The impacts of climate change on people, planet and prosperity are intensifying. Many regions and communities are struggling to avoid losses and need to step up the effort to increase their climate resilience. Ongoing natural capital degradation leads to growing cost, increased vulnerability, and decreased stability of key systems. Therefore, the European Mission on Climate Adaptation acknowledges the need to adopt a systemic approach by working across sectors and disciplines, experimenting, and involving local communities. NBRACER steps up to this challenge with an innovative and practical approach to accelerate the transformation towards climate resilient regions that are safe, green, clean, healthy, and just. Adaptation will be based on the smart packaging of nature-based solutions (NBS), rooted in the resources supplied by biogeographic landscapes, and embedded in a transformative action approach that mobilizes and enables regions and communities to accelerate forward. NBRACER works with Demonstrating and Replicating regions in the European Atlantic biogeographical area to vision and co-design place based sustainable NBS that are at one with the regional landscapes, upscaling these into coherent regional packages and building time and place specific adaptation pathways integrating local solutions and regional scales. This process is supported by a regional scale effort to build adaptation journeys with community support, with input from teams testing and validating place based NBS solution portfolios situated in landscapes. Innovative technical and adaptation transformation support packages provide quantitative mapping methods and a transformative action approach and capacity building, and networking enable scaling out and building connections. Led by Deltares, advanced in climate adaptation science, the consortium builds synergy from the strength of practitioners, ecosystem engineers, innovators of transformative adaptation, finance, and capacity building experts.

URBiNAT focuses on the regeneration and integration of deprived social housing urban developments through an innovative and inclusive catalogue of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), ensuring sustainability and mobilising driving forces for social cohesion. Interventions focus on the public space to co-create with citizens new urban, social and nature-based relations within and between different neighbourhoods. Taking the full physical, mental and social well-being of citizens as its main goal, URBiNAT aims to co-plan a healthy corridor as an innovative and flexible NBS, which itself integrates a large number of micro NBS emerging from community-driven design processes. URBiNAT consists of a worldwide consortium of academic and business partners around 7 European cities (Porto, Nantes and Sofia as ‘frontrunners’; Siena, Nova Gorica, Brussels and Høje-Taastrup as followers), that will act as living laboratories to implement healthy corridor solutions. The cities will be supported by local partners, associations and research centres, and by Europe-wide centres, universities and companies. These will develop a participatory process, an NBS catalogue and a healthy corridor, while monitoring impacts, disseminating and marketing results. Together, they form an inclusive community of practice (CoP), collaborating with partners from Iran and China, and NBS observers located in Brazil, Oman, Japan and a Chinese city, bringing experiences and an international dimension to the project. Partners will contribute their innovative NBS experience deployed through an array of transdisciplinary knowledge, methodologies and tools, as nature-based solutions. This will be supplmented by ‘smart’ digital tools, citizen engagement, solidarity and social economy initiatives, social innovation for value-generation, incubation for business development and capacity building, and ICT governance platforms. The social, economic and urban impacts will be measured and replicated by URBiNAT Observatory.

CONTEXT:-“The phenomena of school aggression (harassment, victimization, clicking, exclusion from the community) - in the opinion of many - cover community conflicts that are a natural part of the life of institutions. Their frequency depends primarily on the institutional community, & in particular those responsible for its organization & management, being aware of the problem in a timely manner (which is an essential condition for prevention), perceiving problems (if they have already appeared), & whether they are accurately diagnosed & have adequate means to deal with them. The preparedness & information of teachers, staff & professionals are therefore perhaps the most important key elements in preventing, detecting & treating school bullying.” Stieber-Klemm Bettina, https://ofi.oh.gov.hu/sites/default/files/attachments/iskolai_agresszio_es_bantalmazas_kutatas_zarotanulmanya.pdf -Nevertheless, in Georg Koenne’s article, “Warum an Schulen Mobbing betrieben wird (Why bullying is practiced in schools)” he states that “educators are not primarily trained for this. Their main task is to impart knowledge.”ABMS' MAIN OBJECTIVE: Our partners all serve underrepresented populations & have come together to use art & culture to disrupt bullying in youth-at-risk by increasing the skills & competences of artists, educators, youth workers, educational leaders & support staff that serve youth-at-risk.PRIORITY 1: SOCIAL INCLUSION: The intention of ABMS is to use dance (as well as to a lesser extent other genres) to disrupt bullying in vulnerable populations as a method for increasing social inclusion. Nevertheless, ABMS is not intended to directly disrupt bullying routines, beliefs, & behaviours directly in youth-at-risk; instead direct recipients of ABMS are adults that serve vulnerable youth. PRIORITY 2: SUPPORTING ARTISTS, EDUCATORS, YOUTH WORKERS, EDUCATIONAL LEADERS, & SUPPORT STAFF through the provision of LTT activities that use movement as well as additional skills & competences from our partners' experiences in theatre, literature, visual arts, cultural heritage, & even gastronomy! PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS: Recruiting preference will be given to persons who are or work with populations that represent:-rural & remote populations-inner-cities-low-income-minority language groups-minority ethnic groups & religions-LGBTQ2-newcomers, refugees-people of diverse abilities (including mental health)-young women & girlsAmong other things, PARTICIPANTS will learn-To implement new tasks & exercises to create learning environments for youth-at-risk that disrupt bullying through a positive lens-To encourage youth to develop empathy for others’ perspectives & experiences through art-To encourage youth to explore how the arts connect our experiences to the experiences of others & how in the exploration of movement, we can demonstrate positive social behaviours that encourage compassion, empathy, & understanding through body language, tone of voice, & facial expressions-To encourage youth to understand how cross-cultural sharing can be effective in problem solving-To consider ethical considerations & cultural appropriation related to the arts-To make collaborative dance experiences that build community & nurture relationships with others-To implement cultural safety practices in their learning & teaching environments NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 365 (a mix of blended mobility adults learners & individuals with formal relationships to our partners)DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES: Each of our partners will host a 5-day adult training activity in their home communities—except for our lead partner, Município de Vila do Porto, who will host both the opening & closing training activities of which the closing event will culminate in an island-wide dance festival that will share results by live-streaming to our partners venues. This is our strategy for instigating new methods of cultural collaboration & consumption in light of COVID--to promote greener cultural practices. ABMS LTT activities feature -exercise and task development amongst participants -targeted discussions about pressing community issues-presentation & practice of Good Practices by our partners & training participants-community field-trips to learn from local additional experts-practicums with local youth-at-risk to ensure training participants’ skill & competency before they return home-lecturers from communities leadersLEGACY: ABMS will create a final public policy paper that we will use to instigate growth in the education & cultural sectors to more closely link arts education with bullying by lobbying for the augmentation of course curriculums to give them more “teeth.” By linking bullying with education more directly, we will give educators curricular stimulus to address behaviours that fester into bullying to ensuring we produce meaningful, long-lasting change in the education system & in the lives of bullying victims.

