Trust and regulation are key aspects that allow the advancement of the society. In setting regulations to govern the behavior of citizens, firms, states and policymakers adopt regulatory design choices that are partly grounded in trust between them and key actors in the field at hand. However, we do not know a lot when it comes to iterative processes through which trust and regulation affect each other over time. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, TRUREGEN aims to study the bidirectional relation between levels of trust and regulation. Focusing on the case of EU energy regulation during 2008-2022, the project 1) maps the nature of EU energy regulation along two key dimensions (specificity-broadness; stability-revisability), 2) assesses statistically significant relations between such a nature and current and past levels of trust/distrust among key EU and national actors (policymakers, regulators, regulatees, consumers, citizens), and 3) traces causal mechanisms underpinning these statistically significant relations. Expertise and facilities offered by the host (KU; Prof. Latusek), together with my existing experience and talent, mutually reinforce my development as independent researcher during the fellowship. In addition, advanced training (e.g. statistics, grant writing, science communication), two-way knowledge transfer allow me to realize my long-term career goals after the fellowship. A customized dissemination and communication plan will make the project and its results known well beyond the academic community, while also seeking active engagement with a wider audience (e.g. workshops, class experiments). Altogether, TRUREGEN at once bridges a major scientific gap, enhances my future career prospects, and makes a timely contribution to pressing societal debates.

<< Background >>The 21st of April 2021, the European Commission has adopted a package of measure to help improve the flow of money towards sustainable activities across the European Union. By enabling investors to re-orient investments towards more sustainable technologies and businesses, these measures will be instrumental in making Europe climate neutral by 2050 and will make the EU a global leader in setting standards for sustainable finance.This strategy acknowledges that sustainable finance is a growing trend in the financial field: the latest Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA, 2020) study confirms a very high demand for ESG expertise in financial industry. The client demand as motivator for investment organisations to consider ESG factors grew by 20 percentage points since 2017 in the US and 90% of investment professionals expect their firm’s commitment to ESG will increase further. Moreover, Google Trends recorded an increase in popularity levels for ESG. At the same time, a LinkedIn analysis among 1 million investment professionals found that only 0,7% had disclosed sustainability-related skills. This evidence confirms a growing gap in the way sustainability in general, and ESG data, are understood and addressed by financial and business executives. Moreover, sustainable finance is still a niche topic in business studies, European Higher Education Institutions (HEI) need to propose more courses about this topic to train future executives in this field, in order to accompany the shift of the sector.To bridge this skill gap, this project will offer students a 360-degree panorama of knowledge and competences needed to put sustainability at the core of financial decision making, through a sustainable finance course.Our project will address the following needs: 1.Bridge the gap between high demand in sustainable finance skills and low offer in sustainable finance course in European HEI.2.Permit a dialogue between engineering and business students to develop transdisciplinary skills necessary to solve sustainable finance issues.3.Train students with hands-on activities mentored by expert working in the field of sustainable finance.<< Objectives >>The project will reach the following objectives:1.Thematic objective: Design, develop, test and upscale a course on sustainable finance to prepare the future finance executives and engineers for the challenges of tomorrow.2.Didactic objective: Design, develop and upscale the educational support, including an ESG database for teaching and training purposes in Higher Education, but also for professionals.3.Methodological objective: Promote innovative pedagogies in Higher Education through different teaching modalities: transdisciplinary peer-teaching, virtual mobility and flipped classroom.4.Professionalization objective: Train students’ professional skills and increase their employability through practical case studies, mentored by financial industry representatives.<< Implementation >>The TRUST Finance project brings together 5 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from 5 different EU countries. It aims to design, test, implement and share a transdisciplinary Master-level course in Sustainable Finance divided into 3 parts (with reference to Project Results – PRs):PART 1: Introduction to Sustainability and Finance (PR 1): Students from engineering and business HEIs will share their knowledge through virtual peer-teaching. Depending on their profile, students will learn about sustainable development, climate change issues, acquire the basics of finance and quantitative analysis. They will also participate in the 21-day challenge to understand sustainability issues and change their everyday life habits. PART 2: In-depth focus on Sustainable Finance (PR 2): Students will actively prepare for virtual lectures on sustainable finance delivered by the professors from the partner HEIs, in a flipped-classroom format. Students will study several topics key for understanding sustainable finance: impact on banks and insurance, EU green taxonomy, ESG reporting, market and legal trends, impact investing etc. PART 3: ESG Challenge (PR 4): A practical application where students will have to solve live case studies in teams, using an ESG database developed for the project. This practical hands-on activity will allow students to face professional issues. Two Learning, Teaching and Training Activities will be implemented: 1.A 3-day training for the staff will be organised in Koulova, Finland. Two staff representative of each partner HEI will perform a trial of the course before the pilot.2.The ESG Challenge Finals 2024, which will bring together the best student teams of each partner HEI to present their live case studies results to an expert panel.A series of 9 Multiplier Events are programmed to share and promote the projects results with other HEI, companies and institution in the field of sustainable finance and beyond.