WaterLANDS aims to enable an upscaling of the restoration of wetlands. Socio-economic factors, insufficient stakeholder engagement, lack of government commitment, lack of funding and inadequate exchange of knowledge of restoration methods have all been identified as barriers to successful restoration. Consequently, most restoration has been modest in scale, has occurred mainly where there is a single landowning or responsible organisation, and has often been undertaken principally for reasons of conservation. WaterLANDS will work to overcome these barriers. It includes both Action and Knowledge Sites, the former being the object of restoration upscaling, and the latter a source of best practice experience and knowledge. To provide for local support and sustainability, it will aim for the co-design of restoration with the on-going engagement of communities and stakeholders. It will investigate best practice in ecological restoration which meets both biodiversity and social objectives and for which restoration trajectories are specific to the physical and cultural context of the Action Sites. It will propose supportive governance structures appropriate to this process and to local and national circumstances. It will identify business models, economic incentives and international funding sources and tailor or direct these resources for each site. The project will pull this expertise and knowledge together in a co-creation work package. Process-indicators will be developed to enable on-going assessment of restoration success in terms of ecosystem services, socioeconomic embedding and financial sustainability, to ensure wide-scale restoration which catalyses scalability beyond the life of the WaterLANDS project.

Within the European Research Area (ERA), the ERA4CS Consortium is aiming to boost, research for Climate Services (CS), including climate adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk management, allowing regions, cities and key economic sectors to develop opportunities and strengthen Europe’s leadership. CS are seen by this consortium as driven by user demands to provide knowledge to face impacts of climate variability and change, as well as guidance both to researchers and decision‐makers in policy and business. ERA4CS will focus on the development of a “climate information translation” layer bridging “user communities” and “climate system sciences”. It implies the development of tools, methods, standards and quality control for reliable, qualified and tailored information required by the various field actors for smart decisions. ERA4CS will boost the JPI Climate initiative by mobilizing more countries, within EU Member States and Associated Countries, by involving both the research performing organizations (RPOs) and the research funding organizations (RFOs), the distinct national climate services and the various disciplines of academia, including Social Sciences and Humanities. ERA4CS will launch a joint transnational co-funded call, with over 16 countries and up to 75M€, with two complementary topics: (i) a “cash” topic, supported by 12 RFOs, on co-development for user needs and action-oriented projects; (ii) an “in-kind” topic, supported by 28 RPOs, on institutional integration of the research components of national CS. Finally, ERA4CS additional activities will initiate a strong partnership between JPI Climate and others key European and international initiatives (as Copernicus, KIC-Climate, JPIs, WMO/GFCS, Future Earth, Belmont Forum…) in order to work towards a common vision and a multiyear implementation strategy, including better co-alignment of national programs and activities up to 2020 and beyond.

A-AAgora aims to develop the implementable NbS (Nature based Solutions) through innovative governance structures and technological architecture. It targets to boost resilience to climate change and mitigating its impacts in coastal areas. It identifies synergies by promoting a deliberative process to complement other priority areas within the EC Mission - by setting a Community of Practice and developing a digital knowledge system. It develops NbS at three replicable demonstrators (Demo-PT, Demo-IE, Demo-NO), which can upscaled. The project seeks improved public engagement and enhanced decision-making processes at different political levels based on scientific knowledge and targeted social and economic awareness, using an EBM approach. It builds on the successful implementation of NbS at the Demo’s to which the necessary socio-technological tools will be produced as required for a realistic EBM planning cycle (up to TRL/SRL 7). The Living Lab concept will foster the exchange synergies at multiple scales between researchers and users, decision-makers and local communities, industry and SMEs. A-AAgora will demonstrate that restoration of aquatic ecosystems is possible at a large scale through reduction of pressures, EBM, and effective NbS including blue reforestation to boost coastal resilience to climate change impacts. As well, the A-AAgora will make the most of cross-Mission synergies, by targeting marine ecosystem restoration in coastal communities particularly vulnerable to the risks of sea level rise that urgently need to adapt to ensure their population and infrastructure are safe, climate-proof and weather-resilient. The design of innovative architecture, enabling interoperability with other systems and will also foster a more ‘digital ocean’.

