META-MUSEUM aims to create empathic encounters where citizens can understand the CH transformative nature through active participation, emotional involvement and co-creation; to develop the “TransforMeans theory” and related new professional skills, based on Neuroscience evidence; to provide cultural professionals with principles and tools for designing cultural experiences and to monitoring the effectiveness of communicative/narrative solutions; to reach different segments of citizens, included disaffected public and non-public; to foster empathy, confidence and resilience toward contemporary changes; to validate an appropriate measurement of empathic responses, confidence and resilience in CH users, via Neuroscience’s method. META-MUSEUM adopts a transdisciplinary approach and a strict interrelation between theoretical and experimental work. The first one will explore and develop in-depth the “TransforMeans theory” principles, develop stimuli to make people understand the CH transformative nature and encourage co-creation and personal interpretation. The experimental work will measure the audience's cognitive, psycho and neurophysiological responses to stimuli, and interpret indicators related to confidence and resilience (intended as a capacity to positively react to changes). The “TransforMeans theory” principles will be tested in 3 different settings (pilots): 1) traditional cultural setting: museums; 2) non-cultural setting: hospitals (WITHOUT focusing on “therapy results”, but only on the CH power on people particularly lacking in confidence and positive thinking); 3) hybrid setting (physical and virtual), in urban contexts and via social media. The META-MUSEUM objectives mobilise multidisciplinary expertise, provide evidence-based principles and guidelines; promote better and more democratic access to CH, improve personal participation and CH understanding, enhance confidence, and address the SDG4, SDG10 and SDG11.

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

GENDERACTION will create an innovative policy community for the implementation of the gender priority in the European Research Area (ERA) by setting up a network of representatives appointed by national authorities in 13 Member States (MS) and Associated Countries, with 5 associate partners. The objective is to facilitate networking and exchange among more and less experienced countries to develop knowledge and build capacities, competences and know-how for gender equality and mainstreaming in research and innovation (R&I) among a variety of European and national stakeholders. The network will (1) map, monitor and assess implementation of actions in priority 4 gender equality and gender mainstreaming in national ERA roadmaps of the participating countries and benchmark them against the ERA roadmap; (2) foster exchange and mutual learning among representatives of national authorities in order to achieve policy coordination in priority 4; (3) provide interactive trainings to relevant stakeholders such as national authorities, RFOs and RPOs and NCPs with a view to building competences in priority 4; (4) give strategic advice to key stakeholders to achieve gender equality in R&I in Europe; (5) foster the inclusion of gender equality in international science cooperation (supporting the work of relevant ERA-related groups). The network will cooperate closely with the Helsinki Group on Gender in Research and Innovation. Iterative dissemination, engagement and impact evaluation strategies drive all planned activities. GENDERACTION’s impact will be (1) a robust policy process to implement gender equality in R&I; (2) foster policy coordination among MS and with Horizon 2020, (3) greater consistency of gender equality policies and actions across Europe; and (4) enhanced integration of gender equality in international cooperation in R&I. Implementation will be assisted by two Advisory Boards, on ERA priority 4 implementation and on Gender in international cooperation in STI.

Building on the Horizon 2020 project GENDERACTION, the overall goal of GENDERACTIONplus is to contribute to the coordination of gender equality and inclusiveness objectives of the new European Research Area through the development of a policy community of practice consisting of national authorities from 11 MS and 2 AC and 7 MS Associated partners and an RFO community of practice from 8 MS and 2 AC and 9 Associated partners. The coordination network covers a total of 23 MS and 3 AC with 26 project partners and 18 Associated partners. Specifically, the project aims to: 1) Develop strategic policy advice on existing and emerging policy solutions in the key thematic areas (intersectionality and inclusiveness; gender-based violence; gender dimension in research, innovation and teaching; monitoring and evaluation of ERA gender equality actions; supporting institutional change through gender equality plans); 2) Enhance the policy-making process through engaging with stakeholders, CSOs and citizens; 3) Build capacities, competence and expertise for gender equality and mainstreaming in R&I among the policy and RFO community members, with special attention to countries with a less comprehensive policy; 4) Create impact through communication, dissemination and exploitation, including national impact plans and an EU impact plan, policy briefs and position papers based on the policy advice developed. The impact of GENDERACTIONplus will be: 1) Advanced policy coordination among MS and AC and through stakeholder and citizen engagement; 2) Improved research careers and working conditions in European R&I, by developing policy dialogue and solutions on inclusion and intersectionality, combating gender-based violence and promoting institutional changes through GEPs; 3) Increased research quality and social responsibility of knowledge through the integration of gender dimension in R&I; and 4) Reduced geographic inequality by targeting less experienced/engaged countries and regions.