJs will enable a new neuromorphic computing paradigm, in which neural networks are much faster, more energy efficient and compact than with non-superconducting approaches, and possess novel capabilities (combined sensitivity to light, magnetic and electric fields). Via these rupture ingredients, JOSEPHINE will dramatically enhance the impact of neuromorphics on its broad range of projected applications: from artificial intelligence (where it would allow supercomputer-level processors at a fraction of the environmental cost) to the control of autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, and novel medical applications. That constitutes the long-term vision for the science we propose. To reach that goal, we will use different strategies to realize high-Tc Josephson junctions whose weak-links are active and can be changed "in operando" by external stimuli. Those strategies include "weak links" modified by a nanoscale redox reaction, by the motion of domain walls in a ferromagnet, or by locally doping a graphene or a 2D semiconductor. Once realized, these JJs will be implemented and tested in neural networks to demonstrate their performance and their transformative effect on neuromorphics. The proposed strategy exploits recent breakthrough results of the partners (physical effects that will be implemented) and synergizes their complementary expertise via a multidisciplinary approach that marries traditionally distant disciplines: neural network engineering, superconducting electronics, and various facets of solid-state physics (superconductivity, magnetism, Dirac materials, and electrochemistry).

Since the establishment of EATRIS as an ERIC in 2014, the infrastructure has developed a growing portfolio of services and collaborative projects serving several user groups including industry (large pharma and SME), academia, research funders and patients. EATRIS has progressed from proposing a strong proof of concept service portfolio, to building and delivering innovative tools for translational research and is now advancing its strategy to further exploit these tools for the extended research and innovation community. EATRIS-CONNECT will accelerate this strategy by focusing specifically on advancing the digital readiness of EATRIS to support biomedical challenges in Europe and provide translational solutions for the benefit of personalised medicine. Through curated access to novel digital tools and services, as well as node strengthening, EATRIS-CONNECT will equip EATRIS across the entire distributed research infrastructure to address bottlenecks and challenges for the application of digital solutions in the context of use. Moreover, the project will ensure this digital transformation is environmentally sound by improving energy, resource, and material efficiency, supporting the environmental goals of the European Green Deal. The project will promote the cross-border alignment in the adoption and application of digital tools and help consolidate the European RI landscape by fostering interdisciplinary collaborations between cross-sector RI and exploring how RI can together unlock innovation in the digital domain. EATRIS-CONNECT will provide the pathway for the evolution of EATRIS. All 14 national EATRIS nodes form the central pillar of EATRIS-CONNECT, facilitating the alignment of strategic national priorities across the infrastructure and empowering EATRIS widening nodes to strengthen their digital competencies, ultimately ensuring the long-term sustainability of EATRIS.

Research in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology is vital for sustainability globally: advancement in nanoscience and nanotechnology cannot be achieved without using research infrastructures (RI). RIANA encompasses 7 European networks of top-level RIs to cover the most advanced techniques relevant for synthesis, nanofabrication, processing, characterization, analytics, as well as simulation capacity. Highly customised and efficient access to 69 infrastructures is coordinated via a single-entry point and enabled through comprehensive Science and Innovation Service by senior scientists, experts for the transfer of technology from academia to industry, and highly trained Junior Scientists. The Junior Scientist boost RI experience to an entirely new level: they provide customised Science Service supporting users from initial ideas to hands-on experiments, data analysis and dissemination of results to generate the greatest impact from access to world-class RI. This core of RIANA is aligned to attract experienced and new users from academia or industry making their promising ideas a success and push them to higher TRL. RIANA is flexible to upcoming emergent scientific topics and needs: together with stakeholders from the nanocommunity, RIANA implements the opportunity to offer flexible access to additional infrastructures in, and even outside of Europe beyond the current consortium, and to direct the Science Service towards evolving user needs via additional specialised Junior Scientists. Based on the four years of experience, the RIANA consortium will develop a roadmap for the future of the nanoscience and nanotechnology at European RIs.

The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a fully operational European Landmark research infrastructure providing standardised high-precision observations on greenhouse gases and their fluxes. The ICOS infrastructure is currently covering 16 countries with 170 stations. In this project, we will work with new users for ICOS data from satellite and modeling communities and prepare products for policymakers. We are improving sustainability of ICOS by streamlining the data pipelines and strengthening the community engagement including new members. In addition to data, ICOS is producing protocols and processes, which are now needed for the global greenhouse gases (GHG) initiative coordinated by World Meteorological Organization (WMO), thus strengthening the European leadership in it. NUBICOS will focus on four specific objectives: 1. The cooperation between ICOS and the remote sensing community will be deepened. 2. The value chain from observations to climate services will be improved. 3. The internal engagement of ICOS and the identity of the ICOS community will be strengthened. 4. The global cooperation of ICOS, particularly in the WMO framework, will be intensified.

ELIXIR unites Europe’s leading life science organisations in managing and safeguarding the increasing volume of data being generated by publicly funded research. It coordinates, integrates and sustains bioinformatics resources across its 23 Nodes. ELIXIR enables users in academia and industry to access services (databases, software, training, standards, compute) provided through national Nodes. ELIXIR is the ESFRI Landmark for life science data and plays a unique role in the landscape, with millions of users globally, supporting the digital-needs of other ESFRIs and Horizon Europe research projects. Increasingly, life-science data is held at national and institutional centres. Thus, large-scale data analytics requires that researchers can find and analyse data distributed across Europe. The purpose of ELIXIR-STEERS is to build capacity for large-scale, cross-border data analysis and for this capacity to be embedded across member states. ELIXIR-STEERS directly benefit Europe’s life scientists by allowing software and workflows to meet requirements of those using them in national centres. A ‘robust, reproducible and green’ approach to software and workflow provision will ensure that scientists have access to high quality, energy-efficient analysis tools. The project will also develop the crediting and recognition systems for software, supporting improvements to research assessment frameworks. Further, ELIXIR-STEERS supports ELIXIR’s long-term operations by addressing the recommendations of the European Commission and ESFRI on the long-term sustainability of research infrastructures. It will strengthen the operational excellence of ELIXIR’s Nodes; support the training and development of professional and scientific staff in ELIXIR Nodes; expand the membership of ELIXIR to new countries, especially widening countries; enable international collaborations in particular with Latin America and Africa; and stimulate innovation and industry engagement.

ENVRI-Hub NEXT develops and implements the open access hub to the data and services provision framework of the Cluster of Environmental Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) and connects the environmental research community to the European Open Science Cloud. The overarching goal of ENVRI-Hub NEXT is to consolidate and advance the robust conceptual and technical structure established by the ENVRI-Hub to empower the ENVRI Science Cluster to provide interdisciplinary data-driven services. These services will support climate change research, including the development of mitigation and adaptation measures and strategies, and the assessment of the climate change risks. Through this platform, ENVRI-Hub NEXT will facilitate the integration of the environmental sciences community into EOSC, guided by the concept of Essential Climate Variables. In direct answer to the Call Topic, ENVRI-Hub NEXT expands the frontiers of multidisciplinary environmental sciences by fostering operational synergies between ENVRI RIs and developing and utilising complementarities in their data and services provision. The joint forces of ENVRI and e-infrastructures allow for the integration of cutting-edge information technology, alignment with the EOSC architecture, and efficient resource allocation for the advancement of a more integrated, productive, and globally competitive ENVRI Science Cluster. The ENVRI-Hub NEXT consortium brings together the key ESFRI Landmarks (ACTRIS, AnaEE ERIC, EPOS ERIC, EuroArgo ERIC, IAGOS AISBL, ICOS ERIC, LifeWatch ERIC) and ESFRI Projects (eLTER) participating in ENVRI-FAIR, the ENVRI information technology development and support providers from the University of Amsterdam, SeaDataNet as the key marine data infrastructure, FMI for the close relationship to EOSC Association and stakeholders, and the EGI Foundation and members of the EGI Federation to implement the operation of the services and the integration with EOSC Core.

Adaptation to climate change requires in-depth understanding of climate change driven risks, including their determinants (hazards, exposure and vulnerabilities) and impacts to human, production and natural systems. Integrated Research Infrastructure Services for Climate Change Risks (IRISCC) is a consortium of diverse and complementary leading research infrastructures (RIs) covering disciplines from natural sciences to social sciences, across different domains and sectors. IRISCC provides scientific and knowledge services to foster cutting-edge research and evidence-based policymaking to improve Europe's resilience to climate change. IRISCC ensures a “one-stop-shop” for various user communities on climate change risk related RI services by setting up a dedicated Catalogue of services and related access management system both for granting transnational (onsite and remote) and offering virtual access. The Catalogue of services will be built through three consecutive releases, each delivering increasingly integrated services to its user communities. The IRISCC service integration will include Service Design Labs employing co-design and transdisciplinary action, and Service Demonstrators benchmarking the integrated cross-RI services. In addition to services aimed towards the scientific community, IRISCC will offer knowledge services aimed towards policymakers and other stakeholders. This is done together with risk management platforms. The research enabled by IRISCC contributes to future reports on climate change effects (IPCC, IPBES) as well as policy- and decision-making to meet the targets of climate adaptation strategies. IRISCC contributes to training a new generation of scientists to efficiently use RI services and for data stewardship. Data from IRISCC will be open and made available in compliance with FAIR principles and linked to European initiatives such as EOSC. Strong links will be created between IRISCC and current and future efforts under Horizon Europe.

