Due to persistently high youth unemployment, increased skills mismatches and school drop-out in many EU Member States, career guidance to secondary and vocational school students aged 16-18 has in the past years been the subject of much attention. However, effective orientation needs to start earlier to permit equal opportunities and informed decisions concerning educational and professional paths, helping all young people to find employment that suits them.In many countries, students as young as 13-14 have to choose whether they will continue in “general” studies, focus on “maths/science” or go into vocational training. So already from this young age, they have to make an important choice that will affect the career options that will be available to them as they grow older.How can they make informed decisions? And who is there to help young people make these very important, life-determining choices? Mainly parents, career guidance counsellors and teachers. Yet educational staff are often ill-equipped to provide career orientation to this age group, who at this stage in their lives would not benefit from specific career guidance services. What they require most is what we call “Life Design Skills”, i.e. the knowledge, mindset and skills they will need to make informed choices concerning their education, and thereafter to develop their professional lives in a labour market that will primarily be characterised by change.Our specific objective is thus to empower teachers, youth workers, career guidance providers (‘Educators’) to teach Life Design Skills to young people.We will work towards this objective primarily by developing a ‘Skills for Life Toolbox’ for Educators. This Toolbox will be developed cooperatively by all project partners who will pilot it with approximately 500 Educators and 10,000 students in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Romania. It will be composed of:-An on-line self-evaluation tool to help students discover their strengths, weaknesses, priorities, interests and personality types and to start considering how these may relate to different professional profiles;-A board game to help students make the link between their own personal characteristics and those of different job profiles and economic sectors;-A series of modules that Educators can implement as a function of their teaching environment, to dig deeper into the subject with their students;-A half-day training to teach Educators to deliver these activities, also available as on-line training modules;-A user-friendly Impact Assessment Methodology that will enable Educators to measure the impact and efficacy of their intervention.All of the results will be freely accessible online in five languages: Dutch, English, German, Italian and Romanian, and will be designed in such a way as to easily cross language and cultural barriers.We will also use our experience of piloting the Toolbox to develop Policy Recommendations that will highlight actions and policies that support effective early-stage career orientation and Life Design Skills for young people.The Toolbox will be mainstreamed (1) by project partners who will use the Toolbox as part of their regular activities and promote its use by local stakeholders; (2) through dissemination activities aimed at school directors, educators, counsellors, local authorities, Chambers of Commerce and other stakeholders concerned with youth employment; (3) through engagement with policy-makers especially using the Policy Recommendations.Expected impactsThe Skills for Life Toolbox will:-empower teachers, youth workers, career counsellors and other career guidance and orientation providers to deliver effective pre-career guidance to young people aged 13-14,-empower young people to choose an educational pathway that will lead them into employment that suits them,-provide young people with the skills they will need as they grow older and make their way through an employment environment characterised by change.We will also raise awareness – among local, regional, national and European stakeholders – of the need to introduce career orientation to students at a younger age than is currently the case, and will promote our results as an efficient and effective means of meeting this need.In the longer term, this project will help bridge the gap between a labour market in constant evolution and an education system that struggles to remain up-to-date. As a result, young people will be better prepared to envisage their future, to seize new opportunities and be more resilient to constant change and continuous transitions.Skills for Life will contribute not only to more fulfilling careers for young people, but also to a more innovative and competitive European economy.This project has been created by Goethe-Institut (DE), Aliseo Liguria (IT), Scoala de Valori (RO), Tracé Brussel (BE) and the City of Mannheim (DE).

