CHARACTERIZATION, COMPATIBILIZATION, PROCESSING AND PROPERTIES OF RECYCLED POLYOLEFINS (REPOL) is a European Industrial Doctorate established by a consortium of leading European scientists in the academic and private industrial sector of polymer science and engineering. The University of the Basque Country (SP) and the University of Genova (IT) are the academic beneficiaries while Borealis is the industrial beneficiary (AT). They will collaborate in research-related and transferable training activities, through the execution of individual projects of three early stage researchers (ESRs) with a highly synergic, intersectoral and multidisciplinary approach in the field of polyolefins recycling. Currently, effective and innovative upgrade polyolefins recycling technologies are urgently needed to address global environmental concerns. European industries require skilled researchers to exploit academic knowledge on polymer chemistry, physics, and engineering, and switch innovation and investment from an economic system to an ecological one, driven by circular economy. In this sense, the REPOL project will address these challenges through a combination of fundamental and applied research training programme to enhance the scientific excellence and competitiveness of polymer recycling in Europe. The project aims to develop characterization tools for recycled polyolefins, find novel compatibilization routes, design upgraded recycled postconsumer based blends and nanocomposite blends, and study the scalability of the developed recycled materials. REPOL will become a reference at the International Level, improve R&D capacity between participating organisations and boost synergies and better knowledge transfer between sectors in the area of polymer recycling, by promoting the mobility of ESRs and sustainable training cooperation.

The EMJM SMACCs is a unique 2-year 120 ECTS Master Degree, aiming at educating the next generation of engineers and scientists in Smart Cities and Communities.The SMACCs implements a curriculum specialized on fundamental pillars of a city sustainability, i.e. Energy, Transport, Buildings, Urban Planning and ICT as a key enabling factor for implementing sustainable solutions. Professionals mastering these aspects are urgently needed to accompany the sustainable and smart transition of our cities, through the massive deployment of multi-sector renewable energy communities in urban and peri-urban areas.The SMACCs proposes an international curriculum jointly designed and delivered by 4 European HEIs (Belgium, Spain, Greece, Finland) based on compulsory physical mobility between the four HEIs, with the support of more than 50 public or private Associated Partners from Europe and the whole world, in order to boost the students’ exposure to the professional and academic sectors.The programme fosters excellence through the high quality of its academic contents, developed in connection with the research activities of the 4 SMACCs HEIs and the ecosystem of partners, and through the attraction of the best students worldwide thanks to the implementation of a competitive, fair and transparent application system.The EMJM will benefit the following target groups:*Students & Young professionals: acquiring new state-of-the-art knowledge will improve chances on the labour market, in which demand in energy, ICT, transport and buildings is continuously growing*Academic staff: the MSc will increase the opportunities for research collaboration and exchange of good practices*Universities: the programme will foster international cooperation and visibility and diversify the recruitment of students*Companies: the MSc will provide a source of knowledgeable workers, at regional and transnational levels*Society: will benefit from the latest innovation in Smart Cities and Communities

BeeGuards aims to strengthen the resilience of the European beekeeping sector by providing sustainable management practices, novel breeding strategies and digital and forecasting tools that allow the sector to adapt to a changing environment. We focus on determining how abiotic factors such as management practices, climate change, nutrition and resource limitations drive emerging biotic stressors that threaten colony health and erode the resilience of European beekeeping. BeeGuards comprises multiple actors and adopts a multi-actor approach from inception which has led to an open and inclusive design of the work programme. As a community, we will perform European-wide field studies evaluating and validating innovative threshold-based management and breeding strategies for resilience, using hives equipped with technological measurement tools. Complementary detailed immunological, behavioural, microbiological, pathological, ecological investigations will elucidate the ways in which management and climate act on honey bees and other pollinators. In this way, BeeGuards will, for the first time, provide a truly holistic view of the mechanisms determining beekeeping resilience and implement nature-based, local solutions for adaption, including model-based advisory tools for stakeholders. Our open and participatory actions include development of a WikiBEEdia community website where we will share and promote the BeeGuards concepts and results, including a Quest for sustainable beekeeping practices. Ultimately, BeeGuards will show the way for a change of perspective that is needed to achieve resilient beekeeping. BeeGuards will mitigate the environmental impact of beekeeping in terms of impact on wild pollinators and of carbon footprint, protect pollinator biodiversity, ensure the future provision of pollination services and support the economic development and inclusiveness of beekeeping, preparing the European apicultural sector to meet the climate challenge.

