DISCOVER aims to develop an autonomous, synchronous, continuous and intelligent identification and data analysis system for materials and products in existing end-of-life built works. The proposed approach will provide key stakeholders, including academia research performers, along with construction industry representatives, with data-driven insights to make deconstruction more efficient, optimise the use of resources, improve the environmental footprints and enhance the circularity of construction and demolition, unlocking the potential of end-of-life built works, which will become material banks. The expected outcomes include an autonomous robotic platform coupled with continuous identification tools to scan built works and provide synchronous quantitative and qualitative data from different materials, including complex and concealed elements. Artificial intelligence algorithms will allow a rapid analysis of the properties and characteristics of components, and feed the automated scan-to-BIM model creation. The multi-dimensional BIM, including selective demolition processes, labour productivity, and technical planning, will become a Digital Twin of the demolition site optimised by social, economic, and environmental multi-criteria assessments. This approach will highly contribute to significantly increasing the supply of traceable and sustainable construction materials and products for enhancing their wider market acceptance, following the waste hierarchy. The social impacts of digital transformation in the construction sector will be considered, and also new professional development tools for the relevant stakeholders will be proposed. The system will be tested in 4 different real demolition sites (Spain, Portugal, Poland and Belgium), offering a complete range of built work typologies and wide geographical coverage to demonstrate the replicability potential of DISCOVER, increasing the project dissemination capacity and awareness among the construction sector.

Transformative advances in product formulation are required to meet the demand for sustainability across a wide range of EU-priority industrial areas. Colloidal gels – complex, out-of-equilibrium soft matter systems – are core components in many of the formulations encountered therein, including building materials (e.g., cement), energy materials (e.g., batteries and fuel cells), consumer care and food products, and medicine. Current industrial practice requires delicate balancing between thermodynamic parameters (composition and interactions), quenching kinetics, and processing conditions to achieve gel structures with the desired material performance (e.g., mechanical, thermal, or electrical properties). Without a robust physical understanding of how the microstructure can be controlled and how this links to material properties, this balancing remains limited to trial and error. Recent advances in colloidal-gel physics strongly imply that the rational design of colloidal gel properties is within reach. This design is based on tuning gel microstructure via external stimuli, such as shear, ultrasound, and (magnetic/electric) fields, and the addition of non-Brownian inclusions. The CoCoGel doctoral network will enable the translation from the current academic state of the art to industrial practice, focusing on these routes to controlling microstructure. We will bring together 6 academic and 6 industrial partners – experts in a range of experimental, computational, and theoretical techniques – who can realize the creation of new sustainable materials and production processes via these routes. Key to the success of our industrial doctoral training network is a deepening and extending of existing collaborations, as well as the training of a new generation of researchers with both multi-disciplinary expertise in soft materials and practical experience engaging with industry. These will drive further sustainable development over a wide range of European industries.

Green transformation of built environment is only possible through education and mobilization of all skill and organizational levels within the construction workforce, from the engineering (vocational) level to the higher managerial (PhD) level. The main goal of the project is to implement a comprehensive set of cross-sectoral activities and tackle the mismatch between the current education curricula and market demand regarding digital and green skills in the construction sector in order to speed up its green transformation. Project is based on the following activities: 1) for the sensibilization of vocational level students about the importance of green building and sustainable development of construction sector, handbooks will be made as well as workshops on environmental reporting, training critical number of teaching professionals in vocational schools; 2) for the in-depth education of master level students a new curricula “Green building” will be implemented, in addition to dedicated workshops and training in software use to perform quantitative environmental calculation; 3) to enhance the innovation management skills and to increase the possibility for future green business creation in the sector for the PhD level students will be organized workshops, bootcamps and summer schools; 4) to simulate the decision making within a company, a service-learning event will be held with all three educational levels participating and jointly working on a sustainable solution for a local challenge present in their immediate environment. Through tailor-made activities, each targeted occupational/education level group will be trained for their active role as co-creators in green transformation of the construction sector, securely paving the way towards industrial climate neutrality by 2050, but also serving as a blueprint for possible future educational – entrepreneurial partnership, designed for answering societal and environmental challenges.

The transformation of the European Process Industry needs to embrace circular economy and restorative feedback loops, as a key pillar of the design of entire value chains. Construction, as a waste-intensive sector, is expected to greatly benefit from the potential impacts of circular economy models, to optimize the use of resources, reduce exploitation of raw materials and costs associated with its supply. In the construction and manufacturing process industries, a key challenge to allow the actual uptake of circular economy models and of upcycled /repurposed and/or recycled materials, lies on the need to guarantee that reclaimed materials can offer the same level of quality, performance, and safety of new secondary products. The aim of CIRCULess, is to contribute to foster circularity in the construction and manufacturing process industries, by minimizing Construction and Demolition waste (C&DW) as well as Manufacturing waste (CDM), with focus on mineral (i.e. concrete) and timber-based material streams, which is aligned with the objectives of the Processes4Planet Partnership, by developing new processes for circularity of secondary materials from wastes/residues for all industrial processes, without compromising quality and performance as well as sustainable-by-design circular products. CIRCULess main objective will be addressed by experimenting new circular products and novel processing techniques to improve the quality and performances of secondary materials up to industry expected standards, improve value chain environmental friendliness, maximize recycled components. These actions will benefit from the support and will provide inputs to a tailored digital platform to orient decision making and operational activities. Finally, to foster uptake by the construction sector, recommendations for standards updates and relevant training material for both upskilling current construction workforce and create new specialized profiles in the sector will be created.

Advanced Manufacturing has been highlighted by the EU as one of the key enablers to support and promotion of business research and innovation in key enabling technologies. Therefore, a number of objectives, aligned with pursuing the large scale targets, have been set for advanced manufacturing through four pillars: technology, economic, social and environment. Thus, HINDCON project aims to adapt manufacturing technologies to the construction sector, advancing towards industrialisation and overcoming the limitations of actual approach for introducing Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing in construction activities. The project has a duration of 36 months. The main aim of the HINDCON project is to develop and demonstrate a hybrid machine regarding 3D printing technologies with concrete materials focused on the industrialization of the Construction Industry, delivering to this sector an innovative technology that reduces environmental impact at the same time it reduces dramatically economic costs. The collaborative structure of the project will help to: 1) Integrate different technologies that converge in a hybrid solution. HINDCON “all-in-one" machine will integrate Additive Manufacturing concrete extruder and Subtractive Manufacturing tool kit with the use of cementitious materials including mass materials with alternatives in concrete and additives, and reinforced with composites. 2) Cover the different aspects concerned (technology, economic, social and environment) and demonstrate the hybrid machine from different perspectives. On the one hand, it includes testing basic capabilities of the integrated prototype in laboratory. On the other hand, it involves the demonstration of the manufacturing system in a relevant environment.