Urban ReLeaf is an action-oriented mission to advance citizen-powered science as a central resource for inclusive urban green planning in support of local policy making, European strategies and monitoring systems (e.g., the Green Deal, Copernicus), and global efforts such as the SDGs (e.g., Target 11.7) and GEOSS. The project will: (i) assess current urban greening policy processes within six European cities and co-create solutions that use citizen observations to complement existing data ecosystems and decision-making; (ii) support the validation and long-term inclusion of active and passive data from citizens for urban environmental monitoring within authoritative data streams, including GEOSS & Copernicus; (iii) Mobilize and empower communities through widespread participation in issues of public interest surrounding urban green infrastructure; (iv) develop a community of practice around topics related to the use of citizen observations for urban planning to foster knowledge exchange and develop capacities across multiple sectors; (v) produce flexible and innovative governance solutions to help scale-out inclusive urban green transitions in support of the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals; and (iv) promote recognition, adoption and trust of citizen observations and other novel data ecosystems for environmental monitoring to trigger innovation within public institutions. The project is coordinated by IIASA, who led the WeObserve project, and involves partners from previous successful H2020 citizen observatory projects and as well as six cities (Athens, Cascais, Dundee, Mannheim, Riga Utrecht) that are willing to embrace new data streams for urban greening planning and policy making and to fully engage with citizens including marginalized and vulnerable groups. Urban ReLeaf is also supported by technology partners and those with strong links to Copernicus and GEO.

SONNET aims to create an inter- and transdisciplinary understanding of the diversity and processes of social innovations in the energy sector (SIE). It assesses - critically and reflexively- the success, contributions and future potential of SIE towards sustainable energy transitions in Europe. SONNET investigates how, to what extent and under which enabling conditions diverse types of SIE may result in new breakthroughs or successfully help to overcome transition barriers; such as limited citizen engagement or slow adoption of new technologies. SONNET’s empirical research is informed by a novel conceptual framework combining insights from sustainability transitions, energy studies and social innovation literatures. It bridges qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in an innovative multi-method research design. Across 30 qualitative in-depth case studies situated in six European countries, SONNET investigates the diversity, processes, success and contributions of SIE. Given its focus on urban areas as major hubs for SIE, SONNET conducts six transdisciplinary SIE city labs to experiment with new forms of SIE and learn about how multiple actors can harness the potential of SIE. In addition, based on three large-scale representative citizen surveys, SONNET assesses the future potential of SIE and derives implications for reconfiguring existing and developing new business models. SONNET synthesizes its findings in an integrated knowledge framework for a socio-economic, socio-cultural (incl. gender) and socio-political understanding of enabling and impeding conditions for SIE and SIE contributions when working towards accelerating sustainable energy transitions in Europe. Through a cutting edge co-creation, dissemination and exploitation strategy, SONNET ensures that its practical recommendations, tools and capacity building activities have a maximum impact on its key stakeholders such as citizens, SIE actors, policy makers, and businesses.

The objective of HouseInc is to apply innovative methodology to deeply analyse interlinked dimensions of housing inequalities in the context of marginalized communities. HouseInc will empirically examine economic, social and ecological drivers and assess impacts of various indicators on housing inequality to derive policy recommendations that foster the adoption of effective measures addressing housing inequality across Europe. With a transdisciplinary dialogue, the project develops innovative social, financial and digital solutions that can be up-scaled and thus, contribute to a better socio-economic and sustainable integration of vulnerable groups in European societies. HouseInc takes a systemic view and assesses interlinkages of housing inequalities - emphasizing energy and mobility poverty, digital dimensions, employment opportunities, family and socio-demographic conditions, energy-efficiency and health - on a micro-, meso- and macro-level. The interdisciplinary HouseInc consortium - consisting of research institutes and universities, policy think tanks, NGOs and practitioners on the ground - involves case studies to engage directly with members of four marginalized communities in or from Eastern Europe. Besides a mix-method approach, including modelling and a GIS-based analysis depicting geographical and future housing inequality, we implement a multinational survey to better understand housing inequality in light of recent events such as COVID-19 and Russia's invasion in the Ukraine. The research results will be assessed, mapped and scaled up using Living Labs and various stakeholder engagement activities to provide innovative solutions addressing housing inequalities and translating them into valid local, regional, national and EU policy recommendations impacting EU and national funding programs and providing a comprehensive overview and guidance for policymakers to mitigate housing inequalities.