<< Results >>The main result of the TRUST Finance project will be a transdisciplinary Master-level course in Sustainable Finance divided into 3 parts:PART 1: Introduction to Sustainability and FinancePART 2: In-depth focus on Sustainable Finance PART 3: ESG Challenge: a practical, hands-on activity involving live case studies and cooperation with the finance expertsMoreover, an ESG Database will be developed for educational purposes and used in the framework of the case studies. All the educational material will be available in open access on the project’s TRUST platform for replication by other institutions: primarily HEIs, but also companies and training organisations. The PRs are expected to provide students knowledge about sustainability, and sustainable finance skills to train future leaders of the European financial industry. They will improve their ESG data literacy: and develop quantitative skills while touching on the methods commonly applied in finance. More specifically, they will improve their knowledge of sustainable finance market, key stakeholders and regulations, strategy, performance measurement, the macro and micro-level sustainability framework, emerging green market: products, including green bonds, green loans, and impact debt, the energy model and the new long-term objectives (market trends and future challenges), aligned with the EU political framework in climate and clean energy and SDGs in general. The practical part of the course, ESG Challenge, will give them a hands-on experience very close to real professional challenges. By working on practical, real-world challenges in a professional context, students are expected to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and link sustainable finance mechanisms with real-life investment case studies in cooperation with professionals from the finance field (mentors). The capacity to debunk companies' greenwashing attempts will be a valuable learning outcome of the course. Networking among interdisciplinary students, industry experts and faculty advisors creates a very special sense of a dedicated community, which will become a source of inspiration, mutual support, job opportunities and potentially business partnerships. Beyond the technical knowledge, students are also expected to develop transversal skills such as problem solving, critical-thinking and presentation skills.The HEI of the consortium and professors participating in the project will propose a new course to their students, about a trending and highly relevant topic. This will help to bridge the gap between the demand in sustainable finance skills in the industry and the actual training offer in finance. The HEIs will have a special link with financial networks and industry.The companies involved in the project as associated partners or as participants of the multiplier Events will have a special link with the academic world which and with students with skills in sustainable finance that match their needs. The course will also be actively promoted to professionals seeking to upskill in sustainable finance through continual development programme.On a larger scale, our project contributes to the global shift of the European financial industry towards a more sustainable investing field. Our project will help to reach the investment objectives in sustainable business to make Europe carbon neutral by 2050.

<< Background >>In the last decades, the European economy has transformed into a “network economy”. Firms have reduced their depth of production, relying on increasingly differentiated supply chain. Managing the buyer-supplier interface in an efficient and mutually beneficial way thus becomes a key challenge for a modern economy, requiring perfectly skilled workforce at this interface. Recently, the first empirically validated Pan-European skill set for purchasing managers has been identified and a training curriculum prepared, through an Erasmus + project (project PERFECT, Stek and Schiele, 2021). Surprisingly, the counter-part on the sales side is still missing. That is what project CustMaS is doing: identify an empirically validated Pan-European skill set for customer managers and develop a respective training curriculum (CUSTomer MAnagement Skills – CustMaS). In this way, skilled personnel on both sides of the buyer-supplier interface will be available, providing the European economy with a competitive advantage through a highly skilled workforce. Some partners of the CustMaS consortium have been involved in the previous research (Twente in project PERFECT and Graz additionally in a spin-off E+ project on sustainability skills called PERISCOPE). The consortium is completed with dedicated and complementary know-how focussing on the B2B sales side and a balanced geographical scope, covering all cultural areas of Europe (Münster, Athens, Warsaw). In this way, project CustMaS can mirror the successful E+ project PERFECT (www.project-perfect.eu), ensuring administrative excellence and content-wise leadership.Specifically, the buying and selling of components (business-to-business B2B) has become an activity of increasing relevance in a well-functioning economy. For instance, when the first VW “Beetle” was produced right after WW II, it had a depth of production of 85%; no more than 15% of its value was purchased. In contrast, the new Porsche Cayenne has the opposite relation between in-house production and parts sourced, so 85% of its value is being directly transferred to suppliers (Schiele, 2019). This trend is reflected across all sectors, with purchasing costs of a B2B firm in Europe being approximately 60% of the overall costs (Schmid & Grosche, 2008). The average of the top 30 Dutch companies are even buying 70% of their turnover (Andriesen, 2019).What is more, within the context of a