Effective EU support to a large external crisis requires new approaches. In response to this challenge and to identified user and market needs from previous projects, Reaching Out proposes an innovative multi-disciplinary approach that will optimize the efforts, address a wide spectrum of users and maximize market innovation success. This approach results in five main objectives: to 1. Develop a Collaborative Framework, with distributed platforms of functional services, 2. Implement a flexible and open “collaborative innovation” process involving users and SMEs, suppliers, operators and research organisations, 3. Develop, upgrade and integrate 78 new connectable and interoperable tools, 4. Conduct 5 large scale demonstrations on the field: o health disaster in Africa (Epidemics in Guinea, with strong social and cultural issues), o natural disaster in a politically complex region and a desert environment (Earthquake in the Jordan Valley, led jointly by Jordan, Israel and Palestine), o three global change disasters in Asia targeted at large evacuation and humanitarian support in Bangladesh (long lasting floods, huge storms and associated epidemics,), EU citizen support and repatriation in Shanghai (floods & storm surge), radiological and industrial disasters impacting EU assets in Taiwan (flash floods, landslides, storm surge and chemical and radiological disasters), supported and co-funded by local authorities, 5. Provide recommendations and evaluations for future legal and policy innovations. The project will be conducted under the supervision of senior end-users. It will be performed with flexible and proven procedures by a balanced consortium of users, industry, innovative SMEs, RTO and academia in the EU and the demonstration regions. The main expected impact is to improve external disaster and crisis management efficiency and cost-benefit and increase the EU visibility whilst enhancing EU industry competitiveness and enlarging the market.

Periodontal disease, conditions that affect the structures surrounding the teeth, is the most common disease of mankind (listed #1 in 2001 Guinness World Records). The total economic impact of periodontal disease represents the major component of the $442 billion direct and indirect expenditures of oral diseases incurred worldwide in 2010. Periodontal disease can lead to tooth loss, causing aesthetic effect as well as affecting chewing and speech. Beyond oral health, it is associated with systemic diseases and even with cancer risk. Obviously, periodontitis represents a major global health problem with significant social and economic impact. Development of effective therapies, therefore, requires deeper insights into the etiopathogenesis of the periodontal disease. The focus has traditionally been that pathogenesis occurs when the balance between the oral microbial biofilm and the host is lost, owing to dysbiosis and immune overreaction of the host to microbial presence. However, bacterial-host interaction alone does not adequately explain the clinical features of the disease. Recently, a new paradigm was proposed in pathogenesis involving a viral and bacterial combination to promote long-term chronic inflammatory disease. The project VIBRiOD will be focused on the etiopathogenesis of periodontitis based on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)–pathogenic bacterial biofilm–human immunity response synergies. Specifically, the VIBRiOD aims to understand 1) EBV behaviour during periodontitis and relationship to dysbiosis, 2) bidirectional interaction of dysbiosis and EBV activation, 3) tridirectional relationship of dysbiosis, EBV activation and host immune response. The multidisciplinary nature of the project is strong, involving a combination of classic to modern approaches of microbiology, molecular biology, immunology and virology. The results have the potential to contribute to the advancement of periodontitis research and ultimate control of the disease.

Motivated by the challenges, risks and opportunities that the wide use of AI brings to media, society and politics, AI4Media aspires to become a centre of excellence and a wide network of researchers across Europe and beyond, with a focus on delivering the next generation of core AI advances to serve the key sector of Media, to make sure that the European values of ethical and trustworthy AI are embedded in future AI deployments, and to reimagine AI as a crucial beneficial enabling technology in the service of Society and Media. The AI4Media consortium, comprising 30 leading partners in the areas of AI and media (9 universities, 9 research centres, 12 industrial partners) and 35 associate members, will establish the networking infrastructure to bring together the currently fragmented European AI landscape in the field of media, and foster deeper and long-running interactions between academia and industry, including Digital Innovation Hubs. It will also shape a research agenda for media AI research, and implement research and innovation both with respect to cutting-edge technologies at the core of AI research, and within specific fields of media-related AI. AI4Media will provide a targeted funding framework through open calls, to speed up the uptake of innovations developed within the network. A PhD programme will further enhance links to the industry and the fostering and exchange of talent, while providing motivation to prevent brain drain, and a set of use cases will be developed by the network to demonstrate the impact of the achieved advances in the media sector. The Excellence Centre that is established during the AI4Media project, and the ecosystem that will grow around it, will provide a long-term basis for the support of AI excellence in Europe, long after the project end, with the aim of ensuring that Ethical AI guided by European values assumes a global leading role in the field of Media.

The recent economic crisis has also been a crisis for economic theory. Hence, the economic profession started to debate and prepare a methodological reconsideration about the general role of economic models; new modeling strategies, alternative and complementary to the standard Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models, have therefore emerged. Among these innovative approaches, Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) started to occupy a prominent role. However, ACE models still need to be improved in three main directions before being ready to be employed as a standard policy tool adopted by central banks. These three directions are: (i) calibration, (ii) external validation, (iii) formal evaluation of systemic risk. This fellowship aims at directly tackling these three issues by employing new statistical learning, econometric, and algorithmic techniques and by applying them to an ACE model that enables one to analyze private and public debt dynamics by closely following the financial and real sectors at the micro-level. The research plan here proposed aims at developing a calibrated and validated model able to explain how the rise in private debt and the interconnectedness of financial institutions might lead to financial crisis, which then might spread to the real sector and ask for a massive public sector intervention, possibly generating also public debt overhangs. Additionally, the innovativeness in the methods here employed will allow to establish higher standards for the development of descriptive ACE models. Once these model are properly and rigosously calibrated and validated by means of real-world datasets indeed, they can be adopted to evaluate a set of counterfactual policy exercises. In particular we aim at understanding which ex-ante policy measures might help avoiding debt-triggered crises and which ex-post policy interventions might help in mitigating their negative effects.

Since 2011, Tunisia has been the theatre of a profound social, political and economic transformation. The Humanities and Social Sciences can develop tools enabling Tunisian society to appropriate and perpetuate this transformation. Within this context, the “SfaxForward” Twinning project strengthens the capacities of an innovative academic centre regarding Cultural Heritage: the Maghreb House of the Humanities and Social Sciences (MdMSH) at the University of Sfax. SfaxForward postulates that Tangible and Intangible Heritage can play a central role in a territory’s transformation and development. By learning to cherish their Cultural Heritage, people can discover who they are and what they share. The characterization and subsequent participatory management of these common cultural assets should engender a more stable and inclusive society. One that better manages migratory flows thanks to its citizens enjoying greater control over their lives, while constructing and taking possession of their own territory. SfaxForward’s goal is to position the Sfax partner as an international model for mutually beneficial relations between academia and civil society, with Heritage serving as a driving force of regional development and stability. This necessitates establishing the conditions for a fruitful dialogue between researchers and civil society to enlighten public policy and action. Southern Tunisia constitutes the project’s territory-laboratory. To achieve this goal, SfaxForward develops three types of initiatives: multidisciplinary conferences and workshops on the project’s key themes, thematic schools dedicated to young researchers, and an Observatory of Southern Tunisian Heritage constructed in collaboration with civil society. The extensive interdisciplinary experience of the collaborating French and Belgian Houses of the Humanities and Social Sciences benefits MdMSH in constructing its own unique scientific identity, with an ambition for international excellence.