To address and promote growth in several technological sectors in Lithuania and encourage EU teaming in ICT-related research and innovation, the overall objective of the project is to create a new Centre of Excellence (CoE) in IT Science and Technology for the Internet of Things and Smart Living Systems, which will be referred to as “InnoITeam”. The long-term vision for InnoITeam is to: ● Become the leading provider of innovative technologies for IoT and Big Data for the improvement of the growing technological personal and industry needs in Europe; ● Consolidate research and development, education and training, and networking and promotion resources activities in Information and Communications Technology (ICT); ● Coordinate, integrate and support research excellence and innovation development in Lithuania, the Baltic Sea region, and Europe; ● Support researchers, academics, industry partners and entrepreneurs in the field of ICT, particularly in IoT, to produce innovations beneficial for the society and economy of Lithuania and beyond. To achieve this long-term vision, the CoE will leverage the knowledge, experience and resources of three Lithuanian institutions – KTU, VGTU and SECR- with the support of two advanced EU partners from Sweden – LiU and TII – in four strategic research and innovation (R&D) topics: R&D Topic 1: User interfacing and interaction design approaches for Smart Environments based on IoT; R&D Topic 2: Cybersecurity aspects in the Smart Environments based on IoT; R&D Topic 3: Data analysis and visualization approaches for data intensive IoT environments; R&D Topic 4: Cognitive IoT technologies for Smart Home Environments. This project has the full support of the Lithuanian Government because it fits perfectly with several of the national priorities within the SMART Specialisation Strategy approved by the Government, and, will allow an enhanced usage and further growth of the recently upgraded infrastructure for ICT research in Lithuania.

Games for learning and inclusion (GAMES)This project focused on the assessing and promoting the effective use of games in technology for working with children with special educational needs. This involved both a) the use of serious games based on gamification as a design approach which leverages, based on expert knowledge and the literature base, understanding about technology design which effectively engages, motivates and guides participants towards learning outcomes based on gamification principles. In relation to children with special needs, the learning outcome can be wider than that considered for typical groups and may relate to social and life skills development as well as to emotional and social aspects. For some children, engaging with a moving object, designed to be visually attractive, on the screen, may constitute a learning outcome related to attention and concentration.b) the use of existing games or general app technology, not specifically denoted as or designed as serious games, but which nevertheless was effective for particular groups of children with SEN in developing motivation and engagement as well as, for example fine motor skills. The dividing line between these two types of games for children with special needs is not always that clear and it may not be obvious which category a particular app fits in to. Nevertheless, it is a conceptually useful differentiation. In the GAMES project, we have developed innovative pedagogies through the use of games (both digital and non-digital) in order to support and enhance student’s skills and knowledge. GAMES will support teachers who work with two types of target groups of student: students with special educational needs (SEN) as well as students without special needs.The partnership developed the implementation of games as a pedagogical tool that stimulates learning (both formal and informal) aiming, especially the SEN students, to perform better in formal school settings to be better prepared for the future. The project developed both teachers and students skills directly through:a) Case studies documenting and sharing experiences of how games are used in formal educational settings with both target group of students,b) A teacher guide to support teachers in using games to support the students reaching their educational goals, as well as choosing appropriate games that will support their objective.The strategic partnership also indirectly supported the development of teachers skills by creating game design guidelines that will help teachers modify existing games and also give important guidelines to industry professionals, non-profit organisations and other practitioners using and developing games as a method for supporting students with special educational needs. The target group: Target group: Teachers (inclusive special needs teachers) Primary end-users: Teachers especially of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities (LDD) and special educational needs (SEN) in general, including teachers of young people (13-18) who are disadvantaged, disaffected and marginalised. For this target group we will now use: students with special educational needs (SEN). The project outputs were in the form of:• A printed and digital teacher guide • A report on game design guidelines for developing educational games aimed at supporting students • Case studies to provide actual game reports and concrete examples of using games in formal educational setting with students • A list of tested games and methods for SEN students – the same games used in the project so the target group easily can find the games mentioned in the Teacher Guide, the Game Design Guidelines and the Case Studies• Workshops (multiplayer event) will be organized in SE and UK to ensure teachers participation and ownership of the process and assure the relevance and usefulness of the outputs for the target group.The consortium The project is a (Erasmus+ K2) bilateral strategic partnership between two regions, England and Sweden. Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) in England is the lead partner and The Gothenburg Region Association of Local Authorities (GR) in Sweden is the coordinator of the content (intellectual ouput). In each country there iare two associated partners, Institute of Education, London University (IOE) and Interactive Institute in Gothenburg (II), which supports the project with the research perspective and two carefully selected schools, Stony Dean and Lexby school, to pilot the project with students in the age group 13-15.

The Project has established a formalised transnational training programme to prepare students for carrying out effective social innovation projects in the local community. Social Innovation is defined as ‘new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations’(Grisolia and Ferragina, 2015). The global field of social innovation is growing exponentially. All over the world there are organisations and institutions incorporating social innovation into strategies to combat societal problems such as ageing and poverty. However, while universities are often actively engaged in researching this phenomenon, and some courses have been developed in areas such as social enterprise, there are few specific initiatives that proactively involve students in social innovation programmes within their local communities. This project sought to develop a more formalised, transnational, extracurricular training programme that would incorporate the most advanced processes developed in embedding social innovation, combining partner universities’ experiences in networks such as ASHOKA - http://ashokau.org - and DESIS- http://www.desis-network.org. Five Universities took part in the project – Glasgow Caledonian University, Dublin City University, Technology University Eindhoven, University of Aveiro and Interactive Institute Swedish ICT and also counted on the participation of two of the Universities’ Student Associations (GCUSA at GCU and OSL at DCU). The project met a series of specific objectives:- develop awareness and skills among students for effective community action- incorporate entrepreneurship, ICT and leadership and other transversal skills as a means to instigate change and address societal challenges- create effective learning pathways – especially for widening access students to benefit from the opportunities offered through community engagement and social responsibility, raising completion rates and enhancing employability prospects. - benchmark students’ social innovation activities within five institutions, carry out virtual and physical mobility for exchange of best practice- design a formalised transnational, extracurricular programme structure with a view to future accreditation. - ensure a sustainable model by introducing a virtuous circle through training of trainers feeding back their knowledge and experience into the programme. The project activities consisted of a benchmarking of needs and best practices within the Univeristy, design of a programme and course materials including ICT tools, and validation of the Programme through a three stage programme including transnational mobility.

TRIBE project aims to contribute to a citizens’ behaviour change towards energy efficiency in public buildings, through their engagement in the experience of playing a social game, linked by ICT to real time data collected from 5 pilot buildings hosting around 1.300 regular users (employees, tenants…) and almost 12.000 eventual users (visitors). The targeted average energy savings in the pilots is 24,8% of the current energy consumption. TRIBE project will carry out serious game aims to engage more than 750.000 players by the end of the project, involving users of the targeted pilot facilities and their social networks. As a result of the analysis and developments accomplished using the pilot cases of the TRIBE project, and in addition to the game that will serve to collect all the relevant information, a whole and very broad number of tools and guidelines named TRIBE pack will be set up to be used by public building tenants and owners. The goal is foster the spread of the public building users behaviour change as well as to support the deployment of ICTs for energy efficiency among public building owners and operators. The content of the final TRIBE pack will include; (1) an initial energy audit and diagnosis, (2) the development of a virtual pilot in conformity with the image of their real buildings, (3) an adapted ICT for energy efficiency deployment plan, (4) a funding scheme merging existing instruments with clean web solutions and (5) a user engagement campaign addressing the specific behaviour change challenges.