ENVRINNOV will co-design, test, and validate a common Innovation Roadmap for the European Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) community. This Roadmap will set a credible pathway for the ENVRI community to establish and operate an ENVRI Innovation Hub (EIH), for the future development of new state-of-the-art technologies and services. The project will also develop the tools, policies, and community necessary for the Roadmap’s successful implementation. To achieve this, ENVRINNOV will: i) Conduct a comprehensive analysis of ENVRI services and technological needs & gaps, and define how to monitor them regularly. ii) Define, digitalize, and promote the uptake of common ENVRI innovation strategies for new technologies/services development to meet emerging needs/gaps. This will be done by defining and testing innovation co-creation mechanisms between ENVRIs, industry and the scientific community and shaping them into common policies. The project will also develop an ENVRI innovation capacity-building programme, a digital platform to enable them, and an uptake strategy to promote them. iii) Engage the ESFRI and R&I environment ecosystems to ensure long-term synergies and complementarities with ENVRI and gather feedback and support for the Roadmap. Finally, the project will plan for the timely and realistic implementation of the Roadmap, by also creating and validating with the ENVRI community an implementation plan, governance model and business model for the EIH. ENVRINNOV’s approach supports ESFRI’s strategic objective to “accelerate the exploitation of EU RIs as knowledge & innovation hubs”. It will help strengthen the European response to the climate crisis and its associated scientific, societal and economic challenges, by increasing the capacity of ENVRIs to respond to them. It will contribute to a more effective EU RI landscape, and support better integration across thematic areas and with the EU Technology Infrastructure landscape

Particle accelerators have become essential instruments to improve our health, the environment, our safety, and our high-tech abilities, as well as to unlock new fundamental insights in physics, chemistry, biology, and generally enable scientific breakthroughs that improve our lives. Accelerating particles to higher energies will always require a large amount of energy. In a society where energy sustainability is critical, keeping energy consumption as low as reasonable possible is an unavoidable challenge for both research infrastructures (RIs) and industry, which collectively operate over 40,000 accelerators. Based on state-of-the-art technology, the portfolio of current and future accelerator-driven RIs in Europe could develop to consume up to 1% of Germany's annual electricity demand. With the ambition to maintain the attractiveness and competitiveness of European RIs and to enable Europe’s Green Deal, we propose to Innovate for Sustainable Accelerating Systems (iSAS) by establishing enhanced collaboration in the field to broaden, expedite and amplify the development and impact of novel energy-saving technologies to accelerate particles. For many frontier accelerators superconducting RF (SRF) systems are the enabling technology. iSAS will innovate those technologies that have been identified as being a common core of SRF accelerating systems and that have the largest leverage for energy savings to minimize the intrinsic energy consumption in all phases of operation. In the landscape of accelerator-driven RIs, solutions are being developed to reuse the waste heat produced, to develop energy-efficient magnets and to operate facilities on opportunistic schedules when energy is available. The iSAS project has a complementary focus on the energy efficiency of the SRF accelerating technologies. This will contribute to the vital transition to sustain the tremendous 20th century applications of the accelerator technology in a green and energy conscious 21st century.

Lasers4EU is incorporating the major laser research infrastructures, in a large number of European member states, into a comprehensive virtual distributed laser research infrastructure that is offering to a broad user community, from academia and industry, access to an exceptional portfolio of technical and scientific capabilities. This unique set of instruments together with the specific scientific expertise at the host facilities allows Lasers4EU users to carry out high-level research in an extremely wide range of high-impact topics in life sciences, materials nano-processing, etc. Laser technology has experienced remarkable advances and breakthroughs and is now a key innovation driver for highly diversified societal applications and products, thereby substantially contributing to economic growth and to solving challenges in the areas of health, environment and energy. Through its strategic approach, Lasers4EU aims to strengthen Europe’s leading position and competitiveness. It facilitates long-term coordination of the laser research activities within the European Research Area and provides concerted and efficient services to scientific, industrial and medical researchers. The main objectives of Lasers4EU are to: • provide coordinated access to high-quality services based on a coherent and comprehensive consortium of 27 leading European laser installations offering to users from academia as well as from industry cutting-edge performances at the forefront of the laser technologies, • structure the European landscape of laser Research Infrastructure through enhanced access, extended geographical coverage, novel science diplomacy activities, improved synergies with other European networks and projects, • increase European human resources in the field of laser science by implementing training activities towards researchers from new domains of science and technology and from geographical regions where laser communities are still less developed.

Terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems are being challenged by global changes, and threats to agricultural and forestry ecosystems represent some of the most serious environmental and socio-economic menaces that the planet and humanity are facing. Climate change (CG) is widely recognised as one of the most impactful global changes, and since it goes hand-by-hand with biodiversity and services loss in terrestrial ecosystems, they should be tackled together. Microbes constitute the life support system of the biosphere, but they are its most overlooked fraction and are not considered in the context of CG. The overall understanding of the impact of CG on the assembly and functions of microbiomes is still very limited. How the complex microbes-plants-soil interactions and its consequences on plant performance and productivity are impacted by CG is still largely unknown. Additional knowledge also needs to be obtained on the overall ecosystem functioning, and to what extent microbiomes may mitigate stress conditions due to CG. The project MICROBES-4-CLIMATE will provide a wider community of users/researchers, irrespective of location, efficient access to a cluster of complementary world-class Research Infrastructures and their integrated, advanced services along with training and scientific and/or technical support, to address such need. An excellence-driven programme of Transnational Access, which is at the core of the project, will enable users to conduct curiosity-driven research addressing terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems, in light of the abovementioned multidimensional and still poorly understood microbiomes-plants-soil-environment interactions, and its roles in CG responses, resilience, and mitigation. This will foster the advancement of frontier knowledge and also pave the way to applied research on harnessing plant-microbiome interactions to improve the climate resiliency of plants/crops and to enable e.g., precision, sustainable and resilient agriculture.

The goal of CARGO-ACT is to deliver a clear roadmap for sustainable global cooperation between key ground-based aerosol, cloud and trace gas research infrastructures, each having invested in infrastructure and services to support their observing networks with a long-term perspective, with a view to consolidating into a sustainable global research infrastructure in the future. There is a strong desire for global integration from the research community, including weather, climate, and air quality monitoring and modelling, and in particular from space agencies, since global networks of ground-based observations are an essential component complementing Earth Observation from space, providing calibration and validation of the remote sensing information collected by current and future satellite missions. The integration of the current ground-based networks, which may have different interests and priorities, requires cooperation and agreements at the global level, including engagement with relevant stakeholders. Their service provision is not limited to data services, but includes access to the measurement facilities, reference instruments, reference standards and laboratories, all of which are topics to be assessed in CARGO-ACT. The specific objectives of CARGO-ACT are to, develop sustainable partnerships and decision making processes with relevant partners, demonstrate the benefits of converging interoperability and standards to stakeholders and the global research community, establish the mechanisms for providing international access to distributed research infrastructures and develop a roadmap for upscaling towards an integrated global research infrastructure for aerosol, cloud and trace gases.

Europe’s rural and urban areas are facing increasing negative impacts from climate change, biodiversity loss, unsustainable resource use, and an increasing disconnect between citizens from urban and rural areas. These megatrends threaten the sustainability of urban development and associated food systems. Throughout Europe’s cities, different types of urban farming, such as gardens, rooftop or vertical farming, have emerged which could provide impactful responses to these megatrends. Policy-makers and practitioners urgently need knowledge on the benefits, impacts and risks of urban farming, to help them shape policy and legal frameworks that can foster benefits and mitigate risks of urban farming. FOODCITYBOOST will develop a knowledge-based decision-support tool, consisting of (i) evidence-based indicators of environmental, social and economic performance and impacts of urban farming at farm, regional and EU scale and providing (ii) guidance on policy instruments that foster the development of urban farming. The future potential of urban farming will be assessed in foresight analysis and scenario analysis, as well as development and prototyping of novel forms of urban farming. FOODCITYBOOST will closely collaborate with >100 stakeholders from 6 case studies, using an approach based on the idea of living labs. This allows us to learn from regions throughout Europe where urban farming thrives and is supported by regional policies. FOODCITYBOOST brings together expertise on social science and humanities, land systems, urban farming, and life cycle assessment, to expand the knowledge base on urban farming from an integrated perspective. We connect to the EFUA and NEW BAUHAUS initiatives to best take stock of recent insights, which allows us to stimulate the development of a varied landscape of urban farming that optimally fulfils the needs of communities and minimises negative impacts and risks.

