Biodiversify aims to make the proof of concept that high species diversification (HSD) effectively provides ecosystem services in substitution for external inputs for improving agroecosystem sustainability and resilience. While these principles are well known, they are still little exploited in practice. Yet, HSD may increase food security and the health of farmers and ecosystems. Three production systems covering a large land use area and a wide gradient of pedo-climatic conditions of the Mediterranean region, farming systems and socio-economic contexts are considered: 1) arable cereal-based systems, 2) vineyards, and 3) olive-based systems. The project will consider conventional and traditional farming in rainfed and irrigated zones located in six countries (Algeria, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Tunisia). Biodiversify will organise a network of eight case studies that will define key questions to be addressed at the regional and farm levels. Solutions will be co-designed and co-evaluated through participatory workshops. A gradient of HSD solutions based on spatio-temporal species diversification will be analyzed using 1) legumes and neglected species in rotations, 2) multi-service cover crops during fallow period, 3) intercropping of cereal-legume mixtures for grain and forage, and 4) agroforestry for olive-based systems. Biodiversify will support a wider use of species and germplasm/cultivars, including traditional populations from the Mediterranean basin. Complementary approaches and methods including field experiments, knowledge synthesis and modelling will be used to design and assess current and HSD farming systems. Biodiversify will produce a portfolio of scientific and practical information for farmers and stakeholders to foster the adoption of HSD farming systems. It will also communicate towards the society and policy-makers to explain the benefits of developing a sustainable HSD agriculture to address current environmental and social challenges.

Dual Education is a unique education model, which combines classroom-based education with work experiences. Aiming to improve the relevance and effectiveness of education, meaning that education has to provide graduates with competences required by employers and job market, Serbian Government is giving high priority to implementation of Dual Education. This project has to specify a generic, flexible Dual Higher Education (DHE) model to be implemented in Serbia, after testing different derived specific models during their pilot implementations. Some sectors, such as IT, need to employ students due to the lack of IT graduates. Other sectors are expecting graduates to have competences more in line with their needs. After analysis best practices in Europe and worldwide, and after interviewing interested companies in Serbia what DHE models are the most suitable to them, the project will specify a flexible and generic DHE model from which different specific DHE models could be derived and implemented according to companies requirements. The project plans to propose amendments to the corresponding legislation (Law on Dual Education, Law on Higher Education, Labour Law) and to accreditation standards. The selected DHE models will be tested during their pilot implementations by all Serbian HEIs participating in the project and with companies - its associate members, during the second half of this 3-years project. At the end, a survey and interviews of companies with and without DHE students will identify benefits of introducing DHE in Serbia. Proposals of amendments to DE and HE legislation and accreditation standards, based on the developed and tested DHE model, as well as guidelines for DHE implementation offered to HEIs and companies, are expected project outcomes. They will have a significant impact to the relevance and effectiveness of higher education in Serbia, as more graduates will have competences needed by employers.

THUMBS UP aims to develop and demonstrate thermal energy storage (TES) at daily (based on environmental friendly PCM) and weekly level (based on TCM sorption technology) solutions to be easily integrated in EU buildings (both connected and not-connected to DHN) to increase their energy efficiency as well as to exploit Power-to-Heat (PtH) approaches also to make EU Buildings as grid flexibility actors. THUMBS UP wants to overcome all the limits of state-of-the-art building-integrated PCM and TCM TES technologies, increasing TES energy density and reducing CAPEX. THUMBS UP innovates at different levels, from modelling to materials and enhance heat exchanger solutions, targeting demonstration at TRL 7. High-performance TES solutions part of an EU sustainable economy is a factor at the core of THUMBS UP. The project develops truly i) bio-based PCMs from raw materials currently wasted in the EU food industry, turning them into valuable TES materials and ii) TCMs relying exclusively on non-hazardous materials and on water as working fluid. THUMBS UP TES will be demonstrated in 3 demosites (a single-family building in Spain and 2 multi-family buildings in Sweden/Spain) in different EU climates and energy market contexts also to assess THUMBS UP replication potential in two replication sites (ITA, NL). Via its demonstration and replication campaign, THUMBS UP promotes TES role as key enabling technology to optimize thermal comfort and energy efficiency in buildings as well as to promote PtH as facilitator of RES grid integration in a sector coupling approach, to be studied via innovative modelling tools. THUMBS UP gives specific attention to how to fully integrate TES solutions into buildings and wider smart energy networks by combining the technology advancements with TES-tailored digital innovations. THUMBS UP widens the capability to control, monitor and forecasts how to operate building-integrated TES systems to provide services toward both the H&C and power sector.

