The WaterWorks2017 project is pooling resources from the 23 participating research programme owners / managers of 19 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of closing the water cycle gap. It will support delivery of priorities identified in the Water Joint Programming Initiative (Water JPI) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) in order to reconcile water supply and demand, both in terms of quantity and quality, and also in terms of space and time. It covers the following sub-themes: • Enabling Sustainable Management of Water Resources; • Strengthening Socio-economic Approaches to Water Management. WaterWorks2017 includes 8 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include: • Supporting the implementation and development of the Water JPI on priorities identified in its SRIA; • Pooling financial resources from participating national and regional research programmes and implementing a co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary call for research and innovation proposals; • Pooling additional financial resources to implement a joint call for proposals resulting in grants to third parties without EU co-funding (through a Thematic Annual Programming action - TAP); • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water related research, development and innovation (RDI) activities while avoiding overlaps with ongoing actions co-funded by the European Commission and/or the Member States; • Improving the implementation of research and innovation programmes in these fields through exchange of good practices; • Contributing to the implementation of EU Water policies, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6 and SDG 13, as well as the conclusions of the COP21 Agreement; and • Seeking synergies with international research programmes beyond Europe.

The action will set up a joint programming initiative to develop Smart, Integrated, Regional Energy Systems that enable regions and local communities to realize their high ambitions of moving towards decarbonised energy systems and at the same time link them to a secure and resilient European energy system. This shall include solutions that allow for a high proportion of renewables up to and beyond 100% in the local or regional supply. The initiative will coordinate relevant RDD programs in the involved European, associated countries and regions represented in the consortium connecting them with other funding and financing partners. It will accelerate the deployment of latest resource-efficient and decarbonising energy system solutions, thus strengthening the competitiveness in relevant markets and lerveraging sustainable structures already established by ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus . The latter is focussing on the broad involvement of a large number of countries and regions in order to implement European smart electricity grids research agendas, while the ERA-Net SG+ RegSys will build on this with a new approach, developing integrated, regional energy systems, including the full spectrum of energy carriers and infrastructures. A highly ambitious consortium will pilot new formats of collaboration with regional and local stakeholders as well as supply and demand side oriented technology policy.

As society moves into an era where environmental change has an ever-growing place in the political agenda, the demand for a new generation of scientists working at the interface between the natural and social sciences is growing. SALTGIANT contributes to satisfy this demand within a rare cross-disciplinary network of natural and social scientists dedicated to understanding the formation of the Mediterranean Salt Giant, one of the largest salt deposits on Earth, and its implications for sub-seafloor microbial life, risk assessment in the oil industry, geo-economics of the Mediterranean region and the history of oceanography. SALTGIANT will bring together 22 academic organizations (11 beneficiaries, 11 partners), 2 private sector Oil&Gas companies and 1 specialist in transferable skills training from 8 European countries to stimulate interdisciplinary and intersectorial knowledge exchange between geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, microbiologist, geographers and historians in a network with PhD students at its core. SALTGIANT combines (i) geological and geochemical field work, (ii) laboratory measurements and experiments, (iii) numerical modeling at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales and (iv) empirical social sciences data collection and analysis, guaranteeing exposure of the research fellows to state-of-the-art scientific knowledge and hands-on practical training in a field rich in applications of both intellectual and societal relevance. Through its innovative blend of training and research activities, SALTGIANT will boost the employability of its research fellows in academia and in the private sector, particularly the energy sector, including Oil & Gas and geothermal, resource management, geological storage and numerical modeling, as well as in governmental agencies (Ministries of the Environment, Sustainable Development and Energy), international organizations (European Environment Agency, EEA; United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP) and NGOs.

Water is central to all human activities, to all components of the EU Green Deal and to several UN SDGs. The Water4All Partnership aims at enabling water security for all on the long term through boosting systemic transformations and changes across the entire research – water innovation pipeline, fostering the matchmaking between problem owners and solution providers. It gathers more than 70 partners, R&I funders, environment ministries, local authorities, European, national and regional-scale networks, research performing organisations. It will collaborate with other relevant R&I initiatives. Water4All proposes a portfolio of multi-national, cross-sectoral activities, targeting a variety of actors, intending to generate the following outputs: - Strengthen the water R&I collaboration at European and international levels, across at least 31 countries, notably through Joint Transnational Calls - Coordinate and leverage the activities of the Water R&I community - Support and promote the demonstration and access to market of innovative solutions - Produce, share and better communicate water-related knowledge & data, from local to global scales - Enhance talent development of water R&I professionals - Foster capacity development and life-long training of water policy-makers, stakeholders and civil society - Design & implement approaches for participatory development of innovation Water4All will run its activities across 7 themes of its strategic agenda: water for circular economy; water for ecosystems and biodiversity; sustainable water management; water and health; water infrastructure; international cooperation; water governance. Water4All’s outputs will contribute to: - Deliver sound knowledge, tools and evidence basis on water for policy- & decision-making - Improve consideration of water impacts in all relevant policies - Enhance the field/market use of innovative solutions to water challenges - Increase citizens’ awareness and engagement for an inclusive water

SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will bring together 18 national and regional organisations owning and / or managing major solar power research and innovation programmes throughout Europe. They will launch a co-funded and an additional joint call mobilising some 30 MEUR of public funding to support highly innovative transnational RDI projects. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will contribute to substantial cost reductions of solar power technologies, to support the economic development of the European solar power sector and to reinforce Europe’s strong position in solar power technologies. Reducing technology cost, lowering the environmental impact of power production and advancing manufacturing technologies, applications and energy system integration are essential to increasing the deployment of solar power technologies as crucial element of the Low Carbon Energy strategy set out in the Energy Package. This way, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will strongy contribute to achieve the ambitious climate change targets, to sustainable, secure, cost-efficient energy supply and to provide growth and jobs in the solar and related industry sectors providing also a solid technological and industrial base. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will focus on solar power technologies covering both photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) / solar thermal electricity (STE) according to the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan and the documents with Declaration on Strategic Targets in the context of an Initiative for Global Leadership in Photovoltaics resp. Concentrated Solar Power and their subsequent Implementation Plans being elaborated by the respective technology groups, i.e. European Technology & Innovation Platforms related Temporary Working Groups. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 follows on from the SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund (started in 2016) and SOLAR-ERA.NET project and network running from 2012 to 2016 and previous PV-ERA-NET network, taking advantage of more than thirteen years of ERA-NET experience.