The vision of FoSSNet is a strengthened and deepened academic network to support a new Knowledge and Innovation governance structure for Europe’s food system. A new structure is needed as the current Knowledge and Innovation system in the European Research Area is insufficient to address the emerging challenges of nourishing the European food system in a healthy, sustainable and fair way. The aim of FoSSNet is twofold, on one hand to establish a permanent pan-European network for Food System Science and on the other hand to advance inter- and transdisciplinary Food System Science and education. This will contribute directly to the farm to fork objectives and FOOD2030 priorities. Developing the network and advancing Food Systems Science and education will be underpinned by an inclusive approach to ensure engagement of all relevant disciplines, researchers and non-academic actors in advancing Food System Science. In order to reach the vision and aim, FoSSNet will 1) develop a conceptual framework and a process for developing food system transformation pathways to create a common language and understanding among food system thinkers, 2) establish, mobilise and consolidate an inclusive inter- and transdisciplinary pan-European academic network for food systems science to bring European food systems scientists and the science institutions together, 3) enhance inclusivity of the Knowledge and Innovation system for a sustainability transformation of EU food systems by addressing sensitivities to power relations and inequities that pervade food systems and contested transformation processes, 4) co-produce research for sustainable food system transformation to remove existing barriers to interdisciplinarity in food system science, 5) build food systems capability through an academy and curricula to ensure the impact of future food system thinkers and 6) create scientific, economic and societal impact by ensuring sustainability of the network.

EU Data Governance Act and recent advances in technology provide a unique momentum to automate and expand livestock data collection, integration and exploitation by strengthening the coordination of efforts of science and industry. The ultimate goal of Digi4Live is to increase the capacity of livestock sector actors across Europe to benefit from data generating and digital technologies. By using a strong multi-actor and co-creation approach, which brings together livestock sector actors from farm to fork, from science to livestock and technology industries, competent authorities, and other key actors, and engages them in co-creation of digital & data concepts, Digi4Live enables greater use of current and new data & digital technologies in livestock tracking. Digi4Live is a 4.5 years coordination and support action that is reaching out to over 1000 organisations and initiatives across Europe to make an impact towards economically, environmentally and socially sustainable, digitalised livestock business that meets consumers’ expectations, more effective public administration and impactful policy. Digi4Live boosts the creation of standards and harmonised regulations, thus eliminating technical barriers for data and new data-generating technologies, and provides evidence on economic, social and environmental impacts of data-driven solutions in the livestock sector and boosts collaboration between R&I initiatives across all EU member states and beyond. It will point out how public administration and policy monitoring & assessment, businesses and consumers can benefit from digital technologies. Concepts for greater exploitation of data will be co-developed and examined in six thematic case study hubs and brought to the attention of end users to. Such an integrated approach can really make a difference by enabling substantially improved use of data for the benefit of science, policy and business. The project will provide policy and business conclusions.

Flexible Electronics has been one of the fastest developing technologies in recent decades. The traditional path is electronic components such as silicon chips (e.g., microcontrollers) integrated onto flexible substrates called “hybrid integration” or “flexible hybrid electronics” in integrated smart systems. We believe that this approach is not a viable long-term solution for future high-volume, low-cost and conformable integrated smart systems. Our vision is an integrated smart system that is built with only flexible electronic components including analogue circuitry, digital logic and memories. We call such a system a “Natively Flexible Integrated Smart System” or NFISS. NFISSes will enable new products in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods and healthcare wearables that have not been possible before because conventional silicon chips are too costly, too bulky and not conformable. The project will develop a flexible microcontroller unit (FlexMCU), which is the key component missing to enable NFISSes. The FlexMCU must be a low-power chip integrating a variety of functionality to address the functional requirements of the applications in FMCG and healthcare wearables. A novel hybrid complementary low-power thin-film transistor technology (100x per-transistor power reduction) will be developed to fabricate the FlexMCU in a sustainable flexible chip fab with 100-1000x less environmental footprint. The FlexMCU design is tailored to a specific domain composed of an open-source RISC-V based processor with built-in security features, an analogue frontend, on-chip memory and other peripherals. Then, the FlexMCU will be assembled using novel assembly and bonding methods onto a flexible film, which is, in turn, integrated onto a flexible substrate along with other flexible electronic components to build the first proof-of-concept NFISS that will be validated on two healthcare wearable applications.

The CATRINE project will focus on the atmospheric tracer transport research areas identified by the EU's CO2 Task Force, the CO2 Human Emissions (CHE) project, and the Copernicus CO2 service (CoCO2) projects. The accuracy and mass conservation of the tracer transport model is of utmost importance in the design of the CO2MVS. Any unaccounted systematic errors in the tracer transport model can lead to inaccuracies in the estimation of CO2 and other tracer emissions. Therefore, CATRINE aims to improve the methods used to represent resolved tracer transport by the winds, with a particular focus on mass conservation, and to identify other systematic errors associated with unresolved processes represented by parametrizations. The project will define protocols for evaluating tracer transport models at both global and local scales. Test beds based on field campaign case studies will be developed, along with suitable metrics for tracer transport evaluation, utilising a range of tracers and observations at both global and local scales. These metrics will be employed in the operational CO2MVS to evaluate the implementation of new transport model developments, characterise transport accuracy and representativity in data assimilation, and provide a quality control stamp of tracer transport accuracy. Lastly, CATRINE will provide clear recommendations to the CO2MVS and the Carbon Cycle Community which works with atmospheric inversion models for the evaluation and quality assessment of tracer transport models.

The DISCOVER-US project aims to (i) Strengthen long-term collaboration between the EU and the US by creating networking and collaboration opportunities to promote cooperation on new concepts and visions for the computing continuum, distributed computing and swarm intelligence. (ii) Facilitate brokerage events for on-going and future work streams in EU and US projects addressing the edge-cloud continuum. (iii) Implement research exchange and fellowship programmes to encourage and initiate collaboration. (iv) Create a EU-US collaboration support infrastructure consisting of various services: networking, brokerage, training, vision building, communication and dissemination. Content-wise, DISCOVER-US will focus on the following four key research topics for the collaboration. (i) Managing complexity through high levels of abstraction. (ii) New concepts for distributed computing, the computing continuum, swarm intelligence and edge intelligent things. (iii) AI-based concepts for self-organized, dynamic, and adaptive management. (iv) Collaborative programming frameworks and software development tools. By addressing these research topics, DISCOVER-US provides support and coordination for EU-US cooperation initiatives and the European priorities addressing fundamental research on new concepts for the continuum of computing, distributed computing and swarm intelligence to enable the emergence of technological developments in distributed computing supported by open technologies and platforms and through the coordination of complementary activities structured around the cloud-to-edge-to-IoT continuum. In this context, the DISCOVER-US project will boost synergies, experience and knowledge sharing and lay the groundwork for creating EU-US collaborative activities and address the selected European priorities for strengthening the European distributed computing research ecosystem by identifying a set of best practices and research models that will facilitate the replication of results, thus improving the overall impact of the simultaneously ongoing transatlantic activities. The project will run for 35 months.

Photonics is one of the first platforms explored for quantum computing (QC), bringing the advantage of low decoherence and natural connectivity for distributed and blind QC. Recent years have witnessed a step-change in the scale, complexity, and scope of QC with photons which recently led to 3 out of the 4 demonstrations of quantum advantage from Canadian and Chinese groups. These impressive achievements were obtained with squeezed light in bulky apparatus that are not fit for scalability. Europe shows strong leadership in development of integrated optical QC platforms, with breakthroughs in the development of high transmission dense photonic chips, record efficiency detectors and deterministic single photon sources. Photonic QC also benefits from a clear roadmap toward fault tolerant architectures proposed by leading EU quantum algorithm teams. EPIQUE gathers world leaders in photonics QC with expertise in both technology and algorithms from academia and SMEs who work together to deliver the technological breakthroughs required to push the platform toward general purpose QC. This will be achieved via new nanofabrication that combines novel switching with mature silicon compatible circuitry, via optimising both single photon sources and detectors, via new interfacing possibilities in silicon nitride and direct write modular chips, via fast low loss switching in lithium niobate, and via quantum architectures that leverage all of these advances. EPIQUE will develop three QC prototypes that will demonstrate essential building blocks of generating and fusing quantum states to entangle >10 qubits, and critical measurement and feedforward capabilities required to scale the platform to >1000 qubits. At the end of this project, we will have proven a route to general purpose quantum computing that will strengthen private investment in EU based optical QC companies.

IPMorama will improve the state of the art in variety-centric Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for important diseases in the wheat (rust pathogens), potatoes (blight) and the grain legumes soybean, pea (broomrape) and white lupin (anthracnose). IPMorama seeks to develop the infrastructure for a whole “practice ecosystem”, whereby the more efficient development of IPM-centric varieties is enabled, while at the same time developing tools and resources to efficiently exploit these in variety-centric IPM. The core innovation of IPMorama is to integrate knowledge of host resistance with the pathogen virulence landscape over space and time, to produce IPM tools (eg crowd source apps, vulnerability maps) and strategies, which will be validated at various scales and in conjunction with different agroecological practices. IPMorama will achieve these goals by enacting the following five components: 1] Understanding the genetic composition of varietal resistance in target crop/pest systems, and development of tools and resources to allow breeders to target the assembly of resistance components. 2] Understanding and mapping the landscape level distribution of the target pathogens/pests, especially in terms of their virulence against the available set of resistance and tolerance genes in varieties and breeding lines. 3] Developing specific integrated pest management practices for the optimal exploitation of pest and pathogen resistance in varieties on the basis of the first two components. 4] Developing the knowledge infrastructure for competent use of variety-centric IPM by actors across the variety-related value chain. 5] Understanding opportunities and barriers for scale-up of variety-centric IPM solutions.