Ethylene is the chemical industry’s primary building block. SolDAC’s ambition is to reinvent the ethylene industry by proving (TRL4) an emerging breakthrough technology for producing technically and economically competitive, socially desirable and climate-neutral (sustainable) ethylene and co-product ethanol (C2 products) from solar energy and air. The project features a photo-electrochemical conversion (PEC) unit, being electrochemistry the only possible route for direct conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene. The PEC exploits bandwidth-selected light from a solar collector (FSS) that splits the solar spectrum for electricity and heat generation at efficiency higher than standalone PV modules and standalone solar thermal collectors. Heat is used in an innovative direct air capture (DAC) unit at ultralow temperature (~60°C), fostering the eventual circular integration with heat networks. The DAC unit removes carbon dioxide from the air, concentrates it to 95+% and compresses it to feed the PEC stack and a pipeline for carbon dioxide storage. This allows the carbon footprint of the whole sun-to-chemicals process to be offset and enables gain in carbon credits, opening an opportunity to exceed climate-neutrality and produce carbon-negative C2 products. The process is energetically self-sufficient, economically viable and carbon-negative on the condition that each unit (DAC, PEC, FSS) reach new targets in efficiency. That is exactly the high-risk/high return outcome expected in the project. The research is balanced to overcome technical, early-stage social and market barriers by exploiting the expertise of its 8 partners (SMEs in the renewable technology field, leading EU research institutions and one networking NGO). This project performs all the necessary groundwork for the full deployment of the process before 2050 through activities that build up a new ecosystem of stakeholders, making Europe the first circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy.

Solar resource is the optimum renewable energy source to build a climate-neutral energy economy in Europe. However, it is under-exploited for producing heat and electricity, and even more for solar fuels. Today, the large needs for heat and electricity are covered by large-scale power plants delivering an energy vector or another, but not both. CONVERGY is a modular use of concentrated solar beams to produce electricity or heat when needed, considering real-time energy demand and their “selling price” for a given location, largely smoothing the main drawback of the renewable energy sources: its intermittency. It is also a single infrastructure for several energy vectors, a path towards energy production cost reduction and so a support for penetration of renewable energies in EU. The main objectives of CONVERGY are to: - Unlock the current technological bottleneck by developing concentrated photovoltaic receiver modules reaching efficiencies >43% at cell level and >41.9% at receiver level. - Demonstrate and validate at lab-scale (TRL4) the modular use of a single field of heliostats for both heat and electricity production. - Align modular production potential with solar resource to reach levelized cost of electricity of 0.08 €/kWh and roadmap where to implement solution. Main impacts will be to build a knowledge platform on modular use of solar resource that will contribute to save up to 600 tons carbon emission in 2030 and up to 20 Mt in 2050. Also, the project will provide a backbone for the use of energy in future scenarios, support the emergence of new business models where EU actors all along the value chain will be reinforced. The European scientific network from this proposal brings together 5 European partners including 1 University / 2 RTO for technology development, 2 industrials for demonstration and for technology integration and operation, and 1 non-European partner, worldwide leader of concentrated solar use, and ready to transfer knowledge towards partnership. It will provide the support to strengthen the network collaboration towards the setup, the submission and the acceptance of the European project Convergy to be submitted at the next H2020-LC-SC3-RES-1 call.