CONTEXTInter-personal communication and international cooperation play a key role in education and, in a broader sense, in active citizenship. These opportunities should be equally available to all, promoting social inclusion. This is a concern of modern society and a key issue in European Education. However, the access to these opportunities by disabled people is constrained, in particular for deaf people due to the barriers they face in daily communication. These are facts that severely compromise the development of creative, emotional and social skills in deaf students. Barriers to education limit future opportunities. Any contribution to tear these barriers down promotes equity.The I-ACE project established an innovative infrastructure to promote fluid communication with, and between, deaf students from different European countries. This infrastructure includes an automatic European Sign Language Translator allowing the automatic bi-directional translation between sign language and written speech in six European sign languages thus reducing the communication gap and contributing to promote the access to education and a better quality of life of deaf students.The I-ACE project transfers innovative research results and puts them to the service of the European community.OBJECTIVESThe I-ACE project aims to promote the access of deaf students to education and citizenship. The specific objectives are:(a) shorten the barriers to the inclusion of deaf students in education(b) promote active citizenship of the European deaf communityPARTICIPANTSThe partnership of 7 full partners and 6 associated partners includes 5 higher education institutions, the European Association of Career Guidance and the “Provedoria Municipal do Cidadão com Deficiência” from Câmara Municipal do Porto, 2 schools, one Education School, an Association of Sign Language Interpreters and 2 Deaf Associations. Every partner institution expects to actively participate in the process of social inclusion and European citizenship.ASSOCIATED PARTNERS are end-users and the main stakeholders benefiting from the I-ACE outputs. They have key roles in the project and are our gateway to sustainability. The consortium implemented pilot installations at the Metro of Porto and in special needs schools in all partners’ countries to test I-ACE outputs in real scenarios.METHODOLOGY AND PROJECT ACTIVITIESThe project work plan covered an initial preparation phase aimed at implementing the required management framework and performing a comprehensive study of the challenges faced by deaf students. At the implementation phase we transferred the results from the VirtualSign research project adapting them to new sign languages.VirtualSign is a bi-directional translator between written Portuguese and Portuguese Sign Language, a research product developed at the applicant institution. In concrete, we extended it to support other European sign languages, a product we call the European Sign Language Translator, and we have developed applications to assist deaf students in the classroom and in their daily life.We organized certified staff training sessions in each country to train staff in the fundamental of sign languages and on the operation of the I-ACE applications.At the closure of the project we evaluated the European Sign Language Translator through several pilot installations in schools and at the Metro of Porto, a public attendance service. The results from the pilot installations and the outcomes of the project were presented to the media and to general public at an open session.RESULTS AND IMPACTSIn order to disseminate project activities and results, we have provided information to the stakeholders through the media, online social networks, email, participation in conferences and other events and meetings. I-ACE raised the interest of the media (newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts)LONG TERM BENEFITSThe I-ACE project promotes inclusive school by transferring to the civil society innovative assistive technology research products that facilitate the communication between/with deaf people. I-ACE provides unique conditions to promote social inclusion, active citizenship and an improved educational experience to the European deaf community.Given our former experience with the VirtualSign impact in the Portuguese institutions related to the deaf community we expect that the I-ACE outputs will become more and more requested by public services, schools, museums, tourism offices, airports, police stations and many other places where fluent international communication is important.