Currently there are no portable test or biosensors validated for air, soil or water quality control for pathogens, Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CECs) and Persistent Mobile Chemicals (PMCs), so such devices are much awaited by all stakeholders to ensure successful control and prevention of contamination and infections. Mobiles consortium will develop an interdisciplinary framework of expertise, and tools for monitoring, detection, and consequently mitigation of pollution from pathogens, CECs, PMCs, thus benefiting human and environmental health. Mobiles consortium will work to achieve the following objectives: Develop electronic biosensors for monitoring organic chemicals (pesticides, hormones) and antimicrobial resistance bacteria and pathogens in water, soil and air; Develop organism-based biosensor for detection of organic and inorganic pollution in water and soil; Study environmental performance of developed organisms and devices; Metagenomics analysis of organisms leaving in polluted areas in order to enable searches for diverse functionalities across multiple gene clusters Perform safety tests (e.g., EFSA) to assess the impact of developed organisms on the natural environment. Organism-based biosensor will consist on genetically modified chemiluminescent bacteria able to detect antibiotics, heavy metals, and pesticides in water; genetically modified plants that will change colour when in the soil is present arsenic; and marine diatoms that will be used to detect bioplastic degradation in marine and aquatic environments. Developed devices and organisms will be implemented by using flexible technologies, which can guarantee an easy adaptation to other biotic and abiotic pollutants. Devices and organisms, after proper validation and approval, could be used by consumers, inspection services and industry operators, as well as environmental emergency responders to monitor and detect PMCs, CECs and pathogens in water, air and soil

Air pollution poses a great environmental risk to health, accounting for nearly half a million premature deaths each year in Europe. Biogas production is an enabling technology to achieve net-zero emissions, while accelerating the energy diversification in Europe. Both, air quality control and biogas production demand critical improvements in sensor technology. SYMPHONY will develop a new technology enabling the implementation of dense networks of cloud-connected, low-cost, portable and easy-to-use sensors, capable of multi-target detection for applications in air quality control, pollution monitoring, industrial process control and safety. SYMPHONY will address this challenge by making key developments in silicon photonics, neuromorphic circuits, artificial intelligence, integration, and packaging, while exploiting state-of-the-art silicon microelectronics for ultra-low power edge computing with artificial intelligence, and the connected sensor network for spatially-resolved analysis and prediction. The main focus of SYMPHONY smart sensors are gases related to the biogas production and gases that have been identified by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) as highly pollutant and contributing to the greenhouse effect, such as CO2, CH4 and NO2. SYMPHONY smart sensors will be validated in three different relevant scenarios: city pollution monitoring in Cyprus, process control and leakage detection in biogas micro-plants in multiple locations in Europe. With this ambition in mind, SYMPHONY has gathered a transversal consortium, comprising three academic institutions, two research institutes, four companies and two end-users, coming from seven different countries in Europe. The consortium covers the full value chain, including silicon photonics, neuromorphic circuits, silicon microelectronics, integration, packaging, artificial intelligence, gas sensing, the internet of things, biogas production and air pollution monitoring.

Europe is facing unprecedented challenges, such as the health, migration, economic, climate, energy, and political crises, leading to a sharp increase in emergency public spending and relaxation of due diligence checks. This has resulted in a rise in corruption and fraudulent activities, which have significant negative impacts on the European economy, society, environment, and democracy. Despite emerging technology’s potential to become a powerful tool in the fight against corruption and fraud, the public sector has been slow to adopt digitalization, resulting in data NOT being shared, harmonized, or properly analysed, making evidence-based decision-making almost impossible. Governments are slowly adopting new approaches to ensure a more data-driven, transparent, and accountable public governance, but several fundamental data-related issues remain unresolved. With a team of 9 excellent research institutions and universities, 12 technology, business, and standards, developing companies, 7 public end users, and 3 domain-relevant, industry-exposed NGOs, CEDAR will: (1) Identify, collect, fuse, harmonise, and protect complex data sources to generate and share 10+ high-quality, high-value datasets relevant for a more transparent and accountable public governance in Europe. (2) Develop interoperable and secure connectors and APIs to utilise and enrich 6+ Common European Data Spaces. (3) Develop innovative and scalable technologies for effective big data management and Machine Learning (ML) operations. (4) Deliver robust big data analytics and ML to facilitate human-centric and evidence-based decision-making in public administration. (4) Validate the new datasets and technologies (TRL5) in the context of fighting corruption, thus aligning with the EU strategic priorities: digitalisation, economy, democracy. (5) Actively promote results across Europe to ensure their adoption and longevity, and to generate positive, direct, tangible, and immediate impacts.

To strengthen the competitiveness of the EU industry, there is an increasing need for flexible production, exploiting the capabilities of both the machinery and human workforce. The growing market of robots has reacted, adapting to the changing situation by providing collaborative robotic solutions with a variety of characteristics in terms of payload, type and mobility. A number of technological solutions for perception and safety allow their coexistence with humans. While several research activities have been conducted over the past 5 years on this topic, wider industrial adoption is lagging due to the following restrictions: • Limited cognition and intelligence • Low performance of collaborative operations • Collaboration fluidity is rather low as the operators have to adapt to the particularities of the robots. • Complexity in robot programming which requires the involvement of skilled engineers, does not provide flexibility in the execution phase, and does not benefit from the tacit knowledge of experienced operators. Thus, despite the fact the mechatronics are quite advanced, a perfect matching of mechanics and control is required to create robots that advance from repetitive and precision-oriented tasks to becoming intelligent and helpful co-workers. Proper human robot interaction is the most important ground to be covered. Thus, JARVIS aims to develop a reusable set of tools that enable AI driven multimodal means of interaction: a) involving interfaces for physical and remote information exchange, robot control and programming, b) providing social skills to a variety of robots to achieve seamless user-centric interaction that extends human ability for complex tasks and c) demonstrating scalability of application and ability to achieve economies at scale.

The Skyrmionic Artificial Neural Network (SkyANN) presents a groundbreaking paradigm for neuromorphic computing, closely emulating brain neurophysiology by combining skyrmionic quasiparticles, which mimic neurotransmitters and facilitate complex computations at the synapse level, with electrical CMOS connections that simulate the propagation of action potentials among neurons for rapid and dense inter-layer connectivity. Our innovative magneto-electric devices aim to achieve energy consumption four orders of magnitude lower than CMOS technology and double the bandwidth for the same device footprint, enhancing edge inference and learning capabilities. This approach challenges contemporary neural networks implemented with CMOS digital, mixed-signal, and emerging in-memory computing technologies, which are limited by lower energy efficiency and reliability. Building on preliminary results from SkyANN partners, we plan an ambitious endeavor to develop a first-of-its-kind magneto-electric neural network, showcasing the promising potential of this novel technology. Along the way, we will refine materials, processes, design methodologies, and architectures to prepare the European micro- and nano-electronics ecosystem for the future, while supporting the EU's Green Deal vision. Our well-balanced consortium brings together complementary expertise and extensive knowledge, spanning from device physics to circuits and architectures across multiple layers of design abstraction. As a result, the SkyANN consortium is poised to facilitate the rapid transfer of fundamental discoveries to relevant industrial stakeholders, accelerating impact and reinforcing European strengths in the economically, geopolitically, and socially vital semiconductor sector.

MANOLO will deliver a complete stack of trustworthy algorithms and tools to help AI systems reach better efficiency and seamless optimization in their operations, resources and data required to train, deploy and run high-quality and lighter AI models in both centralised and cloud-edge distributed environments. It will push the state of the art in the development of a collection of complementary algorithms for training, understanding, compressing and optimising machine learning models by advancing research in the areas of: model compression, meta-learning (few-shot learning), domain adaptation, frugal neural network search and growth and neuromorphic models. Novel dynamic algorithms for data/energy efficient and policy-compliance allocation of AI tasks to assets and resources in the cloud-edge continuum will be designed, allowing for trustworthy widespread deployment. To support these activities a data management framework for distributed tracking of assets and their provenance (data, models, algorithms) and a benchmark system to monitor, evaluate and compare new AI algorithms and model deployments will be developed. Trustworthiness evaluation mechanisms will be embedded at its core for explainability, robustness and security of models while using the Z-Inspection methodology for TrustworthyAI assesment, helping AI systems conform to the new AI Act regulation. MANOLO will be deployed as a toolset and tested in lab environments via Use Cases with different distributed AI paradigms within cloud-edge continuum settings; it will be validated in verticals such as health, manufacturing, and telecommunications aligned with ADRA identified market opportunities, and with a granular set of embedded devices covering robotics, smartphones, IoT as well as using Neuromorphic chips. MANOLO will integrate with ongoing projects at EU level developing the next operating system for cloud-edge continuum, while promoting its sustainability via the AI-on-demand platform and EU portals.

