The goal of the RADIOBLOCKS project is to achieve a maximal boost for the European major world-leading research infrastructures in radio astronomy, which over the years have invested heavily in maintaining existing facilities as well as in substantial upgrade programmes, after identifying common challenges towards their mid- and long-term scientific visions. In this project, the institutes responsible of these facilities join forces, together with partners from industry and academia, in order to develop “common building blocks” for technological solutions beyond state-of-the-art, that will enable a broad range of new science and enhance European scientific competitiveness. They share the need to continuously improve their capabilities in order to enable new science: sensitivity, field of view, bandwidth, angular, time and frequency resolution, commensality and on-sky time, reaction time and RFI mitigation. Engagement with industry to co-develop advanced technologies will increase the partners’ technological levels and strengthen their market positions, creating a true European innovation system. This project carries out carefully targeted development work and addresses common aspects in the complete data chain, categorizing this in four phases: Novel detectors and components, digital receivers, transport and correlator, and data (post)processing. We will design and demonstrate common building blocks based on cutting-edge technologies, that will be enablers and extenders in the areas most critical to the RIs, and can and will be used for upgrades of several RIs. The building blocks will be new instrument components and advanced digital solutions based on newly available (HPC/AI optimized) hardware. This approach will enable a tremendous increase of the science delivery potential of Europe’s major radio astronomical observatories, for science cases that are high on their long-term agendas, aimed at the widest possible science community in Europe and beyond.

The MarTe project aims to facilitate sustainable blue growth in the Baltic region by establishing Estonian and Latvian marine innovation Excellence Hub. This will be achieved through the collaboration of diverse stakeholders including academic institutions (TalTech, University of Tartu, Ventspils University of Applied Sciences, Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology), public sector (Environmental Investment Centre, Kurzeme Planning Region, Saaremaa Development Centre, Latvian Investment and Development Agency), industry (Association of Estonian Marine Industries, Port of Ventspils), and coastal communities (WWF, Baltijas Krasti, Saarte Koostöökogu). By leveraging quadruple-helix collaborations, MarTe will create a cross-border innovation strategy and supportive network for fostering new technologies throughout the marine industry value chain. Project objectives include collaborative R&D, ecosystem empowerment, and policy influence for advancing marine technologies, reinforcing stakeholder linkages, improving ecosystem capacity building, closing the knowledge gaps, supporting SMEs and startups, and elevating the visibility of the regional blue economy innovation ecosystems. In alignment with EU Green Deal and regional smart specialization strategies, the strategic framework focuses on marine technology innovation uptake in areas like offshore energy, smart vessels and ports, sustainable use of marine resources and marine ecosystem protection. Through a comprehensive approach encompassing stakeholder engagement and capacity building, MarTe strives for a significant impact on the sustainable blue economy in Baltics.

Research careers are often shaped early and can be difficult to redirect later, with many early-stage researchers (R1 and R2) in the EU facing challenges in navigating diverse career paths. Fragmented transitions between academia, industry, the public sector, and entrepreneurial ventures—along with the absence of cohesive frameworks—have hindered career mobility, skill development, and employability, particularly in fast-growing fields such as AI, digital transformation, and deep tech. NextTechTalents addresses these challenges by creating talent ecosystems that integrate these sectors, ensuring researchers gain the skills to transition between academia and non-academic environments, including entrepreneurial opportunities. By supporting researchers in building various skills, the project helps them commercialise innovations and pursue different ventures, contributing to a sustainable talent pool across the European Research Area. NextTechTalents, aligned with the goals of the European Research Area, aims to create a robust and sustainable talent ecosystem, fostering talent circulation across sectors and enhancing employability and mobility. The project develops tailored career services, mentoring programs, and training modules based on the ResearchComp framework to equip researchers with the tools for both academic and non-academic pathways. NextTechTalents, will create a comprehensive Handbook for HR managers and training providers within research and innovation organizations. This handbook will guide the integration of the NextTechTalents Training System, promote interdisciplinary skills acquisition, and strengthen collaboration across academia, industry, and entrepreneurial ventures. By addressing mobility, cross-sector employability, and inclusive career support, the project will help early-stage researchers thrive in evolving, competitive sectors.

“Teachers in the Distance” was an Erasmus+ KA2 project.There were 5 Project participants from five diverse educational institutions from five Middle and Northern European countries: Pärnu Adult Gymnasium from Estonia, Ventspils University of Applied Sciences from Latvia, The University of Information Technology and Management Rzeszów from Poland, KURZY ZEBRA s.r.o. – a private language school from the Czech Republic, Oulu-opisto - a community college from Finland. The participants met in an Erasmus+ contact seminar in Tallinn 2017 and created the initial idea of the project. At the time of planning the project the freedom of movement and its impact to education in the emerging necessity of distant learning was found as the most important factor to dedicate this project to the development of teaching languages in a distant way, to raise the ICT competences of foreign language teachers and to support the lifelong learning of language learners and teachers.As a first step, a large-scale survey of language teachers was conducted in all project partner institutions examining the experience of online synchronous and asynchronous foreign language teaching and various aspects of language teaching. On the basis of this, a methodological manual “Methodology for Online Synchronous Foreign Language Teaching” was completed under the leadership of the Czech partners.The next activity was foreign language lessons between the partners in different web-based conference environments, in which focus was on the possibilities of different environments in foreign language learning. Based on the recordings of the lessons and the research, instructional material on the possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of different web environments (Guidebook for Distant Online Language Teaching) was compiled under the leadership of the Latvian partners.In the middle of the Project Covid-19 pandemic broke out and the changed situation in education brought increased demand for distant teaching and online learning with it. The difference in the current needs of teachers for support and additional material was slightly different in different countries, so the project and its outputs were adapted to the current situation and the needs of the participants. The Partners in Latvia and the Czech Republic prepared translations of the Methodology into Latvian and Czech to use and spread it among the colleagues and partner institutions. Due to lockdown and travel restrictions the project was prolonged and teaching-training activity postponed. As it was impossible to organise a face-to-face training because of the restrictions in Finland for foreign travellers (quarantine for 14 days), the training activity was changed to an online training with the same duration. Led by Finnish partners, a five-day intensive training event took place in January 2021 in various video conference environments with the active participation of 21 teachers from all participating organisations, 170 web tools for language teaching were presented and many of them practised in international groups during the training for teaching different skills. Experiences with using different conference tools for teaching and possible solutions for arised technical problems were gathered.The results of the training activity and all previous materials and experiences were used for preparing the online platform where all materials would be in one place, systematized and updated. Our Finnish partners proposed to create an additional tool browser on the platform. Project partners divided the tasks among each other and all gave their input by the revision of already compiled material, specifying the topics and unifying them in bigger meaningful steps, developing a structure for the self-running online course, specifying the conditions for passing the course and obtaining the certificate, by compiling the texts and revision questions. The technicians from Polish partner implemented the technical solution of the platform with the online course, intuitive search tool for web-based tools and the former created methodological manual and Guidebook, also the translations of the Methodology into Latvian and Czech.On the completion of the project, following results were achieved:increasing of number of online courses and teachers providing online language courses;improvement in the quality of distant language teaching;improvement in the quality of foreign language training in distant language learning by making project’s outputs accessible to all teachers and trainers, by increasing the number of teachers and trainers educated in the use of ICT;creation of solid base for future cooperation and sharing good practices between project partners as well as all project partners and organizations taking part in the dissemination activities;increasing partners’ capacity for future international projects thanks to the lessons learned during this project.