HyFiDress aims at developing Excellence in the Research Area of Multifunctional Hybrid Hydrogel-Fibrous Constructs for Wound Dressings. This will be achieved by twinning the Warsaw University of Technology with outstanding EU institutions with high expertise in the areas of novel antimicrobial strategies and electrospinning. HyFiDress will allow the excellence development required for a consolidated strategic research approach and designing a set of guidelines for the exploitation and commercialization of the results that will have a strong regional, national and European impact. The proposal integrates synergies in complementary fields of research that include (large-scale) electrospinning technology, dual-function peptide development and microbiology, aiming to obtain scientific breakthroughs to improve the global health and economy. The objectives of this proposal are in line with the specific challenge and scope of the topic of the Twinning bottom-up call, addressing networking gaps and deficiencies between the research institutions of the Widening countries and internationally leading counterparts at EU level. This challenge is addressed by twinning WUT with leading EU research institutions: University Hospital Regensburg, an expert in the development and invention of novel antimicrobial strategies to combat biomaterial-associated infections, such as dual-function peptides and bacteriophages. They contribute with their extensive experience on the design and testing of novel antimicrobial agents in vitro and in vivo; JUNIA, an institution internationally-recognized for its excellence in the development of functional and instrumented textiles for medical and well-being applications providing decisive expertise on. Lastly, Bioprex Medical B.V., a biotechnology company that develops antibacterial coatings for medical devices, contributes with their expertise from industry IPR protection, business development, and valorization.

The ebalance+ project applies to the ‘Flexibility and retail market options for the distribution grid’ by addressing flexibility solutions, smart-grids technologies to increase the distribution grid resilience and defining and testing market mechanisms and tools incentivising the energy flexibility. In this context, the ebalance+ project aims to increase energy flexibility of distribution grids, predict available flexibility, increase distribution grid resilience and design and test new ancillary models to promote new markets based on energy flexibility. These objectives allow unlocking the energy flexibility market in distribution grids to support energy prosumers and electric operators. The ebalance+ proposal is an ICT platform that assure the integration and interoperability at any electricity domain, providing an effective market framework where electric operators and stakeholders benefit with new business models. The system is composed of units that implements algorithms to forecast and manage the available flexibility to incentivise demand response programmes and increase the distribution grid capacity to avoid congestions and advise optimization strategies. Besides, it allows integrating the flexibility solutions (developed and tested in the project): electric storage, V2G systems, SiC power inverters, power to heat, control of CHP and management of building devices with IoT-based systems. Smart-gird automation and control solutions will be integrated to enhance the grid observability and use the available flexibility to increase the resilience under critical events. The consortium is composed of 15 entities from 8 EU countries, which the participation of research centres, SME and industry. The solutions are tested in 4 real-life pilots (Spain, Italy, France and Denmark) with specific scopes and objectives. In addition, and in-Lab demo is developed to test critical use cases. Innovative market models regarding flexibility market for DSO-TSO will be simulated

GOLD is organized in five work packages (see figure aside) and builds on the three pillars. The first pillar (WP1) aims to optimize selected energy crops for phytoremediation as well as to develop optimized phytoremediation solutions for decontamination purposes. In the second pillar (WP2) the contaminated feedstock of WP1 will be converted to clean biofuels by developing two thermochemical based conversion routes; the first on gasification and the second on pyrolysis. In both routes the main contamination constituents will be collected in a concentrated form: mainly in a vitrified slag with low leachability produced in the gasification in the 1st and in a form of high density biochar in the 2nd. In the third pillar selected value-chains for biofuels production and land decontamination will be modelled and analysed in terms of cost, sustainability and SDGs for the creation of win-win situations. Emphasis is being given on the international collaboration towards Innovation Mission Challenge 4 on Biofuels with the participation of three highly consuming countries (Canada, China and India) thoughtout the value-chains.

The PPILOW project aims to co-construct through a multi-actor approach solutions to improve the welfare of poultry and pigs reared in organic and low-input outdoor farming systems. The first originality of PPILOW is the participatory approach, involving all actors of the production chain from farmers to consumers, citizens, scientists and policy makers, for proposing and studying welfare improvement levers. The second originality of the project is to provide a combination of practical solutions for welfare improvement that can be applied on a pan-European basis with specific adjustments depending on citizen’s expectations and the target market (national legislation or consumer preferences). More precisely, PPILOW will co-create with end-users welfare self-assessment tools, innovative breeding and rearing strategies and techniques for improving the welfare of animals by avoiding mutilations (piglet castration or beak trimming in poultry), the elimination of one day-old layer male chicks, favouring positive behaviours, and improving health and robustness in both species. The innovative solutions will be investigated experimentally and the most promising ones will be tested on-farm. Multi-criteria analyses of the most effective breeding and rearing strategies will then be realised to evaluate their economic, social and environmental impacts based on the ‘One Welfare’ concept embracing sustainability goals with specific emphasis on animal and human welfare. Business models will be created for the use of high-quality products issued from the adoption of PPILOW strategies to improve welfare in organic and low-input outdoor farming systems for poultry and pigs. Finally, to ensure the rapid uptake of the project results by end-users, appropriate dissemination activities will be developed (such as training, digital videos from field partners, EIP abstracts…) and the close involvement of national practitioner groups throughout the EU will be managed to facilitate change.

The global market for next-generation telecommunications systems (B5G, 6G) demands products with higher speeds, better energy efficiency and sufficient power output. The project aims to meet these needs by developing and industrializing next-generation semiconductor technologies (SiGe BiCMOS for ST, RF GaN for UMS) and the associated integrated circuit design and characterization environments. Innovative analog and digital RF integrated circuits will be designed with the technologies developed and integrated as ‘FEM’ modules of innovative telecommunications system demonstrators. New assembly techniques that can solve RF signal integrity and heat dissipation issues, or greatly simplify RF systems, will also be explored. Demonstrators of innovative telecommunications systems will be developed (10 demonstrators; by NOKIA, SAFRAN, SIAE, and other partners), to validate new semiconductor and assembly technologies, on use cases envisaged for wireless B5G/6G networks (more particularly for network access and network trunks), very high-speed optical networks, and Earth observation and satellite telecommunications. The SHIFT consortium brings together players covering the entire value chain of these telecommunications applications, from laboratories to manufacturers, thus guaranteeing the highest scientific level and the possibility of validating the work carried out on suitable demonstrators. Activities will include environmental and economic impact assessments.