As in other Deep Tech areas, there is a shortage of qualified professionals in the field. This shortage is due to lack of education and training programs, unawareness of the career opportunities that the field poses, a rapidly evolving technology, and unfamiliarity with the different professional paths that the photonics ecosystems offers, among other. CARLA, the awarded project for the previous call, took on the challenge of promoting careers in photonics among students and researchers through the CARLA camps, photonics career camps. 360 CARLA seeks to build on the momentum created by the successful CARLA project, retain and increase the interest that the CARLA participants have acquired and expand the impact to more and more diverse university students and early-stage researchers. For that, we will create round up programs around photonics applications or markets, that we call verticals: 1) Health: Biotech and Medical Photonics; 2) Quantum Technologies/ Communications 3) Energy, Environment and Sustainability; and 4) Manufacturing/ Industry 4.0. These round up, cohesive programs will integrate career symposiums, mentorship, innovation and entrepreneurship experience and trainings. This will: - Increase the number of students and researchers interested in pursuing careers in photonics. - Appeal to additional STEM students and researchers attracted by the photonics application topic. - Provide participants with a round up, overall understanding of the landscape of the photonics ecosystem surrounding the corresponding vertical, supported by a network of contacts and mentors, experiences in photonics innovation and entrepreneurship and training. In addition, 360 CARLA will collaborate with other EU initiatives in the photonics space, working towards growing and better preparing the future workforce, or around the verticals, so that can leverage each other through sharing strategies, activities, content and dissemination channels.

Over the years sensors expanded their field of use from scientific exploration to consumer electronics, and their market evolved accordingly. Quantum technologies are expected to further push sensor’s performances, unlocking even more application domains, exploiting non-classical correlation of light and matter to extract the relevant information beyond the limit dictated by classical noise processes, improving performances such as sensitivity, specificity and uncertainty. The ability to produce, control and measure quantum states in transportable devices is the key to extend the sensors’ operating environment, lifetime, power consumption and costs. QUANTIFY fits perfectly this vision and the goal of Demonstrating quantum sensing beyond classical capabilities for real-world applications, in the Strategic Research Agenda of the Quantum Flagship Program. QUANTIFY objective consists in bringing photonic quantum enhanced sensors at the next level of integration developing the essential building blocks and novel quantum-enhanced techniques for future chip scale optical clocks, optically pumped magnetometers and optomechanical temperature sensors. QUANTIFY leverages different photonic platforms combined by a novel hybrid integration technique to bring the key optical and optomechanical functionalities on a single chip. To increase the clock and magnetometer performances, we introduce a photonic integrated squeezed light source, also becoming an important step for realizing a universal quantum computer based on photonics. Finally, we demonstrate a novel absolute temperature sensor with an extended detection range, from cryogenic to room temperature leveraging a nanoscale optomechanical approach coupling photonic and phononic degrees of freedom. All the free developed sensors will be assessed using metrological protocols and national primary standards in National metrological laboratories, to foster their feature exploitation in real application for end-users.

A number of European leading Research Organizations (referred as RTOs hereafter) and research supporting organizations, with a long history of scientific and technology collaboration with Japan, are building a consortium for a proposal focusing on the development of joint High Performance Computing (HPC) applications for future generations of supercomputing platforms/architectures (preexascale, exascale, post-exascale) from Europe and Japan. European and Japanese research centers work together to develop and optimize applications of these methods in various scientific fields, such as material, biomedical and health (especially covid19 research, drug design …), and environmental sciences (such as climate modeling, seismology and prevention of natural disasters), and many other fields such as high energy physics, astrophysics, quantum computing, etc. The existing joint activities between the European consortium and the Japanese research institutes will bring together the required expertise to develop applications: this expertise ranges from fundamental research and applied science for designing new models, to the optimization, development and the integration of new and ambitious workflows and models to efficiently profit from pre-exascale, exascale, post-exascale and hybrid architectures deployed or already operational in Europe and Japan. The European consortium gathered in the HANAMI proposal is willing to support and foster joint scientific teams to improve the performance and transferability of European and Japanese HPC applications by leveraging the skills and expertise of the scientific community within Europe and Japan. This consortium focuses on the HPC, AI and DA application communities, represented by the CoEs, academic and industrial organizations addressing the strategic research areas that are material, biomedical and climate.

The ARTEMIs project aims to consolidate existing computational mechanistic and machine-learning models at different scales to deliver ‘virtual twins’ embedded in a clinical decision support system (CDSS). The CDSS will provide clinically meaningful information to clinicians, for a more personalised management of the whole spectrum of Metabolic Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD). MAFLD, with an estimated prevalence of about 25%, goes from an undetected sleeping disease, to inflammation (hepatitis), to fibrosis development (cirrhosis) and/or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), decompensated cirrhosis and HCC being the final stages of the disease. However, many MAFLD patients do not die from the liver disease itself, but from cardiovascular comorbidities or complications. The ARTEMIs will contribute to the earlier management of MAFLD patients, by prognosing the development of more advanced forms of the disease and cardiovascular comorbidities, promoting active surveillance of patients at risk. The system will predict the impact of novel drug treatments or procedures, or simply better life habits. The system will therefore not only serve as a clinical decision aid tool, but also as an educational tool for patients, to promote better nutritional and lifestyle behaviors. In more advanced forms of the disease, therapeutic interventions include TIPPS to manage portal hypertension, partial hepatectomy, partial or complete liver transplant. ARTEMIs will contribute to predict per- or post-intervention heart failure, building on existing microcirculation hemodynamics models. The model developers will benefit from a large distributed patient cohort and data exploration environment to identify patterns in data, draw new theories on the liver-heart metabolic axis and validate the performance of their models. The project includes a proof-of-concept feasibility study assessing the utility of the integrated virtual twins and CDSS in the clinical context.

GI SMART (Geographical Indications’ contribution to smart territorial development and sustainability. Insights for GIs producers, policy makers, consumers and local communities) is a four-year lump-sum project to undertake research and demonstration activities (innovative pilot action) and provide evidence-based recommendations to strengthen the contribution of the system of geographical indications (GIs) to sustainable development, in particular to achieve the objectives of the EU Farm to Fork strategy by fostering the implementation of sustainability strategies by producers and their recognition by consumers, as well as to propose a better design of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, as well as more sustainable food systems. Our 17 partners (15 beneficiaries and 2 Associated Partners) representing 10 countries bring together leading academic, NGOs and stakeholder organisations to provide a multi-actor approach to ensure the project objectives are delivered with maximum impact. This proposal relates to the topic “Investigating the contribution of geographical indications to sustainable development and optimizing support for newly establish schemes” (HORIZON-CL6-2023-COMMUNITIES-01-04). GI SMART aims to assess and strengthen the contribution of GIs to the EU “Farm to Fork” strategy for sustainable food systems in Europe by providing: i) better understanding of the contribution of GIs schemes to sustainable development (including the F2F strategy); ii) improving the perception of sustainability attributes of GIs schemes that are widely implemented by the producers and their perception by consumers, local communities and society at large, iii) better and smart policy design and implementation of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture and fishery, healthy and sustainable diets and sustainable food systems.

The recent variations in the price of fossil fuels and mineral fertilisers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine threaten the incomes of primary producers and affordability of food for consumers. This threat will remain, as the pathway towards fossil fuel independence and related investments in less fossil-fuel-intensive technologies in the EU agricultural sector will take time. All this shows that there is an urgent need to design realistic, sustainable pathways for supporting the energy transition of the European agricultural sector and improving the income of primary producers. AgEnRes designs sustainable pathways for policy making to reduce direct and indirect dependence of farmers and the agricultural sector as a whole on fossil fuels and fertilisers, and increase the resilience to volatile energy prices, taking into account farmers’ behaviour and the synergies and trade-offs between European economic and environmental objectives at micro- and macro-level. Our approach consists of three components supported by outreach activities, which involve stakeholders and the general public throughout the project's lifespan. The first component develops a conceptual and data framework to identify policy targets and measures, promising technologies, and data and model requirements. Component one results among others in an EU wide database on energy use and mitigation potentials at different scales. The second component focuses on evidence of the past and present energy dependence of the European agricultural sector and preferred solutions. The third component builds on the first two and incorporates them into a set of foresight models at farm, regional, and market levels to evaluate the impacts of innovations and policy measures and targets at different scales. Ultimately, AgEnRes develops an innovative toolbox that will decrease the energy dependence and strengthen the resilience of the European agricultural sector.

