It is presently acknowledged and scientifically proven than climate related hazards have the potential to substantially affect the lifespan and effectiveness or even destroy of European Critical Infrastructures (CI), particularly the energy, transportation sectors, buildings, marine and water management infrastructure with devastating impacts in EU appraising the social and economic losses. The main strategic objective of EU-CIRCLE is to move towards infrastructure network(s) that is resilient to today’s natural hazards and prepared for the future changing climate. Furthermore, modern infrastructures are inherently interconnected and interdependent systems ; thus extreme events are liable to lead to ‘cascade failures’. EU-CIRCLE’s scope is to derive an innovative framework for supporting the interconnected European Infrastructure’s resilience to climate pressures, supported by an end-to-end modelling environment where new analyses can be added anywhere along the analysis workflow and multiple scientific disciplines can work together to understand interdependencies, validate results, and present findings in a unified manner providing an efficient “Best of Breeds” solution of integrating into a holistic resilience model existing modelling tools and data in a standardised fashion. It, will be open & accessible to all interested parties in the infrastructure resilience business and having a confirmed interest in creating customized and innovative solutions. It will be complemented with a webbased portal.The design principles, offering transparency and greater flexibility, will allow potential users to introduce fully tailored solutions and infrastructure data, by defining and implementing customised impact assessment models, and use climate / weather data on demand.

CONTEXT & NEEDEU SMEs are the most affected by the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown: Europe is “closed for business”, and while large companies have systems in place to implement telecommuting and Smart Work, SMEs (especially microenterprises) do not have ICT systems in place nor policies for their staff to work remotely.The EU Commission provides a worrisome picture: less than 15% of EU SMEs are ready to implement Smart Working arrangements. The most recent study Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere” of 2017, reports that only 2.8% of employees in the EU adopt Smart Working. This means that when the pandemic stroke Europe, very few SMEs were ready and had systems in place to adopt telecommuting arrangements.EU SMEs are the most exposed to the risk of not being able to ensure business continuity and be resilient in times of crisis. More importantly, they are less prone to reaping the benefits that Smart Working can bring due to the lack of guidelines on the most suitable ICT solutions and practices to implement Smart Working and of mechanisms to manage Smart Working and telecommuting.There is a pressing need to equip SMEs and empower their staff to implement Smart Working. This is confirmed by relevant EU position papers and studies:> EU Commission, “An SME Strategy for Sustainable and Digital EU”, March 2020: calls for the swift adoption of ICT solutions to enhance the competitiveness and growth of SMEs> Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work” 2017: identifies the need of EU SMEs to adopt Smart Working as a means to increase efficiency, improve working conditions and reduce costs.OBJECTIVES of SWIFT are to:1) Fill the skill gaps identified by the EU and national entities to equip SMEs with skills, competences and solutions to be more flexible, responsive and efficient through Smart Working arrangements2) Provide venues for SMEs and their staff to develop competences, skills and tools to adopt and adapt Smart Working for their resilience, competitiveness and growth3) Enhance the responsiveness and flexibility of EU SMEs to ensure business continuity in times of need and crisis, while increasing their competitiveness and efficiency through effective Smart Working4) Increase the growth and competitiveness of EU SMEs through more relevant and timely training to empower them with the operational tools and equip them with the skills to be more resilient and flexibleTARGET GROUP is identified in SMEs and their staff, especially in the small-scale enterprises in the service sectors. Such target groups was selected thanks to the thorough analysis of the state-of-the-art carried out at preparation: SMEs are the most vulnerable to asymmetric shocks and uncertainty and are the least equipped to implement Smart Working to be more resilient and efficient.PARTICIPANTS are the 6 partners from 5 EU countries representing the world of VET, enterprise and ICT. Moreover, at implementation partners will engage at least 120 target groups in the delivery of the SWIFT training, more than 100 stakeholders and decisions makers in the Multiplier Events and more than 287,636 people at dissemination level.ACTIVITIESPartners will carry out the following activities:a) Develop the SWIFT OER Platformb) Develop a shared methodology for the mappingc) Consolidate findings in IO2 to map dynamics, trends and needs for Smart Working adoption, including technical, operational and human resource implicationsd) Develop the SWIFT training and tools for Smart Working adoption in SMEse) Deliver the training to 120 target groupsf) Develop guidelines for adoption of SWIFT and its mainstreaming in VET and SME ecosystems in EUg) Put forward policy options to promote Smart Working and competitiveness of SMEsRESULTS & IMPACT are1) The dedicated SWIFT Platform that is the Open Educational Resource for all SMEs across EU that can access for free, without restriction and in full Open Access mode all the SWIFT content, training, tools and resources available in multiple language versions. To ensure long-term impact, the SWIFT OER Platform will stay live for at least 2 years after the project2) The SWIFT SME training courses, handouts, operational tools and guidelines for European SMEs to adopt, adapt and implement Smart Working to be more flexible, resilient and competitive3) Enhanced competence of SMEs’ to implement Smart Working that will lead to increased flexibility, responsiveness and competitiveness. Moreover, the adoption of Smart Working will enhance work-life balance of employees while producing efficiency gains for SMEs4) Increased operational capacity of SMEs to be more responsive in the ever-changing global markets being more able to adapt to external conditions that require to adjust business processes.