The transition to renewable energy, particularly through the widespread adoption of distributed solar PV systems, is hindered by significant technical, social, financial, and regulatory barriers. Key challenges include energy poverty and inequality, especially in Mediterranean regions where inefficient housing and rental systems exacerbate the issue. Limited awareness, bureaucratic hurdles, and inadequate financial incentives further slow adoption, while integrating decentralized renewable energy into existing communities remains complex. Unlocking the full potential of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) requires clear benefits, accessible financial tools, and innovative technologies to enhance the efficiency and longevity of PV systems. SOCIAREM will accelerate the adoption and profitability of PV systems within RECs by overcoming these barriers through an innovative, implementable solution integrated with collective self-consumption schemes. The project will develop advanced tools tailored to diverse socio-economic and geographical contexts, enhancing efficiency, minimizing energy losses, and maximizing renewable energy use. Blockchain-enabled platforms will facilitate secure, decentralized peer-to-peer energy sharing, improving energy autonomy and resilience. Inclusive social data spaces will ensure fair energy distribution while safeguarding privacy, addressing energy vulnerability, and promoting social equity. Citizen engagement will be fostered through gamification and educational tools, ensuring participation across different cultural and behavioural profiles. A consortium of universities, R&D centres, and companies will drive SOCIAREM’s development, ensuring strong scientific and market expertise. The project’s solutions will be tested in four European RECs—Switzerland, Cyprus, Portugal, and Italy—while incorporating insights from Egypt. By reaching TRL7, SOCIAREM will validate its tools’ effectiveness, providing a scalable and sustainable model for RECs.

Pathogens are a determining factor in emergency response due to their life-threatening nature, both for the public as well as for the safety of first responders. In many cases, pathogen contaminations are difficult to detect, and require specialized technologies, tools and procedures to handle them. Pathogens can easily spread via water, and may cause contaminations of large areas far from their origin. Waterborne pathogen contamination events can occur anywhere, and may be caused by various natural events or they can be the result of human activity, either accidental or malicious. During these emergencies, first responders may need to operate within a certain pre-defined incident area, and are likely to be exposed to contaminated water originating from various sources, such as surface water, wastewater or drinking water. This can pose a significant risk of illness, disease or even death, through skin contact, ingestion or inhalation. The overall objective of the PathoCERT project is to strengthen the coordination capability of the first responders in handling waterborne pathogen contamination events. This will increase the first responders’ capabilities, allowing the rapid and accurate detection of pathogens, improving their situational awareness, and improving their ability to control and mitigate emergency situations involving waterborne pathogens. To achieve this objective, the project will research and demonstrate Pathogen Contamination Emergency Response Technologies (PathoCERT), a collection of novel, cost-effective and easy-to-use technologies, tools and guidelines, which will be field-validated by the first responders.

WQeMS aims to provide an operational Water Quality Emergency Monitoring Service to the water utilities industry in relation with the quality of the ‘water we drink’. Therefore, it will focus its activities on monitoring of lakes valorized by the water utilities for the delivery of drinking water. Sentinel data (i.e. Sentinel -2 and Sentinel-1) will be exploited for quality monitoring at a fine spatial resolution level, following validated processes with in situ data. The proposed WQeMS will exploit the Copernicus Data and Information Access Services (DIAS ONDA), instead of setting up its own download and processing infrastructure. Linkages with the existing Thematic Exploitation Platforms (TEPs), such as the Hydrology TEP for monitoring flood events and the Food Security TEP for supporting the sustainable intensification of farming from space will be pursued. Following cases are to be treated in real time in cooperation with drinking water production companies (public and private): - Slow developing phenomena (business-as-usual scenario), such as geogenic or anthropogenic release of potentially polluting elements through the bedrock or pollutants’ leaching in the underground aquifer through human rural activities, may influence water quality. Changes in the monitored chemical dissolved substances may be then detected. - Fast developing phenomena (e.g. floods spilling debris and mud or pollutant spills of chemicals in the lakes or algal bloom and potential release of toxins by cyanobacteria) produce huge quantities of contaminants at a short time interval bringing sanitation utilities at the edge of their performance capacity. Monitoring of the extent of the effluents in the lake; thus, providing a warning about the risk of water contamination, assist in mitigating impact, both for the water drinking water production and the environment.

The WaterSAFE project addresses the growing threat of malicious attacks on water distribution Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)—an unprecedented risk to public health, safety, and critical infrastructure operations. While the integration of Information Technology with Operational Technology in water organizations has revolutionized the evolution of smart water systems, it has also exposed security vulnerabilities. WaterSAFE introduces a groundbreaking CPS security-as-a-service solution for water distribution systems. Currently, CPS security solutions do not take into consideration the implications of cyber or physical attacks on system dynamics and controls. By leveraging state-of-the-art Digital Twin and machine learning technologies, WaterSAFE enables real-time simulation, detection, and analysis of the impacts of cyber-physical threats, marking a paradigm shift in CPS security analysis. This proposed system incorporates an Early Warning System for real-time anomaly detection in both cyber and physical states, offering advanced response tools for mitigating contamination incidents caused by cyber or physical attacks. Additionally, WaterSAFE offers interactive training platforms for water operators that facilitate enhancing critical skills for effective responses in real-world emergency scenarios. WaterSAFE uses scientific results from the ERC SyG Water-Futures project on real-time water quality state estimation, machine learning for event diagnosis, CPS security, and contamination management, toward a proof-of-concept Minimum Viable Product (MVP), demonstrated in a small-scale testbed as well as large-scale living lab. This goes beyond existing solutions, which do not consider system dynamics or health impacts. WaterSAFE will enable water utilities to implement stronger risk management, respond faster and more effectively to incidents, and subsequently meet EU regulations, fostering a cybersecurity culture within the water sector.

<< Objectives >>Outcome 1: Implementation of the ECO-SCORE learning objects and activities in the school curriculum of 10 public/private schools across the EU.Outcome 2: Six (6) NGOs or other relevant organisations implementing engaging green activities using ECO-SCORE results.Outcome 3: Twenty (20) engaging learning objects building on top of ECO-SCORE results created in a 3-year timeframe across the partner countries.Outcome 4: Policy recommendations taken by at least 2 policy makers in each country<< Implementation >>-Activity 1: Study and recording of current behaviour and profile of schools regarding CO2 emissions and air quality overall.-Activity 2: Production of 5 interactive and engaging learning objects and activities to facilitate the green skills' acquisition by school youth and relevant stakeholders.-Activity 3: ECO-SCORE Implementation and Sustainability Handbook and Policy Recommendations. -Activity 4-6: Meetings in partner countries in parallel with focus groups, stakeholders' workshops, etc.<< Results >>-A study of the eco-awareness and gas foodprint of schools.-A Learning Module book, printable in pdf and also served online through a widely adopted eLearning Platform-Assessment interactive quizzes-Game design workshops and scenarios-A package of small guides for the implementation of the ECO-SCORE material-A set of structured policy recommendations.