STEP UP will generate clear, unambiguous and quantitative information to support greater sustainability, viability and resilience of environmentally friendly European Livestock Production Systems (ELPS). Through state-of-the-art research methodologies and thorough and effective stakeholder engagement, STEP UP will deliver a platform of measures to support European policy makers with science-based evidence on the impacts and externalities of ELPS, as part of the food and wider ecosystem. Existing knowledge on the positive and negative impacts and externalities of ELPS will be collated following a comprehensive science-based analysis of published research and policy literature. Data gaps towards improving the sustainability of ELPS across diverse social and environmental contexts will be identified. In-depth case-study analysis to harmonise existing data, identify deficits in, and opportunities for, new data collection and systems development will be carried out. New indicators for assessing the externalities of sustainable ELPS, considering all relevant value-chain factors will be developed. The multi-actor approach (MAA) will be invoked to ensure “real-life” contextual reference points and testbeds for these new indicators including evaluation and impact, followed by a comprehensive impact assessment and cost-benefit quantification of current and innovative ELPS under various socio-ecological-economic contexts, using best quantitative data modelling methods. Transition pathways for more sustainable and diverse ELPS, forecast scenarios including monetizing impacts, will be identified. Evidence-based STEP UP knowledge of ELPS as part of the food system and wider ecosystem will be disseminated using MAA. Finally, STEP UP will provide a unique and warranted platform to support the development of informed and objective policy measures to optimise the central role of livestock in meeting the nutritional and societal needs of the European and global population.

AWARD recognises the urgency of action due to water scarcity and climate change impacts as well as the need to engage simultaneously the society, the science and the policy into the development of knowledge and strategic water planning. Therefore, AWARD will provide evidence-based solutions to consider AWRs into water supply strategic plans, based on socio-political engagement. The 4 Demo Cases of AWARD are already implementing AWRs (storm water, rainwater and aquifer recharge in Bucharest in Romania as well as in Milano in Italy; water reuse in Cyprus, storm water and rainwater in an industrial park in Santiago di Compostel in Spain). Through the project activities, Demo Cases will consider scaling up their actions taking in account a broader range of AWRs together with conventional water resources for planning future water supply systems at local or regional level using AWARD instruments (Local Water Fora, Digital Platform for decision making, training and guidance). They will address similar issues in a harmonised and coordinated way. Societal awareness to support the decision process on AWRs supply solutions will lead to the recommendations for further use of AWRs encompassing the 4 dimensions of social innovation (Technological, Capacity development, Governance & Policy, Economics & assessment). The AWARD AWRs catalogue will gather the project results and additional solutions which will be benchmarked. The digital platform provided by AWARD will support the exploration of resilient scenarios that will be promoted beyond the scope of the project thanks to dedicated networking activities. AWARD general objective is to provide evidence-based knowledge and lessons learnt on how to effectively integrate affordable, acceptable and reliable AWRs solutions into water supply strategic planning and implementation considering the effect of global changes.

In the EU, about 165 million people are affected each year by mental disorders, and estimates indicate that mental disorders will become the number 1 economic cost factor in medicine in 2030. Schizophrenia alone affects approximately 1% of the world's population. The clinical effectiveness of the antipsychotics on the market remains limited with 30 to 50% of schizophrenic patients showing an insufficient response to treatment. Several factors, from genetic to psychological and social, may lie behind poor treatment outcomes or side effects and varies from patient to patient. Therefore, the central aim of the VIRTUAL BRAIN TWIN project is to create an ecosystem for generating virtual brain twins for psychiatric patients, by leveraging the consortium’s detailed knowledge and expertise in neuronal microcircuit simulation, mathematical analysis, innovative AI tools, and psychiatric care and clinical studies. This ecosystem will guide clinicians to optimise medication type and dosage, and to evaluate alternative treatments, such as brain stimulation and lifestyle changes. Multiscale cause-effect simulations and virtual brain simulations based on fMRI or sMRI data from the individual patient, will bridge the gap between molecules and the patient's brain. At the centre of this ecosystem will be the Virtual Brain Twin platform, which will make use of big data, multiscale modelling, and high-performance computing (HPC) that will be secured by appropriate data safety and protection. The platform will be embedded in the European digital neuroscience research infrastructure EBRAINS and will be initially accessible to neuroscientists, clinical researchers, and mathematical modellers, and in the future, to clinicians, and patients as well. This ground-breaking project will pave the way for personalised treatment of psychiatric disorders, with the potential to significantly improve the quality of life of patients suffering from these conditions.

Planetary health requires a better understanding of the reciprocal negative effects and co-benefits between environmental changes, degradations and human health. This holds at all levels. Local communities of low- and medium-income countries, living in cross-border zones, face both the negative effects of environmental changes and degradations, impacting their health and well being, and particular socio-political contexts that enhance their vulnerability. MOSAIC states that these populations can be best suited to interpret and exploit complex and multi-thematic information about their surroundings, in order to identify and understand the impacts of the environment on their wellbeing and to develop locally feasible, acceptable, and sustainable adaptation and mitigation solutions. However, usually, access to information is weak and local communities do not necessarily have the required scientific literacy skills to fully benefit from it. MOSAIC aims to design and implement open, multimodal and replicable information ecosystems intended to support cross-border communities to i) understand the impacts of the environment on their well-being, ii) build a health-promoting environment, iii) influence public debate, public policies and public decisions. It relies on the Open Science principles, making: i) participatory and data sciences work together, with multiple disciplines and stakeholders, ii) scientists and society co-produce and make use of data and knowledge, with shared values. It will consider two bio-regions particularly affected by climate change, extreme climatic events, and land cover degradation, East Africa and the Amazon, with three cross-border study areas as “laboratory sites”. These study sites allow for implementation and evaluation of project developments, the testing of the reproducibility and reusability of methods, data and tools, and the facilitation of inter- and transdisciplinarity through the joint mobilisation of a multidisciplinary team.

The HYway project will be the most comprehensive study on environmental effects of large-scale hydrogen usage to date. HYway is led by a team of experienced scientists who have already conducted extensive research on the climate effects of hydrogen. To fully understand the climate effect of hydrogen emissions, HYway will constrain the hydrogen budget by novel work on surface emissions, measurements of leaks and soil uptake fluxes, and application of a global atmospheric model ensemble combined with observations to quantify the atmospheric sources and sinks of hydrogen. To improve monitoring tools for hydrogen leakages, HYway will develop novel emission modelling and installation-level emission measurements. We will measure the hydrogen soil sink using flux chambers and instrumented drones, and we will use this knowledge to improve process-based models of the sink. The Global Warming Potential of hydrogen and its Effective Radiative Forcing will be quantified, including the component contributions from methane, ozone, stratospheric water vapour and aerosols. HYway will also quantify several environmental effects associated with hydrogen emissions such as stratospheric ozone depletion and air pollution. HYway will build on existing methods to create realistic future scenarios to fully explore the climate and environmental impacts of a hydrogen economy, including co-emissions and associated reductions in fossil fuel-related emissions. HYway includes a large advisory board of industry partners, several of them from established hydrogen collaborations. The advisory board will assist in estimating hydrogen leakage rates and in establishing realistic scenarios for a future hydrogen economy. By evaluating the potential climate and environmental impacts of a hydrogen economy, HYway will provide critical information to policymakers and stakeholders, allowing them to make informed decisions about the role of hydrogen in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) remain the largest source of uncertainty in past, present, and future radiative forcing, impeding credible climate projections. ACI effects are expected to change dramatically as we enter a post-fossil world, characterized by strong reductions in anthropogenic aerosol emissions but with increasingly larger impacts from natural aerosols. Although we expect cleaner clouds compared to today, ACI in this post-fossil state may considerably differ from preindustrial conditions, owing to shifts in climate and changes in sources region characteristics. CleanCloud will address the major gaps impeding robust ACI assessments, improve their representation in current and next generation kilometer-scale climate models , quantify and understand their regional and temporal effects, and how they will evolve in the transition to the post-fossil regime. To accomplish this, CleanCloud will 1) carry out targeted field experiments in European climate hotspots; 2) develop state-of-the-art algorithms and analysis tools to obtain new proxies and diagnostics for key ACI-related processes; 3) contribute to the calibration and validation of upcoming satellite missions in coordination with the satellite community; 4) improve and better constrain kilometer- and large-scale climate models using advanced machine learning, data assimilation and model calibration, confronting perturbed physics ensembles with existing and new satellite and in-situ data; and 5) assess the role of aerosols in the life cycle of convective systems, focusing on precipitation formation and the impacts on the hydrological cycle, and 6) enhance the exploitation of data centres, measurement programs, international campaigns, laboratory studies, and models. With these, CleanCloud will profoundly strengthen European Research on climate change, significantly contribute to upcoming climate assessments, and benefit society through models that enable improved weather and seasonal predictions.

