Over the last 20 years, femtosecond lasers have led to a host of novel scientific and industrial instrumentation enabling the direct measurement of optical frequencies and the realization of optical clocks, a Nobel Prize winning technology. Initially developed for fundamental science, the potential of femtosecond lasers for a wide range of cross-disciplinary applications has been demonstrated, including e.g. those in optical telecommunication, photonic analog-to-digital conversion, ultra-high precision signal sources for the upcoming quantum technologies and broadband optical spectroscopy in the environmental or bio-medical sciences and many more. Although, impressive cross-disciplinary demonstrations of the potential of femtosecond lasers are numerous, the technology has been hampered by its large size and high cost per system. The existing mode-locked semiconductor diode laser technology does not fulfil the needed performance specifications. The aim of the FEMTOCHIP project is to deliver a fully integrated chip-scale mode-locked laser with pulse energy, peak power and jitter specifications of a shoebox sized fiber laser system enabling a large fraction of the above-mentioned applications. Key challenges addressed are large cross-section, high gain, low background loss waveguide amplifiers, low loss passive waveguide technology and chirped waveguide gratings to accommodate high pulse peak power, to suppress Q-switching instabilities and to implement short pulse production by on-chip dispersion compensation and artificial saturable absorption. Therefore, the FEMTOCHIP consortium is composed of leaders in CMOS compatible ultra-low loss integrated SiN-photonics, rare-earth gain media development and deposition technology as well as ultrafast laser physics and technology for design, simulation and characterization to identify and address the key challenges in demonstrating a highly stable integrated femtosecond laser with table-top performance.

Europe aims to reach climate neutrality and a circular economy by 2050. Current practices to recycle batteries are not designed for the full valorisation of the battery materials and, therefore, are not coherent with the European ambitions. To design the vertical battery recycling process compatible with the requirements of circular economy, BeyondBattRec aims at integrating emerging technological and digital tools to enhance the battery recycling rate. The project introduces innovative principles and practices at the component level and rationally integrates the developed components to recover valuable materials with a constant focus on carbon footprint according to the request in Annex II of the new EU Directive (EU) 2019/1020. To achieve its objective, BeyondBattRec puts together a multidisciplinary 13-partner consortium from 7 European member states, consisting of industries, academia, and research & technology organizations. The project targets battery recyclers, manufacturers and technology providers as the end users due to their importance in realizing the objectives of Batt4EU in transforming European battery industry to make it circular and achieve overall climate neutrality at EU level by 2050, while enhancing their global competitiveness. Thanks to innovative steps beyond state of art, BeyondBattRec will allow to comply also with other 2 Annexes of the above Directive (Annex X for management of materials subject to risk of supply for Europe and Annex XII related to minimum recovery rate for said risky and strategic metals and requesting the following recovery rate at the horizon of 2031: (a) 95 % for cobalt; (b) 95 % for Cooper; (c) 80 % for lithium;(d) 95 % for nickel. BeyondBattRec builds on the success of former initiatives and projects which have delivered technological, methodological, patents and largely Europe Dissemination under join venture and licenses. Thanks to those community assets, BeyondBattRec will convincingly and coherently leverage and advance to achieve its objectives.

The fourth industrial revolution and market demands for advanced steels are driving the research towards transformation of the manufacturing processes and to ever-more sustainable steel compositions. The conventional ‘trial and error’ approach traditionally used to develop metallurgical processes still prevails in the industrial steel plants. However, it is a time-consuming, labour-intensive process entailing high material waste and associated carbon emissions. Also, it can ultimately lead down to a repetitive path that consists of creating a process design, putting it into production, and detecting possible process design flaws too late, resulting in high component rejection rates. Ascertaining the inadvertent flaws in the manufacturing approach before its implementation on industrial lines could be the key to major cost savings. With the introduction of AI- and simulation-driven design, back-and-forth interaction between part and process designs can be significantly diminished. The main objective of AID4GREENEST is to develop six new AI - based rapid characterization methods and modelling tools. AID4GREENEST tools’ scope will cover the steel design (chemistry and microstructure), process design (processing parameters), product design (processing and heat treatments) and product performance (creep) stages. Proposed tools will be complemented with a roadmap designed to enable model-based innovation processes, from materials design to product development, while considering the industry needs: enhanced material quality, reduction of carbon emission and waste generation, and reduced supply risk of critical raw materials. In order to facilitate the knowledge transfer of the characterization and modelling data generated in this project and across the wider European characterization and modelling community, the project will also develop an open online platform, based on a standardized and interoperable data management system and following the EMMC, EMCC and EMMO approach.

According to the European Energy Storage Technology Development Roadmap towards 2030 (EASE/EERA) energy storage will be of the greatest importance for the European climate energy objectives. The Sintbat project aims at the development of a cheap energy efficient and effectively maintenance free lithium-ion based energy storage system offering in-service time of 20 to 25 years. Insights gained from advanced in-situ and in-operando analysis methods will be used for multi scale modelling targeting on the simulation of aging mechanisms for a reliable lifetime prediction and enhancement. In addition, the latest generation of anode materials based on silicon as well as a prelithiation process for lifetime enhancement will be implemented in the cell manufacturing process. The implementation of high energy materials combined with a low cost and environmental benign aqueous cathode manufacturing process will lead to remarkable cell costs reduction down to 130 € per kWh. This will enable battery based storage system for an economic reasonable price of less than 400 € per kWh (CAPEX) and will lower the OPEX down to less than 0.09 € per stored kWh for the targeted in-service time of 20 to 25 years (10,000 cycles). The technical developments will be supported by the set-up of a relevant roadmap as well as a catalogue for good practice. To guarantee the highest possible impact for the European economy the Sinbat consortium installed an Industrial Advisory Board including various European battery material suppliers, cell manufacturer and end-users whereby the whole value added chain in this way is completed within the Sintbat project. This strong interaction of the Sintbat consortium with relevant stakeholders in the European energy economy will assure that battery based energy storage systems are becoming an economic self-sustaining technology.

It is undeniable that protein is an indispensable part of the human diet, but the way we produce and consume it today presents many challenges, in terms of both global consumption patterns and their social, environmental and economic impacts. Providing a growing global population with healthy diets from sustainable food systems is therefore an immediate challenge. SMART PROTEIN aims to industrially validate and demonstrate innovative, cost-effective and resource-efficient, EU-produced, nutritious plant (fava bean, lentil, chickpea, quinoa) and microbial biomass proteins from edible fungi by up-cycling side streams from pasta (pasta residues), bread (bread crust) and beer (spent yeast and malting rootlets) industries. The alternative SMART protein will be used for the production of ingredients and products for direct human consumption, through developing future-proofed protein supply chains with a positive impact on bio-economy, environment, biodiversity, human nutrition, food and nutrition security and consumer trust and acceptance. These priorities will be addressed through global partnerships forged with consortium members from Europe, North America, Israel, Thailand and New Zealand to develop and demonstrate a climate-smart, sustainable protein-food system for a healthy Europe. We will harness plant and microbial protein knowledge to significantly enhance the sustainability and resilience of a new European protein supply chain, improve professional skills and competencies, and support the creation of new jobs in the food sector and bioeconomy.