The project Mathematics on-line learning model in engineering education was successfully carried out at the very right moment as in recent two years there has been a significant increase in demand for a 100% online mathematics course with interactive learning materials and large-scale practicing opportunities as well as for a mathematics online assessment model. This has made it possible to increase student support when studying independently and teachers support when planning an online assessment. Greater support for learning and teaching in the education sector gave it a more competitive advantage as it helps to decrease drop-out behavior of students and minimize the workload of teachers. According to the New UNESCO global survey studying the impact of Covid-19 on higher education (2021) the pandemic has had an impact on higher education systems in terms of access and quality of teaching and learning. Covid-19 has caused the suspension and cancellation of teaching activities and its major impact on teaching and learning is the increase in online education. Taking into account the above, this project has successfully developed a high level engineering mathematics online course as a basis for offering output oriented education in engineering mathematics.The following activities were performed during the project: Creating the report of educational needs analysis (IO1)- Needs analysis and data gathering of partner countries and institutions were carried out. - Analysis of mathematical on-line assessment systems for partner countries and institutions were prepared.- Pedagogical analysis for on-line assessment of mathematics was made.Creating a new innovative online course in engineering mathematics in seven languages (IO2)The next activities were performed:- Analysis of subject in partner`s institutions- Development of the online course with some theoretical, practical and assessment tests- Translation of the online course- Conducting the pilot course- Asking for feedback from students- Revising on-line course- Development of the definite online course with theoretical, practical and assessment tests, engineering applications and course guidelines- Training for teachers- Asking for feedback from teachers- Conducting on-line course- Asking for feedback from students- Revising on-line courseCreating a mathematics online assessment model (IO3)- Literature review were carried out- Mathematics online assessment model was createdIn order to achieve project results, partners fields of subjects related to engineering mathematics were studied (IO1). This material enabled the team to build up the online course (IO2) and student competition (C1). In order to guarantee the quality the subject was piloted to students before carrying out the definitive course. The quality of the course was piloted to mathematics teachers (teacher training and ME). Based on the experience gained, the online assessment model in mathematics (IO3) was improved. The high quality of the online course is proven by the fact that we passed the preliminary round of the 7th e-Learning Excellence Awards at ECEL 2021.Partners of this project were 6 highly skilled HE institutions: the TTK UAS from Estonia, the Letterkenny Institute of Technology/LYIT from Ireland, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto/P.PORTO from Portugal, the University of the Basque Country/UPV/EHU from Spain, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca/UTC from Romania and the Koszalin University of Technology/PK TUK from Poland. During the project unfolding the Spanish partner was replaced with Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya- BarcelonaTECH (UPC).This project involved various target groups, impact and benefits: - students and teachers, who benefit from a new innovative subject, which is added to the subjects of engineering mathematics. The innovative implementation makes the subject more attractive for students in each educational institution that participated in this project. The results are possible to use in other higher education institutions, secondary level schools and vocational schools.- expanding businesses, who will have a better educated workforce provided by educational institutions and by the research done by these institutions. As human resources are one of the most important resources in the company, it is important to provide high-quality education and competent employees to increase the productivity, effectiveness and competitiveness of the companies. Strategic international partnerships in the field of education and training are extremely important in order to increase the quality of education and training, which was one of the goals of this project, and it has become one of the most beneficial short and long-term outputs.The most significant indirect impact of the project was the rise of international cooperation between universities and higher qualification of the workforce of the participating institutions.