Experimental research on solar radiation modification (SRM) is controversial and feared to distract from climate change mitigation or leading to dangerous SRM use. It is not clear whether and under which conditions and governance arrangements experimental SRM research may be desirable for reducing uncertainties and lowering the probability of problematic outcomes including unilateral deployment elsewhere. Co-CREATE seeks to help structure this decision problem through co-creative scoping, analysis, and engagement for the development of principles and guidelines. The project starts with a series of scoping notes that outline key dimensions of experimental SRM research including possible cases and their geographical, stake- and rightsholder, and regulatory implications, which ground the conceptual work. Co-CREATE then analyses and develops decision-support tools by asking what we can learn from governance analogues, and how various (risk) evaluation frameworks may help identify key characteristics of research proposals. Co-CREATE furthermore analyses possible legal and procedural conditions including appropriate participation. Co-CREATE itself will for the development of these governance elements enter an extensive stakeholder and rightsholder dialogue that validates preliminary analytical work, ensures stakeholders’ diverse dimensions of concern are included, and strengthens deliberative capacity. Co-CREATE proposes guidelines and principles to facilitate decision-making by the relevant authorities on broader categories of experimental research of SRM as well as case-by-case decisions. A draft will be discussed at a Co-CREATE hosted conference and later refined based on feedback received. Proposed principles and guidelines will be grounded in a understanding of scientific merit, physical and political dimensions of risk and risk-attenuation benefit, and consideration of broader sets of values and concerns – co-creatively identified during the project.

TipESM brings together scientists from a range of disciplines to deliver a step change in our understanding of climate tipping points in the Earth system, including their impact on ecosystems and society, combined with a set of early warning indicators and safe future emission pathways that minimise the risk of exceeding such tipping points. TipESM assembles the latest Earth System Models (ESMs), including recent improvements to key processes: ice sheets, vegetation and land use, permafrost, marine and terrestrial biogeochemistry. In cooperation with the WCRP/Future-Earth project TIPMIP, TipESM will organise an international collaboration to design and realise a common ESM experiment protocol that will facilitate analysis of the likelihood of occurrence, and potential reversibility, of tipping elements at different levels and duration of global warming. These experiments, will be combined with more project-specific ESM experiments, designed to investigate interactions and feedbacks across the Earth system. Based on the TipESM experiments, existing simulations and observations, we will investigate tipping points, their driving processes, potential early warning signals and cascading effects across the climate, ecosystems and society. Including the most important components of the Earth system in our ESMs will also allow TipESM to identify potentially unknown tipping elements, their precursors and impacts. TipESM brings together expertise from climate science and climate impacts to investigate both the role of gradual climate change for tipping in individual ecosystems and society, and the impact of crossing specific climate tipping points for society, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Project findings will be synthesised into a tipping points risk register. New knowledge and data from TipESM will be regularly communicated to a broad range of research communities, policymakers and the public, contributing to a prepared and resilient society.

Cloud, aerosols and their interactions are key regulators of climate. However, uncertainties in the magnitude of the net cooling impact of aerosols on climate and in the cloud response to evolving anthropogenic emissions and climate change induced feedbacks on natural emissions are major challenges that limit our understanding of how global and regional climate, including extremes, respond to changes in greenhouse gases. It is of paramount importance to better understand aerosol-cloud processes and their role in the Earth System, from regional to global scales, and over different time scales, from days to decades. Over the last decade, extensive research networks, infrastructures, satellite instruments, and atmospheric models have been developed, making it possible to obtain a holistic view of the effects of clouds and aerosols on climate and weather. CERTAINTY will capitalise on this available data together with advanced algorithms, machine learning and data assimilation methods, high resolution models, and Earth system models to bring the fundamental knowledge of interactions between clouds, aerosols, and radiation to a new level. The consortium partners are in key roles as operators, data originators, developers, providers, and users of European aerosol and cloud data and ESMs/high resolution models. The consortium leads the activities of next generation satellite missions (such as EarthCARE), and the development of new satellite products, to facilitate their scientific use in CERTAINTY by preparing tools for early adoption of data. CERTAINTY will bring the observation-based knowledge to be used in modeling frameworks to improve predictive models and knowledge of processes controlling aerosols, clouds, and their interactions from hours to decades. The ultimate outcome will be better understanding and predictions of extreme events that facilitates planning of climate mitigation/adaptation strategies for the good of European citizens and global society.

Global warming continues at an alarming rate, presenting unprecedented challenges to society that require urgent, science-led mitigation and adaptation. Earth system models (ESMs) are essential tools for projecting climate change, providing important information to decision makers. However, confidence in predicted climate change is undermined by a number of uncertainties; (i) ESMs disagree on how much the Earth will warm for a given increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) (Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity); (ii) how much emitted CO2 will stay in the atmosphere to warm the planet (half the CO2 emitted by humans has been absorbed by the land and ocean) and (iii) how much excess heat in the Earth system will enter the ocean interior, delaying surface warming (~90 % of the heat in the Earth system goes into the ocean). Central to these uncertainties are poorly understood, and poorly modelled, Earth system feedbacks, in particular cloud feedbacks, carbon cycle feedbacks and ocean heat uptake. Poor representation of these phenomena degrades the accuracy of ESM projections, with implications for anticipating future climate extremes and societal impacts. We aim to improve the representation of these feedbacks in ESMs, reducing uncertainty in global warming projections. We propose a multidisciplinary approach, focused on “learning” how to accurately describe processes underpinning these feedbacks, through a fusion of observations with advanced machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Such data and approaches, constrained by the laws of physics, will deliver a step change in the accuracy of Earth system models. AI4PEX will place Europe at the forefront of a revolution in Earth system modelling, leading to increased accuracy of climate change projections and superior support for implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and the European Green Deal.

To mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas on the environment and climate, the gas turbine power generation industry must rapidly reduce its emissions. This requires abandoning the traditional combustion of carbon-based natural gas in favour of carbon-free fuels. ACHIEVE aims at developing the fundamental knowledge to enable a transition to unconventional carbon-free fuel blends based around H2 and NH3 to achieve zero carbon emissions, ultra-low NOx emissions, and stable gas turbine operation. ACHIEVE proposes a three-pronged strategy consisting of (a) experimental and (b) numerical activities, that will advance the technology readiness level (TRL) up to 4 for practical low emissions combustors for realistic and representative blends of fuels, as well as (c) system level engagement with OEMS, end users, and stakeholders. Experimental campaigns will explore combustor stability limits, emissions, and fundamental aspects of the combustion of hydrogen blends, with the complexity of the experimental burners and operating conditions increasing over time and culminating in tests performed at intermediate pressures and powers relevant for gas turbine conditions. Numerical activities will address combustion modelling challenges, including chemical kinetics, fundamental physics governing flame dynamics, ushering in new modelling techniques such as artificially thickened flames coupled with virtual chemistry, sub-grid LES models for thermo-diffusive instabilities and stability analysis aimed to understand and predict NOx formation mechanism, lean blow off, flashback limits and thermoacoustic instabilities. Real-time monitoring and predictive capabilities for practical combustion systems will also be developed. Finally, in the third prong, engagement with industry, OEMs, and other target groups will leverage the results of ACHIEVE with the necessary stakeholders to progress the transition to a carbon-free fuels for power generation.

RENEE envisions flexible remanufacturing using AI and advanced robotics for circular value chains in EU industry. The objective of RENEE is to implement human-centric production systems relying on advanced robotics and AI to accommodate the remanufacturing of diverse states of used products. Additionally, RENEE will accelerate the workforce upskilling/reskilling by deploying a remanufacturing educational platform and a set of operator support technologies. RENEE follows a holistic approach providing product, process and resource-level enablers for remanufacturing applications including: - Circular value chains configuration toolbox: Including software solutions for product state diagnosis and classification, methods for product ‘design for remanufacturability’, Digital Product Passport, and for remanufacturing value chain configuration and planning. - Digital infrastructure for remanufacturing management: including a) tools for the planning and orchestration of flexible remanufacturing systems, b) deployment of Digital Twins customized for the remanufacturing process, and c) tools to enable product traceability and efficient management of the remanufacturing supplier network. - Robot skills & flexible production modules for remanufacturing: Enabling the resource level autonomy for remanufacturing through the deployment of dedicated robot skills libraries, AI methods for decision-support and process optimization as well as advanced robotics integrated in hybrid production specialized in remanufacturing, - Upskilling/reskilling the workforce for remanufacturing: Supporting operators both during the remanufacturing tasks via inclusive interfaces as well as providing the infrastructure (Educational platform) and required material (courses) for training them to meet the requirements of diversified remanufacturing operations. The RENEE modules will be validated in 4 pilots from the household appliances (refrigerators), robotics, and mobility (electrical motors and bikes) sectors

The past years have shown the vulnerability of rigid international supply chains. The ability to adapt to changes and create resilient supply chains will be a key competitive advantage for manufacturers in the future. RAASCEMAN tackles three different possibilities to react to unforeseen events: adapting the production plan based on supply chain data adapting the supply chain by switching the supplier using a MaaS network integrating remanufacturing as procurement alternative leveraging circularity. The project aims to enable companies to mitigate short- and medium-term unforeseen events and to enable companies to participate in a dynamic MaaS-network lowering the market barriers for companies specialized in remanufacturing or alternative technologies such as 3D printing. RAASCEMAN designs and demonstrates a series of software tools digitizing supply chains by using digital twins and an infrastructure for data-exchange based on European values. RAASCEMAN will develop its overall ambition by the means of five scientific objectives namely: Actionable propositions for adapting supply chains or internal production and logistics based on reliable quantification and impact prediction of unforeseen events Dynamic supply chain generation enabling resilience and self-adaptation of MaaS networks, Building Trust in MaaS networks auditing suppliers’ reliability and testing plausibility of offers Dynamic planning and scheduling of production processes enabling companies to swiftly adapt logistics and production to varying external conditions and Dynamic assembly and disassembly to enable machines in the field level We demonstrate our solutions in two industrial use-cases of the automotive and bike industry and create a MaaS network connecting five pilot lines distributed over Europe. The majority of project results will be made available under appropriate open-source licensing schemes to allow further maturation in integration after the RAASCEMAN project concludes.