network economy, European industry has been confronted with an additional set of complex challenges including the intensified global competition and the resulting fundamental change in customer behaviour, the high volatility and susceptibility to crises of global supply networks, raising sustainability issues and continuous demographic change (European Commission 2019a, 2019b, 2020). Fortunately, new digital technologies developing in the fourth industrial revolution (I4.0) offer a chance to cope with these challenges. Digitalisation also disrupts the traditional buyer-seller interaction (Krafft, Sajtos & Haenlein, 2020). CustMaS is, therefore, going to pay special attention not only to identify current success skills, but identify the necessary digitalization skills as core part of the 21st century skills.However, this is not reflected in curricula at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) nor in corporate skills development programs offered by professional providers of vocational education and training (Omazic & Zunk, 2021). A scientifically based skills development programme in customer management is missing, even more reflecting the increasing digitalisation requirements. The present project aims to fill this educational gap and contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the European economy by ensuring optimal optimal training of professional B2B (business-to-business) sales personnel in order to reduce inefficiencies and frictions in the digitalising supply network.<< Objectives >>The objective of the project is to design an empirically validated skills model for B2B customer management skills and a (post-graduate level) curriculum and program guide for developing these skills. The curriculum will be offered as a Master’s program and will foster the cooperation between the participating universities concerning sales professionals’ customer management skills in the context of increasingly digitalized B2B markets (e.g., setting up and selling in virtual showrooms, diagnosing customer needs online, text analytics useful in modelling the topics that B2B buyers prioritize on their web site, in e-mails, twitter posts etc). In particular, the project has the following objectives:a)Develop an up-to-date, comprehensive, and empirically validated model of skills in B2B customer management in a digitalising world.b)Develop a post-graduate level course curriculum and program guide including program intended learning outcomes, appropriate pedagogy and evaluation strategies.c)Disseminate the results of the project for a broader community. The project is going to develop a self-assessment tool for customer management skill evaluation and prepare an introductory Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on upskilling and reskilling. The course can be used by students in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, logistics, industrial engineering, life sciences (e.g., biology, biotechnology, pharmacology, zoology) and business administration as well as by other learners. It will also help in promoting awareness and interest towards professional sales and selling career paths that appear to offer a bright outlook in the job market of the future.Sales occupations (i.e., sales engineers, sales representatives of services, wholesale, and manufacturing) have been classified as occupations with a bright outlook “projected to grow faster than average” and “to have 100,000 or more job openings over the period 2019-2029 [only] for the US” (o*net online, 2021). Importantly, market reports note insufficient talent as a key barrier for B2B sellers in Europe (Integer Group & Coppeberg, 2021). It follows, that for European B2B firms to compete for the markets of purchasing expenses they need sales professionals that will be skillful in accommodating changing B2B buying behaviour.<< Implementation >>To realise the ambition of creating an empirically validated European curriculum on customer management skills in digitalizing B2B markets, the following steps are undertaken, leading to five intellectual outputs (IOs):IO1.Customer Management Skills: The project activity “Development of Customer Management Skills in a digitalising B2B Context” contains the literature review identifying the state of the art of B2B sales, selling and sustainable, digital marketing education (competence models; learning programs and job description, skill proposals). It will also identify the characteristics and needs of the learners and broadly what the learners will need to do to successfully upskill or reskill. At the end of this phase, the current knowledge in literature will be fully mapped and summarised [lead by Münster]IO2.Best Practice Benchmark: In the project activity “Development of Benchmarking Cases”, a case study interview guide will be designed based on the literature review and theoretical basis of Output 1. Succesful practice case companies are then selected based on various sampling criteria (e.g. size, industry, purchasing maturity), including multinational corporations, small and medium-sized companies, as well as associations and consultancies. Visiting these companies, next to the literature know-how aquired in IO1, possibly missing skills already established in practice training programmes will be added. In this way it can be made sure that a comprehensive set of B2B customer managment skills will be available. [lead by Graz]IO3.Skills and Training Survey: The “best practices” are only assumed best practices, when a large quantitative survey confirms them. Therefore, the project is going to verify the practices and skills identified during the literature review and the benchmark phase by conducting a “Pan-European B2B Skills Survey”. Importantly, this survey will not only describe the application of practices, but will also measure the success of the respective organisations. It is not sufficient, to just describe what firms are doing in their training and which skills acting professionals have, but to identify those skills which actually explain the success. This way it will – for the first time – become possible to identify those practices which can be successfully distinguished from those of less successful sales personnel. [lead by Twente]IO4.Designed curriculum for higher