Climate-resilient sunflower crops can help to reduce the EU dependency on imports of vegetable oils and proteins shifting towards sustainable alternatives, to mitigate the impact of agricultural production on water use and greenhouse gas emissions, to grow resources for pollinators, and to promote biodiversity. HelEx will generate the knowledge and use innovative tools to accelerate the breeding of sunflower varieties adapted to extreme drought and heat stresses, while improving their environmental impact and assessing their socio-economic value of the resulting innovations along the value chains. HelEx will thereby consider two related groups of traits increasingly impacted by climate change, i.e. the eco-systemic service to pollinators and seed quality. For this, HelEx brings together scientists, SMEs, and industries representing an international consortium of experts in sunflower ecology, physiology and genomics; plant biotechnology and breeding; pollinator biology and ecology; environmental impact assessment and feedstock processing; and socioeconomic assessment at different scales. This HelEx multi-disciplinary consortium will explore the genetic and molecular processes involved in tolerance to drought and heat in wild extremophile Helianthus species, and identify favorable wild alleles introgressed into cultivated sunflower, for seed quality and pollinator attractiveness resilience (WP1). These processes will be transfered using classical marker-assisted selection and innovative genome editing approaches (WP2), and the environmental and biodiversity impact of these new climate-smart sunflowers assessed (WP3). HelEx will investigate the socio-economic impact and benefits in relevant value chains for different feedstock (WP4). Our communication strategy (WP5) will engage a variety of societal stakeholders to ensure feedback and enhance project progress and outcomes, and make transparent the broader dimensions of plant biotechnology, biodiversity, and benefit sharing

The Social sciences & Humanities for Achieving a Responsible, Equitable and Desirable GREEN DEAL (SHARED GREEN DEAL) project brings together 22 leading organisations from across the EU including 8 universities, 3 research institutions, 8 network organisations and 3 SMEs. Our network partners cover core elements of the European Green Deal cross cutting priorities such as civil society, democracy, gender, energy, environment, circular economy and innovation. Our objectives directly address the call challenge with an aim to share actions, understandings, evidence, insights, responsibilities and benefits across stakeholders including policymakers and civil society. Issues of inclusivity and diversity are at the heart of the project to particularly account for disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups. SHARED GREEN DEAL will meet its objectives through a set of 11 workpackages. It is structured around lessons from a set of 6 social experiments around 6 priority Green Deal topics. Each social experiment will be delivered across 4 member states. Importantly we take a transdisciplinary approach, covering 19 social science and humanities disciplines, with multi-stakeholder, practice-based and policy-science expertise, including gender studies as a key component throughout. The output includes the development of tools (e.g. an online Green Deal policy tracker), as well as translating project findings into stakeholder-specific policy briefs and roundtable events. The partners are committed to continuing to host the transnational network set up post-project to ensure longevity and impact beyond the life of the project. SHARED GREEN DEAL is expected to deliver changes in societal practices and in the behaviour of individuals, communities, and public and private organisations. Through the development of effective new strategies, we will address behavioural change and long-term commitment, trust, social acceptance and buy-in from people, communities and organisations.

GoGreenNEXT will deliver a comprehensive evidence-based policy oriented approach model to convey how ecosystem health and human health are connected. We propose to follow the pathway outlined foA complex array of interrelated problems arising from climate change and biodiversity loss pose significant health risks, both today and in the future . Future risks from climate change are currently predicted to escalate (beyond planetary boundaries) and pass critical tipping points with irreversible changes to our climate with commensurate negative impacts on health, our ecosystems and our landscapes . Global, European and national policy frameworks have emerged in recent years to address this challenge, with a range of initiatives to promote mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Nature-based solutions (NBS), or actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature, are among the strategies that have emerged to reverse the degradation of nature, notably in urban areas where changes are amplified. In cities, vulnerability to climate change and environmental degradation is high due to dense populations, critical infrastructure, and at-risk communities (e.g. vast differences across social-economic gradient). Cities offer an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of current solutions aligned with emerging strategies and policy initiatives (e.g. New European Bauhaus, 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities) combining to form what is termed a just green transition. This refers to a process of far-reaching sociotechnical change leading to a green and climate-neutral economy that preserves biodiversity and ensures social justice. GoGreenNext will address the biodiversity-climate-planetary health nexus, delivering positive policy and city/region pilot outcomes in 4 biogeographic regions across Europe and with input from best practice globally.

Unsustainable agricultural practices are major drivers affecting habitat and species diversity in agricultural landscapes of the EU. However, peatland, grassland, and species associated with agriculture are of most concern. The ongoing negative impacts of unsustainable agricultural practices emphasize the need for a fully integrated approach between the EU 2030 Biodiversity and Farm to Fork Strategies. Supporting the EC`s ambition of enhancing biodiversity of agricultural landscapes advanced systems are required to monitor biodiversity features and their changes over time and in space. Such biodiversity monitoring systems will support implementation of result-based policies in the European agricultural landscapes. The BioMonitor4CAP project will design advanced biodiversity monitoring systems mainly assessing diversity of targeted species and habitats to be tested, calibrated, and demonstrated in five European regions representing the major agro-ecological regions of the EU and one region in Peru representing one of the global biodiversity hot spots. The project will combine classical indicator systems that are part of the European monitoring framework (e.g. Farmland Bird Index) with various indicator systems mostly recently developed and applied in form of standalone systems: i) new indicator species (e.g. grasshopper), ii) genetic diversity (eDNA), iii) on-site sensors (e.g. wing beat frequency, acoustic sounds), iv) functional diversity (e.g. pollinators), and iv) various spatial measures. Supporting development and implementation of revised agricultural policies and ensuring rural development the project will involve among multiple stakeholder groups particularly farmers, conservationists, and service provides as the value and/or marketability of public and/or private goods delivered through maintained and enhanced biodiversity and related monitoring systems are hardly understood.

Climate-related health risks are escalating, as our expanding European population of older people are at high risk from recent unprecedented climate change and extreme weather events.The chAnGE Alliance of HEI, VET and Health & Social Care organisations [HSCOs] in Ireland, Portugal, Finland, Austria & Greece aims to:1. Co-create a suite of online microcredentials (MC), for HSC workers who plan/deliver care to older people, to give them knowledge, confidence & skills to plan/incorporate climate adaptation and resilience in their work 2. Empower HSC professionals as local climate adaptation leaders, champions and peer-trainers, to multiply impact 3. Foster relationships & knowledge co-creation between VET-HEI-HSCO through project activities, and targeted knowledge-exchange (KE) events4. Facilitate HEI & VET to modernise their learning offerings and support learners’ transition to HEI 5. Agree an EU-aligned framework for MC credit recognition/accumulation, for exploitation (for any topic or learner group), by HEI/VET across Europe. Project activities occur via four Work Packages (WPs) over 3 years:WP1: Project coordination/monitoringWP2: Preparation: Iterative content co-creation, digitalisation, piloting; MC credit certification WP3: Implementation (learning delivery), monitoring, evaluationWP4: Dissemination & exploitation Results & Outputs: The innovative education, delivered to 500-1000 HSC workers/professionals, and widely multiplied in HSCOs, will be novel (based on extensive needs/gap analyses), interactive, accessible, bite-sized, stackable, and co-created with target learners/older people, at EQF level 4-6. The curriculum & learning content (for the 15 linked MCs) and learning-amplification resources will be freely available for others to adapt/use, along with 3+ academic papers, and 3 reports, on MC credit recognition, sustainability, and the evaluation (learner’s feedback & support needs; usage & usability; learning effectiveness/impact).