Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature and in various industries, such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and ceramics. Their thermomechanical behaviours are governed by the interactions between solid particles, as well as between particles and the surrounding media (gas or liquid). Although granular materials have been investigated extensively, there are still some unsolved challenging issues concerning the thermomechanical behaviours, including heat generation (i.e. self-heating) and transfer, and thermal effects on material properties and process performance. Furthermore, the unique thermomechanical attributes have led to emerging applications with granular materials, such as additive manufacturing, powder coating, high quality composites, insulation and efficient thermal processing for energy conservation, but there is a lack of mechanistic understanding of thermomechanical behaviour of granular materials in these emerging applications. MATHEGRAM will hence deliver a timely, concerted research and training programme to address these challenges, bringing together a multi-disciplinary and inter-sectorial consortium consisting of 6 leading academic institutes, 4 non-academic beneficiaries and 6 partner organisations from 8 EU member states. Our vision is to develop robust new numerical models and novel experimental techniques that can predict and characterise heat generation and transfer, as well as thermal effects in granular materials. The enhanced mechanistic understanding of granular materials will enable them to be used in diverse industries, while also achieving energy conservation and CO2 emission reduction. We will also train a cohort of 15 ESRs with balanced gender, who will be the next generation scientific and technological leaders with competency and the research and transferable skills to work effectively across disciplinary and sectoral boundaries.

TERRE aims to develop novel geo-technologies to address the competitiveness challenge of the European construction industry in a low carbon agenda. It will be delivered through an inter-sectoral and intra-European coordinated PhD programme focused on carbon-efficient design of geotechnical infrastructure. Industry and Research in the construction sector have been investing significantly in recent years to produce innovative low-carbon technologies. However, little innovation has been created in the geo-infrastructure industry, which is lagging behind other construction industry sectors. TERRE aims to close this gap through a network-wide training programme carried out by a close collaboration of eleven Universities and Research Centres and three SMEs. It is structured to provide a balanced combination of fundamental and applied research and will eventually develop operational tools such as software for low-carbon geotechnical design and a Decision Support System for infrastructure project appraisal. The research fellows will be involved in inter-sectoral and intra-European projects via enrolment in 8 ‘Joint-Awards’ and 7 ‘Industrial’ PhDs. The research fellows will be trained in low-carbon design by developing novel design concepts including eco-reinforced geomaterials, ‘engineered’ vegetation, engineered soil-atmosphere interfaces, biofilms, shallow geothermal energy and soil carbon sequestration. Distinctive features of TERRE are the supervision by an inter-sectoral team and the orientation of the research towards technological applications. Training at the Network level includes the development of entrepreneurial skills via a special programme on ‘Pathways to Research Enterprise’ to support the research fellows in establishing and leading spin-out companies after the end of the project.

The Energy Data Innovation Network (EDI-Net) will use smart energy and water meter data to accelerate the implementation of sustainable energy policy. It will do this by increasing the capacity of EU public authorities to act quickly and decisively. The capacity will be increased by the provision of just the right amount of intelligible information, by training and exchange of experiences of Public authorities and by provision of tools and support to implement and monitor their sustainable energy plans. To move beyond the traditional technical energy manager approach to use the information to engage with decision makers, finance mangers and building users. To make energy more “visible”. To make energy and water date “more exciting” to buildings users. Innovation in terms of using big data analytics to address issues at scale. Big data; thousands of EU public buildings; information for decision makers, finance managers and building users; benchmarking of EU public buildings; and monitoring implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans or local Climate Protection Plans. The core of EDI-NET is the analysis of smart meter data from buildings, from renewable energy systems and from building energy management systems (BEMS) using Big Data analytics technologies. The attractive fruit around this core is an online forum to spread knowledge and facilitate exchange of experience and best practice through peer to peer education in a friendly and useful way. The tree that supports and ripens the fruit is the existing European network of Climate Alliance that builds the capacity of EU public authorities to more effectively implement sustainable energy policies. We recognise the smart meter data, by themselves, will not implement sustainable energy policy. However, when combined with on-line discussion forum, local campaigns, awareness raising and peer to peer knowledge transfer it can achieve savings of between 5 and 15 percent; at least 16 GWh/yr, worth over 1.5 M€.