education: Based on the empirically verified skill and practices set and the needs of the learners, a Digital Sustainable Customer Management Skills in B2B curriculum for education on a Master’s level will be designed. Strategic commitments of the program will be developed (e.g., knowledgeable sales and selling action) from which Program Intended Learning Outcomes (PILOs) will be further specified. Evaluation strategies of the intended outcomes will also be specified and a program guide will also be offered addressing the needs of trainers involved in the program and administrators who will support its operations. The developed curriculum will be initially tested and refined in an international summer school inviting representative students from all participating organizations [lead by Athens]IO5.Introductory Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): This project activity will build on the designed curriculum and the preliminary feedback results from the international summer school and will, a) specify the pedagogy, b) develop the content, and c) technically implement a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on digital customer management skills in B2B. [lead by Warsaw]<< Results >>In the end, the following pieces of outcome will be available:•An overview of the state-of-the-art research (literature) in the field of B2B sales, selling and digital marketing skills in industrial markets•A collection of implemented best practices from firms (i.e., corporate training methods and content that evidently works; e.g., mentoring; lunch and learns, etc).•Pedagogical methods most suited for skilling, upskilling and reskilling talent in the domain of digital and sustainable B2B sales and selling.•An empirically validated (digital and sustainable) 21st Century B2B customer management skills model.•A sample curriculum for higher education (post-graduate level) and program intended learning outcomes and a program guide.•A prototypical MOOC, accessible to European learners

Responsible Research & Innovation is a genius concept developed by the European Commission for the governance of research and innovation processes with a view on the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products . It aims to shape, maintain, develop, coordinate an align existing and novel research and innovation-related processes, actors and responsibilities with a view to ensuring desirable and acceptable research outcomes. In the Horizon 2020 programmes, there were and are some of projects focusing on related training needs. But there is no substantial attempt observable to develop continuous higher education programmes supporting the implementation of this concept and the respective reorganisation processes in universities, research centres, research and innovation oriented enterprises and public authorities like cities or regional governments. Our project pretends to fulfil this gap through the co-creation of higher education modules between different research and innovation actors RRIL will especially focus on public engagement, gender equality and ethics (in the knowledge fields Energy and Economy) co-creating learning modules and testing them in innovative environments based on interactive real-problem approaches. In a later stage, the developed modules will be offered to research and innovation actors supporting the implementation of RRI principles in the organisations capacitating the learners to develop jointly innovative solution for societal problems. RRIL is based on co-creation and open innovation processes giving a prominent role to the learners. The co-creation is conceived as multidisciplinary and transversal among different kinds of actors as HEI, research centres, NGO’s and cities pathing the way for knowledge exchange between them. It consist in informed learning among practitioners considering learners (RRI practitioner) as a knowledgeable and critical partner in designing and implementation of the learning means. Under this perspective the potential learners – programme coordinators and tutors - are considered peers working collaboratively on the project outputs.

OPENMIN brings together a consortium of researchers and technological experts from six countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Poland, Romania and Switzerland) that will collaborate to consolidate and expand a range of Open Science and Open Data initiatives that foster comparative knowledge generation and research capacities on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and Migration Studies in Europe. The project will build on existing collaborations and cross-fertilising initiatives of Open Science that have been supported by a combination of national and EU-level programmes with the aim of generating European-wide infrastructures that make research and data focusing on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and on Migration findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). OPENMIN will consolidate and expand the following FAIR tools: (1) the Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Survey Registry, (2) the Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Question Data Bank, (3) the Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Post-Harmonized Survey Data Bank, (4) the Nccr On the Move Migration-Mobility Survey data analysis and reuse tools, and (5) the IMISCOE Migration Research Hub. It will also allow for cross-national learning and tool development through the conception and/or generation of new Open Science and Open Data infrastructure tools and resources: (1) a prototype for a new Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Qualitative Study Registry, (2) a self-depositing Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Open Data Repository, (3) a metadata collection on surveys conducted with Ukrainian migrants and refugees, and (4) the prototype for an Ethnic and Migrant Minorities Survey Data Playground. In so doing, OPENMIN will contribute to the Open Science and Open Data strategic agenda for one of the core areas of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in the social sciences and the humanities in Europe: the field of studies on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and on Migration more generally.