To meet the European Green Deal transformation for the European power sector, electricity demand is expected to jump from 20% to nearly 50%. Distributed and intermittent energy renewable resources has introduced bidirectional and complex power flows, leading to numerous bottlenecks and stability challenges. To address these challenges, the EU’s Energy Digitalization Action Plan outlines the need for substantial investments focused on the distribution grid. October 2023 saw the introduction of the EU Action Plan for Grids, which emphasizes the optimization and smarter utilization of existing grid infrastructures. A key innovation is Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) systems, which use IoT networks on power lines to make real-time adjustments, maximizing capacity and reducing congestion. However, these systems have mainly been used in traditional grids and haven't fully integrated innovative approaches like High-Temperature Low-Sag (HTLS) conductors, operating at higher temperatures with minimal sag, offer up to 33% enhanced transmission capacities and are increasingly seen as replacements for traditional conductors. Nonetheless, the integration of HTLS technologies with advanced DLR systems. HEROGRID aims to bridge with new AI-based DLR models specifically designed for HTLS powerlines. Additionally, the project seeks to pioneer IoT devices that are not only compatible with HTLS environments but are also self-powered through innovative energy harvesting technologies including piezoelectric and thermoelectric systems combined with efficient power management system. HEROGRID enhances operational efficiency and cuts maintenance costs for renewable energy infrastructures. By integrating advanced technologies into the European power grid, it supports the EU's transition to sustainable energy, enabling new business models for grid operators. Aligned with Horizon-Cl5-2024-D2-01-04, HEROGRID promises substantial contributions to energy distribution and transmission.

To accelerate the transition to a circular economy, the European Commission (EC) promoted alternative water resources in the Horizon 2020 Framework. To increase water use efficiency and reuse, the call CE-SC5-04-2019 funded five different projects (B-WaterSmart, WIDER UPTAKE, REWAISE, ULTIMATE and WATER-MINING). These five projects run from 2020 to 2025, with a total budget of 84 M€, and EU contribution of 71.5 M€, and share the objectives of identifying alternative water sources, reducing water consumption, increasing use efficiency, recovering valuable materials from water, producing carbon-free water cycles, and increase resilience to climate change. To leverage the resources from EC wisely, the five coordinators decided to share common knowledge, promoting synergies and avoiding reinventing the wheel. This resulted in the creation of a cluster called CIRSEAU, to connect 143 partners in more than 20 countries, reaching almost all members stated of the European Union (EU), in addition to countries like India or Ghana outside the EU. Building on the alliance formed to foster cross-promotion, communication alignment, and impactful outreach for the five projects funded under the EU research call on building a water-smart economy and society (CE-SC5-04-2019). To reach the outcomes of this CSA, additional experts and partners have been asked to complement experience and competence of CIRSEAU. This consortium brings together 10 partners from 6 countries (BE, DE, ES, GR, NL and NO) to provide multidisciplinary expertise and trans-nationality required to foster cross-promotion, communication alignment, and allow impactful outreach to public authorities, policy makers, and standardization bodies. The main objective of the CSA is to build a collaborative ecosystem that generates strong synergies among the Circular Water Economy Community formed across EU projects, and to expand the CIRSEAU cluster to enhance market uptake, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The EUROBENCH project aims at creating the first benchmarking framework for robotic systems in Europe. The framework will allow companies and researchers to test the performance of robots at any stage of development. The project will primarily focus on bipedal machines, i.e. exoskeletons, prosthetics and humanoids, but will be designed to be easily extended to other robotic domains. The EUROBENCH framework will be composed of: - A methodological component, which will include methods and metrics to calculate the System Ability Levels of a robotic system. These methods will be integrated in a professional software tool to permit its wide use across domains and laboratory conditions. The main goal of this unified software is to facilitate the use of benchmarking methodology at all levels from research to pre-commercial prototyping. - An experimental component, which will concentrate the state-of-the-art test benches in two facilities, one for wearable robots (including exoskeletons and prostheses), and one for humanoid robots. These facilities will allow companies and researchers to perform standardized tests on advanced robotic prototypes in a unique location, saving resources and time, and preparing for certification processes. During the project, the Consortium will provide Financial Support to Third Parties interested in: - Designing and developing specific test benches or benchmarking methods. These solutions will be integrated into the framework, and made available to the industrial and academic community. - Using the framework, at zero-costs, to test the performance of different kinds of robots. This will allow to validate the EUROBENCH outputs and prepare for the exploitation of results. The successful achievement of these goals will put Europe in the lead on providing the groundwork for the evaluation of robotic systems, facilitating the process of bringing innovative robotic technologies forward to market.

DigiChecks proposes to build a digital framework that implements the following steps to overcome the challenges mentioned and pave the way to a more streamlined approach to manage and process permits: Step 1: Standardized Permit Ontology. The first step is to create a shared language for permitting. This language, formalized in a permit ontology, enables the framework to map data from various sources into a common structure and make it processable by a computer in a repeatable manner. Step 2: Digitizing Permit Processes. To deal with the many different actors and their respective processes for permitting, DigiChecks proposes to develop a tool, based on OMG standards, where these actors can model their processes into DigiChecks. These process models can be updated and or removed when the processess change. Step 3: Building Permit Rules. DigiChecks' proposed solution contains the ability for permitting authorities to build their own rules. These rules are used as a base for an automated compliancy checker. Step 4: Integration of the previous steps into a Permit Service (API). To transform the solution into a service, DigiChecks combines steps one (Permit Ontology), two (Permit Process) and three (Permit Rules) into a service offered through an (Open) API. The DigiChecks Permit Service API implements the concepts from the ontology to defined rules and these rules are mapped to a process, thus digitizing the permit workflow. By having an accessible Permit Service, third party developers will be enabled to create new, innovative and reliable permitting applications. The ultimate objective of the solution is to provide flexibility, ease-of-use and efficiency to the permit validation and approval system in the construction project environments. A solution framework is thus required that allows - regardless of the country, region or municipality -, an easy interoperability with the tools commonly used in construction.

The main challenge that INBOTS wants to overcomes is the lack of a clear understanding and communication between all the involved stakeholders. These limitations hinder current efforts to successfully discuss and agree on the many important technical and non-technical aspects in the field. Therefore, with the purpose of optimizing the outcomes of the coordinate and support action, INBOTS will focus mainly on Interactive Robots, which we define as any robot that is interacting in close proximity with humans. In this context, the overall objective of this project is to create a community hub that can bring together experts to debate and create a responsible research and innovation paradigm for robotics. To this end, INBOTS provides a platform to establish a working synergy between four pillars that covers all stakeholders in Interactive Robotics: the technical expertise pillar, the business expertise pillar, the ethical, legal and socioeconomic expertise pillar, as well as the end-users, policy makers and general public pillar. Therefore, the project strives at coordinating and supporting actions aimed at building bridges among these pillars to promote debate and create a responsible research and innovation paradigm that will potentiate EU leadership on robotics. INBOTS CSA is relevant to the H2020 Topic ICT 28-2017: “Robotics Competitions, coordination and support”, scope a) “Non-technical barriers to robotics take-up”; b) “Standards and Regulation”; and c) “Community support and outreach”. Through a coordination and support action the INBOTS CSA consortium will build and support a strong European community based on the collaboration between all stakeholders. The project will serve as a platform for sharing experiences and accelerate the technology transfer, regulation and legislation in the field.