Being one of the main actions of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+) will coordinate research programmes between EU and its Member States and Associated Countries, mobilising environmental authorities as key partners for implementing biodiversity research and innovation, along with ministries of research, funding organisations, and environmental protection agencies (75 organisations from 37 countries). Biodiversa+ has five overarching objectives: (1) improve monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe (status and trends); (2) generate actionable knowledge to tackle the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss; (3) expand and improve the evidence base, and accelerate the development and wide deployment of NbS to meet societal challenges across Europe; (4) make the business case for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; and (5) ensure efficient science-based support for biodiversity policy making in Europe. Biodiversa+ will meet these objectives by (i) setting up a pan-European network of harmonized monitoring schemes, building on existing national/regional monitoring schemes, creating capacity for setting up new schemes, and feeding into the EC Knowledge Center for Biodiversity; (ii) coordinating research programmes between the EU and its Member States and associated countries, thereby ensuring the long-term pan-European research agenda is co-created and implemented; (iii) contributing science-based methodologies to account for and possibly value ecosystem services and the natural capital, and to assess the dependency and impact of businesses on biodiversity and (iv) better linking of R&I programmes to the policy arena, providing greater input to policy making and improving the assessment of policy efficiency. Doing so, Biodiversa+ will help ensure that, by 2030, nature in Europe is back on a path of recovery, and by 2050 people are living in harmony with Nature.

BFireSafe@school is an important and innovative Strategic Partnership project whose aim is to develop a new fire safety education programme for teachers and pupils in second level schools in Europe. There is no standardised approach to fire safety training in second level schools in Europe at present. This project aims to address that deficiency. No previous Erasmus+ schools project has provided such training and so this is a unique opportunity. BackgroundThis project builds upon fire safety teaching already successfully implemented in many EU countries at primary school level. At present there is no universal fire safety module or online training tool available for teachers to train second level school students in fire safety. Our needs analysis research found that fire safety awareness programmes across Europe are focused mainly on younger age groups aged 8-9 and there are no programmes in place for the older age groups. A review of fire statistics in schools in a number of our partner countries reveals that the incidence of fires in schools varies significantly. Project DurationThe project (if successful) will be a 30 month project with a start date of October 2018.Project consortiumThe project consortium consists of a wide range of partners from different cultures and experiences, from a range of service backgrounds and scale that will represent the various stakeholders involved and that will bring expertise in different fields directly connected with the objectives of the project. The partners are located in a number of different countries with a good geographical spread all over Europe, a well balanced group of fire and rescue services, local, regional and national government organisations, third level research institutions, learning developers and national and EU teacher organisations. A number of Associated Partners primarily made up of second level schools and other interested stakeholders in each partner country will participate in the BFireSafe@School project. Collectively this partnership will research, design, develop and deliver a sustainable educational framework on fire safety for second level school teachers and students.The project partners are:• Leitrim Fire Service Ireland (Project Coordinator)• National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management - Ireland• Bizkaia Fire service - Spain• Dortmund Fire service - Germany• FRS Centrum, Gent - Belgium• Frederiksborg Brand & Redning, Denmark • Finnish National Rescue Association - Finland• Learnkey, Lithuania• Trinity College, DublinMost of the partners involved have experience of successfully delivering European funded projects previously. Project ObjectivesThe Strategic Partnership project will address the horizontal priority of “Development of relevant and high quality skills and competences” and ...as part of the call.The objectives of the project are to 1) Increase fire safety knowledge and awareness for teachers and pupils in second level schools using innovative digital learning methods2) Improve the health and well being of teachers and pupils 3) Use technology to implement and monitor new approaches to teacher training and pupil learning using peer networks.4) Demonstrate how the new digital tools can be effective in improving the motivation of both teachers and pupils to learn about fire safety.Project OutputsA number of engaging and interconnected outputs will be developed such as a new classroom training course in fire safety, a new Online e-learning tool, a new Learning Management System and online app and a new training video to demonstrate safe evacuation procedures for schools. All the content will be developed in English and translated into 7 more languages (Spanish, Basque, French, German, Lithuanian, Danish).The training programme will include various training tools that will reach every student from the target group in a variety of learning styles to suit their learning needs. Training materials will be prepared and be available for teachers. Dissemination activityIt is expected that at least 5000 pupils and 500 teachers in our partner schools will directly benefit from this educational programme with the potential to reach out to many more using the online learning tools and the eTwinning platform. We also plan to disseminate the outputs of the project through a series of Multiplier events and to a range of sectoral publications. Delivering a strong fire safety programme to this group of pupils will form part of critical life skills that the target group can take into adulthood with the potential of realising increasingly resilient individuals, communities and societies.Project SustainabilityEfforts will be made to sustain this fire safety programme into the future by attempting to incorporate it into the school curriculum throughout countries in Europe. Contact will be made with key educational stakeholders at local, national and European level in order to achieve this.