Rural development and talent retention have become key priorities in European policies. These policies seek to mitigate the depopulation of rural areas and promote their economic and social sustainability, recognising the importance of rural areas for territorial cohesion, balanced economic development and the preservation of cultural and environmental heritage. The EU Long Term Vision for Rural Areas (2021-2040) reinforces this trend, committing to making rural areas more attractive to young and skilled people by creating infrastructure, access to digital services and employment opportunities. However, talent retention, especially among young people with higher education, remains one of the biggest challenges in the EU's rural areas, affected by problems such as depopulation and ageing populations, particularly in peripheral areas of countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece and Eastern European countries. The TALENT4RURALSCIENCE project emerges as a tool to promote rural development and talent retention, with an international and cross-sectoral dimension. This programme seeks to attract 10 postdoctoral researchers of any nationality through an open international call, to develop innovative R+D+i projects focused on the intersection between rural development and talent retention. The project will involve 9 research institutes of the University of Extremadura, addressing three key challenges: 1) Sustainable development and natural resource management, 2) Innovation in health and technology for rural development, and 3) Education, inclusion and community development. TALENT4RURALSCIENCE will be supported with the participation of 9 associated partner organizations (7 Universities, 1 department of public administration, 1 clinical research centre of public health care system) from different European countries and beyond (Spain, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Chile).

This PRECAP project aims to revalorize cherry waste (Prunus avium L.) from agricultural industry by bringing a new approach to the European circular economy. PRECAP by encapsulating prebiotic bioactive compounds extracted from cherry waste (dietary fiber and proanthocyanidins) and acetate producing bacteria (Bifidobacterium or Lactobacillus, that consume these biocompounds), seek to restore the health concentrations of butyrogenic bacteria in the intestinal microbiome, which consume acetate by cross-feeding to produce butyrate. The project stands out for its innovation in the development of functional capsules to prevent or mitigate inflammatory bowel diseases derived from the reduction of butyrate produced by the intestinal microbiome. Furthermore, this is enhanced by the healthy nutraceutical effect of phenolic compounds and dietary fiber extracted from cherry waste. The design of this functional capsule of potential probiotic bacteria that produce acetate together with prebiotics from cherry waste, added to the application of a scalable encapsulation methodology (spray-dryer), could be the basis for the development of functional foods from agro-industrial waste. Acetate-producing bacteria are more aerotolerant than butyrogenic (strictly anaerobic) bacteria, which would allow more feasible scalability and management projection in the food industry. Finally, PRECAP is expected to improve the competitiveness, sustainability, and circular economy of agri-food chains, and be a viable alternative to improve people's health.

The goal of the EOxposure project is to build tools to quantify the exposure of population and economic assets to multiple risks using novel information layers from current and future Earth Observation (EO) missions, as well as the growing sensor web on the ground. The project exploits the novel concept of the human EXPOSOME, i.e. the set of exposures to which an individual is subjected through its own existence. It includes the entire history of interactions with the environment, including air and water quality, food and exercises, as well as living habits and diseases that may spread. The cutting-edge fusion of this concept with EO and sensor data aims at measuring the human exposure to threats that are external to each individual, and quantify the interactions between human beings and the environment. By building geospatial information tools upon data coming from multiple sources, at different spatial and temporal scales, the EOxposure project aims at providing free public services, enabling citizens to understand the threats to which they are exposed, and decision makers to take more informed and effective actions against them. Specifically, EOxposure will focus on threats connected to housing conditions, disease spread, as well as security and health issues in urban and peri-urban areas, where population is concentrated. The new tools will build upon the consortium expertize on nutrition- and vector-borne disease models, urban heat monitoring and material characterization, satellite data processing, and geospatial data fusion, realizing interdisciplinary working groups dedicated to the above mentioned applications. To do so, EOxposure enrolls institutions from Europe and South America, merging expertises on exposure to risk in both developed and developing countries.