HP4All brings together leading experts across Europe to enable capacity and skills development within the Heat Pump sector and to ensure that the energy efficiency gains afforded by heat pumps are realised. HP4All, following a a holistic, systemic point of view, will work both with the supply side (manufacturers, SMEs, installers etc) and demand side (building owners, public sector etc.). This way, the project will enhance, develop and promote the skills required for high quality, optimised Heat Pump (HP) installations within residential/non-residential buildings bringing Europe to the forefront of the climatization sector. HP4All will develop the HP4All package, a set of different tools and resources to be used by the different related stakeholders. The package includes a HP Competency Framework to facilitate Mutual Recognition of HP Skills and, from an end user perspective, a HP Knowledge Hub will be created to provide guidance, support and tools e.g. procurement guidance to increase the demand for HP skills and knowledge. HP4All will validate this package through 3 regional plans being implemented (AT, ES and IE) with the ambition of driving market change, influencing end user decisions and planning for new innovations. The implementation plans will be informed by extensive stakeholder engagement to map current and future barriers to HP market exploitation and skills development. Leading experts in the HP and Energy sector will support the regional actors to prepare the market for new innovations related to HP technology, procurement and contracting services. The impact of the project will be maximised through the role of the Observers (HR, PT,RO ) as they will follow closely the development and validation of the HP4All package, being early adopters even before the project ends. Replication activities will include train-the-trainer, a roadmap and pan-European events for policy makers and public bodies.

ICT-BIOCHAIN brings leading experts and support networks to develop Digital Innovation Hubs within ready-made test bed bioeconomy regions to examine opportunities for ICT, IoT and Industry 4.0. to increase the efficiency of high potential value biomass supply chains. In 2016, the EU selected 6 "model demonstrator regions" to lead the way towards sustainable chemical production. Within ICT-BIOCHAIN, two of these high potential Model Demonstrator Regions, South East Ireland and Andalusia, will serve as test bed locations for the development of digital innovation hubs for biomass mobilisation. The competence centres will provide access within hubs to the best knowledge, information and technology to promote opportunities for ICT, IoT and Industry to be integrated into biomass supply chains. This will support the development of the EU bioeconomy by facilitating greater availability of competitively priced and sustainable biomass. ICT-BIOCHAIN will build on the work done in improving forestry biomass supply chains through integration of ICT tools, transferring state-of-the-art and new ICT, IoT and Industry 4.0 solution to region specific biomass supply chains. To ensure commercial opportunities are realised, project will build on ongoing regional bioeconomy developments and opportunities identified in existing Investment Readiness Analyses carried out for the Model Demonstrator Regions. To ensure consistency of regional biomass data sets, the ICT-CHAIN platform will build upon previous data sets tested within the Scottish Model Demonstrator Region. Once region-specific opportunities are identified, value chain coalitions of multi-actors will be developed through intensive knowledge transfer activities. Finally, the project will build networks with other bioeconomy regions, providing a roadmap and training to allow further replication of digital innovation hubs for the biobased sector in Europe.

To date, most modern, off-the-shelf battery designs targeting lightweight application use lithium-ion technology. This is due to the fact that other existing technologies such as NiMH and Pb:Acid are often too heavy, leading to energy densities inferior to those of Li-Ion technologies. New technologies must improve upon energy density, whilst also employing green, recyclable designs and avoiding the use of critical raw materials. In addition, the rapid increase in the number of electrified vehicles, especially those employing fast-charging systems, has lead to an increasing load on energy generation systems. During periods of mass travel (for example, during the summer vacation season), this can lead to severe loading. It is therefore important to consider the whole of the electric vehicle system – not only at the vehicle level, but also at the infrastructure level. Europe is very strong in terms of its capacity to produce final products (such as EVs and stationary storage systems), but is weaker when considering its capacity to produce and use raw materials, advanced materials, and equipment for manufacturing cells. The overarching of goal of the TEMPEST project is to develop and mature a new generation of safe-by-design, recyclable, high-performance, and lightweight batteries for the largest possible swath of transport applications. TEMPEST will bring to TRL5 advanced, module-free battery systems, optimized using AI algorithms, and based on both LIC and SSC cell chemistries through three different demonstrator batteries types (compact, large-scale, and stationary) selected as representative batteries for the range of use case applications targeted (automotive, aircraft, maritime, rail, and stationary). TEMPEST has access to direct capacity to scale results.

UrBIOfuture main goal is to bring Europe to the forefront of the bio-based sector by boosting careers, new educational programmes and research activities. This approach is intended to be developed in this project as a 3-step methodology: (1) An identification step, involving career mapping of programmes involving bio-based activities and pointing of skills mismatch between them and the bioindustry needs as main KPIs, alongside with a previous methodology and work terminology developed and aligned between the educational sector and the industry needs. (2) An interaction step, in which the constant contact and contributions of the education sector, academia and industry will be sought throughout the project. The KPIs involved will be (a) building a comprehensive stakeholder network and a working group involving representatives from each sector of the bio-based value chain. The project has already received the support of 72 organizations from bio-based industries (38 LOIs), educational institutions and networks (15 LOIs), and from innovation and research centres (19 LOIs); and (b) the organisation of two workshops in which this group will participate. The first will seek dialogue between the different profiles to validate the common terminology and methodology, and the second will consist of a co-creation exercise to set the basis for promoting careers in the bio-based sector. (3) The implementation of UrBIOfuture, through an appropriate Communication and Dissemination plan; the organization of promotional events, train-the-trainer and train-the-student workshops; and the development of an afterlife plan will ensure the broader impact of the results materialised in the project among the European bio-based sector. The results of UrBIOfuture will help building a bio-based industrial sector with the adequately skilled people, that are able to operate innovative value chains while establishing and sustaining a solid bio-based industry in Europe.

BIOSWITCH main aim is to bring Europe to the forefront of the bio-based economy, encouraging and supporting brand owners to switching to bio-based approaches by following a holistic, systemic approach built on two pillars: (1) a framework where brand owners are placed as the centre of the public administration-bio-based industry-consumers triangle through a set of events and communication actions; and (2) the BIOSWITCH toolbox as the ultimate instrument that will assist them in the bio-based transition journey. Main novelty is a bio-based transition level self-assessment test to be done by brand owners so they can get access only to the tools that match their needs. The framework will support the mapping and analysis exercise, where information about brand owners needs, motivations and incentives will be gathered. Perceived risks and mitigation actions will be identified and awareness and discussions with consumers will be fostered. Then, the BIOSWITCH toolbox will be developed and validated through four brand owner driven cases studies (NOPA Nordic, ALPRO, ZAFER and Grupo La Caña) that represent four different bio-based transition strategies from chemistry, forest, food and agro sectors and different levels of bio-based transition level. A replication plan development and toolbox roll-out will be conducted. Both regional and pan-European approaches will be considered all along the project. Main impact to be achieved will be reaching brand owners that are not familiar with bio-based approaches (at least 81 clusters that are not BIC members), and increasing brand owners interest in bio-based strategies, as well as triggering their level of involvement and commitment to bioeconomy (it is foreseen that and at least 180 brand owners from partners networks can be reached). Bio-based product acceptance will be also increased as at least 550 attendees are expected in all project foreseen events.