In order to tackle pressing societal issues, we must reconsider how we design and inhabit our neighbourhoods. The necessity of consistently including end users or local communities is sometimes overlooked in the planning, designing, and construction processes used today. However, combining community knowledge and initiatives can result in more liveable neighbourhoods that empower citizens and represent local needs and surroundings. Furthermore, the way public areas are constructed can have a big influence on how people interact with one another, what kinds of activities happen there, and how much trust the public has in their local government and democracy as a whole. The project seeks to rethink how neighborhoods are designed and experienced by emphasizing the importance of involving local communities in the planning, design, and construction processes. By incorporating community knowledge, more livable spaces can be created that meet local needs and empower residents. Public spaces are vital in fostering social interaction, trust in government, and democratic engagement. Equipping people with the tools to actively participate in co-designing these environments can strengthen social trust, enhance a sense of belonging, and boost community involvement. The "Sustainable Public Spaces through Inclusive Community Engagement (SPICE)" project aims to develop a participatory co-creation model for shaping neighborhoods. It will explore and test innovative methods to engage communities in co-designing and maintaining public spaces across diverse European neighborhoods. By promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, leveraging digital tools, and using sustainable construction practices, the project aims to address societal challenges, promote social inclusion, support democratic participation, and align with the European Green Deal and New European Bauhaus principles.

The overall goal of MULTISOURCE is to, together with local, national, and international stakeholders, demonstrate a variety of about Enhanced Natural Treatment Solutions (ENTS) treating a wide range of urban waters and to develop innovative tools, methods, and business models that support citywide planning and long-term operations and maintenance of nature-based solutions for water treatment, storage, and reuse in urban areas worldwide. MULTISOURCE will allow users to identify multiple sources for local water reuse, promote increased uptake of nature-based solutions, and minimize discharge of water that has not received adequate treatment. MULTISOURCE will deliver new knowledge about ENTS and their ability to remove waterborne contaminants and provide effective risk reduction for chemical and biological hazards, as well as their capacity to be integrated into the landscape and contribute to the improvement of urban habitats. The project includes seven pilots treating a wide range of urban waters. Two individual municipalities (Girona, Spain; Oslo, Norway), two metropolitan municipalities (Lyon, France; Milan, Italy), and international partners in Brazil, Vietnam, and the USA will contribute to each of the main project activities: ENTS pilots, risk assessment, business models, technology selection, and the MULTISOURCE Planning Platform. The use of urban archetypes in the Planning Platform will enable users to quickly classify regions (in both developed or developing countries) suitable for the application of nature-based solutions for water treatment (NBSWT) and compare scenarios both with and without NBSWT. This unique approach provides the knowledge, business models, and modular tools that will enable stakeholders to conduct fit-to-purpose, large-scale planning in their local region and, in doing so, promote circularity and sustainable development in the urban water sector and overcome barriers to widespread uptake of nature based solutions for water treatment.

The increased demand for drinking water from habited zones combined with continued pollution of freshwater sources due to inadequate collection and treatment of wastewater, is a statement of challenge and also a window of opportunity common to India and Europe. Unlike in Europe, the water and sanitation scenario in developing countries like in India is a matter of serious concern and more challenging. The main aim of this project is to validate, deploy or develop cost-effective & sustainable solutions to tackle water challenges and ensure the provision of safe water reuse, rejuvenate water quality of rivers, and restore ecosystems in India. This will be achieved by deploying & developing water / wastewater technologies, and use of sensors for emerging and traditional contaminants. Further, it also aims to develop new management & planning strategies and enable better monitoring of pollution levels in real-time modes. This will not only contribute to the development of sustainable technologies to cope with water shortages in rural and urbanised areas in India, but also in Europe, where climate change is expected to induce a changing and uncertain precipitation pattern and an enhancement in temperature. It will assess and enhance the potential of natural and technical water treatment systems to suit the local hydro-geological conditions. Moreover, the projects will assess and validate different wastewater and water management plans. Besides the technical aspects, research will also cover financial, environmental and institutional sustainability of those systems in order to develop and bring to the market a cost-efficient multi-barrier water management approach by building capacity.

The overarching objective of FutureLakes is to demonstrate innovative solutions needed to transform lake restoration, integrated into lake management. These aim to significantly improve ecological and chemical status of European lakes, restore biodiversity, recover valuable resources, enhance the services that lakes provide and make society more resilient to climate change. FutureLakes aims to deliver this through an integrated framework for lake protection and restoration that demonstrates a range of technical solutions that include innovations in Nature-based Solutions, Circular Blue Economy Solutions and Biodiversity-focused Solutions. Demonstrating integration of these solutions in operational lake management in six large European lakes (Demo Basins) which will deliver a Blueprint for lake protection and restoration. The FutureLakes Blueprint will incorporate a catalogue of innovations and guidance on the enabling environment needed to turn promising technical innovations from niche measures to become mainstream approaches in lake basin management planning. This includes demonstrating more effective and inclusive collaboration in water governance and showcasing innovations in policy implementation and green financing. FutureLakes will also develop a Roadmap for Upscaling European Lake Restoration in support of the Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters deployment and upscaling phase. Upscaling of measures across Europe will be tested through activities aimed at replicating the FutureLakes approach in three associated regions. FutureLakes will not only contribute to delivering to the three objectives of the Mission (to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity; to reduce pollution; and to build a sustainable carbon-neutral and circular blue economy) but it includes specific objectives to develop the Mission’s two enablers: creating a European Lakes Digital Innovation Hub and demonstrating innovative approaches to enhancing public engagement.