The INSTINCT project is going to enable globally sustainable, interactive, immersive, and intelligent ‘beyond communications’ 6G connectivity by developing three complementary but critical breakthrough technology pillars: ·sensing-assisted communication technologies, thus allowing localization, tracking, mapping, monitoring, imaging, incident detection and semantics become integral parts of connectivity services (Pillar 1), ·intelligent surfaces, holographic radios and cell free systems, which offer wavefront engineering functionalities and tuneability of the wireless environment and can act as reconfigurable and intelligent sensors (Pillar 2), and ·Machine Learning (ML) techniques-based co-design of Sensing and Communications INSTINCT proposes a revolutionary path to 6G and has the ambition to specify the relevant KPIs/KVIs, formulate suitable models, devise the theoretical framework, invent new technologies, evaluate via simulations and validate by means of 2 HW and 1 SW demonstrators, a networked intelligence concept able to meet the unprecedented 6G requirements. To realise this vision, INSTINCT consortium brings together all relevant stakeholders from across Europe, with an impressive record of interdisciplinary research excellence, technology innovation, standardisation and transfer, and implementation expertise.

The OPTI-6G project develops a Photonic near IR Cell Free 5G Network, which does not suffer from interference because of the propagation characteristics of EM waves in this part of the spectrum and provides universal broadband coverage within buildings from pervasively located OWC access points. The benefits of applying cell free near IR networks in buildings are (1) multi-connectivity can be configured with cell free network thereby improving link quality and reliability; (2) there is no longer the need for building owners to subdivide their non-public mobile building network into cellular areas; (3) building owners no longer need to request permission from MNOs to use their licensed spectrum since the system operates at the optical unlicensed bands; (4) interference between inside and outside access is managed by an AI Based Distributed Scheduler; (5) position and orientation of end user equipment can be measured very accurately. It provides solutions to two main barriers to develop this challenge: (i) Brings together a select multi-disciplinary team of research institutions and industries in a collaborative project to develop and demonstrate this vision, who otherwise would not have assembled to achieve this goal; (ii) Develops a proof of concept demonstrator in OLEDCOMM and RUNEL; (ii) Performs experiments to measure position and orientation of end user equipment at UVSQ and UBRU. The starting point is (1) state-of-the-art cell free 5G RAN solution and very high accuracy sub cm accuracy localisation measurement system developed by RUNEL; (2) the state of the art VCSEL infrared source and high-speed PIN photodiodes receivers and that supports 1 Gbps data rates up to 5 m over a field of emission of 25° developed by OLEDCOMM. The project brings together these technologies to produce an easy installation and operation, License Free broadband Network for indoor buildings. The outcome will be low-cost commercially attractive broadband cellular access within buildings

The HAL4SDV proposal aligns with the EU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2022 on Electronic Components and Systems. It aims to pioneer methods, technologies, and processes for series vehicle development beyond 2030, driven by anticipated advancements in microelectronics, communication technology, software engineering, and AI. HAL4SDV envisions a future where vehicles are fully integrated into smart cities, intelligent highways, and cyberspace, blurring the lines between inside and outside the vehicle. Assumptions include data-centricity, code portability, efficient data fusion, unlimited scalability, real-time capabilities, and robust cybersecurity. The objectives encompass unifying software interfaces, creating a hardware abstraction framework, enabling Over-The-Air (OTA) updates, designing platform architectures, ensuring hardware abstraction and virtualization, offering hardware support, automating integration, supporting safety features, harnessing edge computing, implementing security measures, and providing essential development tools. By focusing on these objectives, HAL4SDV aims to establish a unified ecosystem for software-defined vehicles, positioning Europe's automotive industry for continued leadership post-2030 while leveraging existing results and technologies to accelerate progress.

Recent advances in environmental microbiology, metagenomics and phylogenomics strongly suggest that the eukaryotic cell evolved from symbiotic consortia involving an Asgard archaeon and, at least, the alphaproteobacterial ancestor of the mitochondrion. However, many genes of prokaryotic origin in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) appear to originate neither from archaea nor alphaproteobacteria, suggesting that other bacteria (e.g. Deltaproteobacteria) may have contributed to eukaryogenesis as additional symbionts or gene donors. To ascertain the origin of these genes, it is essential to better understand the ecology of symbiotic microbial consortia involving Asgard archaea (AA), and in particular, to identify the partners with which they interact in natural ecosystems. In this project, I will combine metagenomics, phylogenomics, fluorescence-activated single-cell/consortium sorting, high-throughput microfluidics, state-of-the-art fluorescence and electron microscopy techniques and cultivation approaches to identify and characterize members of AA syntrophic consortia and their associated viruses in a broad variety of microbial mats and oxygen-poor environments. With this information, I aim to i) identify the partners of AA syntrophic consortia across ecosystems, determine whether they co-evolve and unravel their ecological preferences; ii) characterize the metabolic interactions and phenotypic properties of AA symbiotic consortia in culture and/or from sorted consortia populations; iii) characterize the cell ultrastructure and potential presence of endomembranes in members of AA consortia, their three-dimensional organization and their spatial distribution in microbial mats; and iv) identify potential bacterial symbiotic partners involved in eukaryogenesis, in addition to the mitochondrial alphaproteobacterial ancestor, and/or gene donors to the LECA or its Asgard archaeal ancestor. Our results should substantially advance understanding of eukaryogenesis.

Resistance of cancers to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) can result from a deviated taxonomic composition of the intestinal microbiota. A surge in the Enterocloster genus, for instance following discontinuation of antibiotics or chronic inflammation caused by tumors, induces the downregulation of MAdCAM-1 in the ileal lamina propria and mesenteric lymph nodes through perturbations of biliary salts. In turn, the ileal MAdCAM-1 loss induces the exodus of immunosuppressive T lymphocytes expressing the MAdCAM-1 receptor α4β7, i.e., FoxP3+ RAR-related orphan receptor gamma t (RORγt+) regulatory (Tr17) cells, from the gut to distant tumors. Disruption of the MAdCAM-1–α4β7 axis compromises the efficacy of immunotherapy and reprograms the tumor microenvironment towards a regulatory phenotype. Moreover, serum soluble MAdCAM-1 is a proxy of intestinal dysbiosis and a robust predictor of survival in cancer patients treated with ICB. To decipher the biological significance of these findings, we will first investigate the transcriptional and post-translational mechanisms regulating MAdCAM-1 expression and function (Task 1), in particular neuroendocrine and metabolic cues. Next, a comprehensive phenotyping of the emigrating enterotropic T cells reaching the tumor by single cell transcriptomics and genomics, as well as specific genetic and immunopharmacological intervention on T lymphocytes and cancer cells will lead to the identification of the molecular mechanisms regulating the gut-tumor axis (Task 2). We will investigate how enterotropic T cells homing to cancers maintain their proliferative and suppressive capacities, in particular in the light of the recognition of tumor and/or commensal antigens (Task 3). Altogether, this approach will lay the molecular and metabolic foundations governing the MAdCAM-1–α4β7 gut immune checkpoint

The HPC Digital Autonomy with RISC-V in Europe (DARE) will invigorate the continent’s High Performance Computing ecosystem by bringing together the technology producers and consumers, developing a RISC-V ecosystem that supports the current and future computing needs, while at the same time enabling European Digital Autonomy. DARE takes a customer-first approach (HPC Centres & Industry) to guide the full stack research and development. DARE leverages a co-design software/hardware approach based on critical HPC applications identified by partners from research, academia, and industry to forge the resulting computing solutions. These computing solutions range from general purpose processors to several accelerators, all utilizing the RISC-V ecosystem and emerging chiplet ecosystem to reduce costs and enable scale. The DARE program defines the full lifecycle from requirements to deployment, with the computing solutions validated by hosting entities, providing the path for European technology from prototype to production systems. The six year time horizon is split into two phases, enabling a DARE plan of action and set of roadmaps to provide the essential ingredients to develop and procure EU Supercomputers in the third phase. DARE defines SMART KPIs for the hardware and software developments in each phase, which act as gateways to unlock the next phase of development. The DARE HPC roadmaps (a living document) are used by the DARE Collaboration Council to maximize exploitation and spillover across all European RISC-V projects. DARE addresses the European HPC market failure by including partners with different levels of HPC maturity with the goal of growing a vibrant European HPC supply chain. DARE Consortium partners have been selected based on the ability to contribute to the DARE value chain, from HPC Users, helping to define all the requirements, to all parts of the hardware development, software development, system integration and subsequent commercialization.