PRISMA is a revolutionary thin-film micropump realized with novel ceria-based oxides actuating materials in the frame of the FET-OPEN BioWings project, which can be used as an innovative pumping system in wearable insulin delivery devices for the treatment of diabetes. The integration of the PRISMA micropump in insulin patch pumps addresses the 3 most important pain points that still keep the vast majority of diabetic patients away from this life-saving treatment: 1) Size, which is more than two orders of magnitude smaller than state of the art. 2) Higher drug delivery accuracy within the ?5% range ensures the highest therapeutic efficacy. 3) drastic reduction in energy consumption. Besides the short-term vision to realise extremely compact and accurate patch pumps, the long term goal is to allow the realisation of multi-drug delivery systems, making real the much-lauded multi-hormone treatment. The main objective of this project is to validate the pump and its manufacturing process in a real operating environment, proving to system integrators that all specifications are consistently met to pave the way for the post-project system integration and clinical validation. This will pave the way to the launch of a startup company that will take care of the final steps of the development roadmap and will establish long-term cooperation agreements with prominent medical device manufacturers for the integration of PRISMA in next-generation single and multi-hormone smart patches.

The HPC Digital Autonomy with RISC-V in Europe (DARE) will invigorate the continent’s High Performance Computing ecosystem by bringing together the technology producers and consumers, developing a RISC-V ecosystem that supports the current and future computing needs, while at the same time enabling European Digital Autonomy. DARE takes a customer-first approach (HPC Centres & Industry) to guide the full stack research and development. DARE leverages a co-design software/hardware approach based on critical HPC applications identified by partners from research, academia, and industry to forge the resulting computing solutions. These computing solutions range from general purpose processors to several accelerators, all utilizing the RISC-V ecosystem and emerging chiplet ecosystem to reduce costs and enable scale. The DARE program defines the full lifecycle from requirements to deployment, with the computing solutions validated by hosting entities, providing the path for European technology from prototype to production systems. The six year time horizon is split into two phases, enabling a DARE plan of action and set of roadmaps to provide the essential ingredients to develop and procure EU Supercomputers in the third phase. DARE defines SMART KPIs for the hardware and software developments in each phase, which act as gateways to unlock the next phase of development. The DARE HPC roadmaps (a living document) are used by the DARE Collaboration Council to maximize exploitation and spillover across all European RISC-V projects. DARE addresses the European HPC market failure by including partners with different levels of HPC maturity with the goal of growing a vibrant European HPC supply chain. DARE Consortium partners have been selected based on the ability to contribute to the DARE value chain, from HPC Users, helping to define all the requirements, to all parts of the hardware development, software development, system integration and subsequent commercialization.

Project Ô intends to demonstrate approaches and technologies to drive an integrated and symbiotic use of water within a specific area, putting together the needs of different users and waste water producers, involving regulators, service providers, civil society, industry and agriculture. The project seeks to apply the pillars of integrated water management (IWM) as a model for “water planning” (akin to spatial planning) and to demonstrate low cost, modular technologies that can be easily retrofitted into any water management infrastructure at district/plant level, hence enabling even small communities and SMEs to implement virtuous practices. Technologies and planning instruments complement each other as the first make possible the second and the latter can provide as example or even prescribe the former (and similar technologies allowing virtuous water use practices). Indeed the technologies support the regulators in implementing policy instruments, as foreseen by IWM, for convincing stakeholders (like developers and industry) to implement water efficiency strategies and could include instruments for e.g. rewarding virtuous behaviours (for example: advantageous water tariffs), planning regulations that award planning consent more swiftly or even prescribe the use of water from alternative sources (including recycling). Project Ô has in summary the overall objective of providing stakeholders (everybody using or regulating the use of water in an area) with a toolkit that enables them to plan the use of and utilise the resource water whatever its history and provenance, obtaining significant energy savings in terms of avoided treatment of water and waste water and release of pressure (quantity abstracted and pollution released) over green water sources. This overall objective will be demonstrated in up to four sites each in different Countries of Europe and in Israel, involving industries, aquaculture and agriculture as well as local authorities of different sizes.

Digitalization is the key to fighting climate change and achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal, while contributing to the green energy transition, energy efficient buildings, sustainable transportation and industrial digital transformation. Digital technologies and AI solutions can deliver operational efficiencies and reduced costs in many industries, enable the development and implementation of smart energy/transport/building systems, increase the connectivity of people and systems. Digital transition and its successful implementation requires strengthening digital skills, at different levels, “from researchers taking a more analytical and empirical approach (looking at digital skills requirements and digital skills gaps), to policymakers and providers of training programmes and skills development initiatives taking a practical approach (launching new programmes)” . In this context, the mission of DiTArtIS project is to strengthen the research and innovation excellence of the beneficiaries, especially of UTC, as well as enhance the digital skills of their staff. This will be done through building teams of excellence to derive new ideas and tackle challenges, to ensure that UTC and twinning partners will sustainably increase scientific excellence and innovation capacity in the field of electromechanical and power systems applications, by integrating digital technologies and AI solutions and techniques.

The generation, manipulation and detection of electromagnetic waves across the entire frequency spectrum is the cornerstone of modern technologies, underpinning wide disciplines across sensing, imaging, spectroscopy and data processing, amongst others. Whilst the last century has witnessed an impressive evolution in devices operating at frequencies either below 0.1 THz (microwave and antenna technology) or above 50 THz (near-infrared and visible optical technology), in between the lack of suitable materials and structures for efficient electromagnetic manipulation has resulted in the so-called “THz gap” : a band of frequencies in the 0.3 – 30 THz region of the spectrum for which compact and cost-effective sources and detectors do not exist – even though their application has enormous potential in medical diagnostics, security, astronomy, and wireless communication. In this project, we will demonstrate the first nano-scale, cost-effective, fast and low-noise detector working at room temperature in the 1 – 30 THz range by developing a radically new concept of signal up-conversion to visible/near-infrared (VIS/NIR) radiation, leveraging the latest scientific breakthroughs in the new scientific field of molecular cavity optomechanics. In particular, we will design and synthesize molecules with both large IR and Raman vibrational activity in that THz range to be integrated into plasmonic nano- and pico-cavities so that their vibration mediates the coherent transfer of energy from the THz to the laser signal driving the cavity. In our approach, we will also employ THz antennas to improve the coupling efficiency of the THz field to the molecules. This bold vision, which builds on the fundamentals of light-matter interaction (science) and converges toward the on-chip integration in a silicon-compatible chip (technology), completely surpasses any previous technological paradigms related to the measurement of THz molecular vibration as well as its possible manipulation.