Mobility is essential to our modern world to move people and goods between places and countries to serve needs relating to food, energy and all human necessities. However, mobility and its benefits do not come without harm: all transport sectors are substantial emitters of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Furthermore, transport sectors, particularly aviation and maritime, are difficult to decarbonise by electrification, hence the combustion engines and turbines will remain in use for the foreseeable future. Energy efficiency increases and carbon-neutral fuels will reduce the climate impact of these technologies, but solutions are needed also to remove exhaust emissions completely, including those formed through secondary reactions in the atmosphere. Particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions are especially harmful, causing premature deaths and significant harm to humans and all global ecosystems. The PAREMPI project will reveal the contribution of the secondary aerosols (SecA) from transport sources to ambient PM2.5 levels via increased understanding of precursors, their atmospheric reactions and by a novel digital software (ePMI module) to be developed in the PAREMPI project. In combination with toxicity and health impact assessments, quantification of transport externalities will be improved. The consortium members are top-scientists in the research of the precursor emissions, SecA formation, and health impact of aerosols, many of them have focused in these topics all their careers and earlier collaboration assure seamless work. Consortium members have experts also on road, non-road, marine and aviation sectors, and on the emissions standards. Thus, the consortium is capable of formulating sound policy recommendations based on scientific evidence obtained. The PAREMPI results, efficiently disseminated, communicated and exploited, have the potential to significantly contribute to the goal of making transportation systems in Europe clean, secure, and efficient.

Advanced biofuels represent an important piece of the puzzle in the EU’s quest for climate neutrality as they contribute to decarbonising transport sectors and decrease the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels. Fuels-C aims to contribute to this quest by increasing the availability of two liquid and two gaseous advanced biofuels for maritime and road transports, produced from biogenic organic wastes and CO2. Fuels-C will develop an integrated platform of innovative energy-efficient conversion technologies validated at TRL5 including bioelectrochemically assisted CH4 production, bioelectrochemical NH3 production, gasification, microbial electrosynthesis, and electroreduction. Various biogenic residues (biodegradable and non-biodegradable) will be converted under mild conditions into CH4, NH3, formic acid and ethanol, by two main production routes, using renewable energy, thereby enabling efficient energy surplus storage as chemicals. The 4 biofuels can be used as drop-in, but Fuels-C will also test them in FCs for electricity production: gaseous NH3 and CH4 in SOFCs, liquid ethanol and formic acid in DLFCs. Power density, energy efficiency and stability of each process will be validated. The technologies will be modelled at process level, for the description of interfacial phenomena, and at system level, leading to an integrated processes Digital Twin. This second model, together with a feedstocks mapping tool, will provide relevant data for circularity assessment, cost calculation, benchmarking and replication in other relevant use cases. This is expected to create new businesses opportunities and strengthen the EU's leadership in science and technology and in the biofuels market. Fuels-C gathers an interdisciplinary consortium composed of EU’s prominent RTOs and Universities, a large industry providing feedstocks and four SMEs contributing to market uptake and global outreach. It will be supported by an international Advisory Board providing strategic advice.

The Copernicus Security Service (CSS) is instrumental to support the European Union’s security, safety, law enforcement, and international commitments with the European Commission advocating for its advancement. The AI4COPSEC project aims to demonstrate the potential of advanced ML and GeoAI models to provide relevant intelligence for enhancing existing Copernicus products and services such as oil spill response, illegal fishing alert and create new services intended to support Search-and–Rescue operations and irregular migration detection. The project will enhance CSS services through the usage of self-supervised deep learning models, geomatics and social media data (OSINT) extracted from heterogenous multi-sources data. AI4COPSEC is expected to have a transformative effect on the operational capabilities of EU security,surveillance and safety by leveraging advances to enhance the timeliness, accuracy, and relevance of information derived from EO and non-EO data sources, including the innovative use of thermal imagery for ship detection, the combination of satellite automatic identification system (AIS) data with structured data extracted from social media sources and the usage of in-situ environmental measurement derived from AIS data and IoT devices. This integration will lead to more effective and efficient security operations, environmental monitoring, and disaster response. AI4COPSEC is also set to detect anomalies and threat in the maritime traffic and advance ship detection capabilities, utilising high-resolution optical images and advanced segmentation algorithms to enhance the detection of small vessels independently of the type of material (metallic structures, wood, rubber...), a critical factor for a comprehensive maritime surveillance in line with the CSS and the EU's maritime security strategy (EUMSS).

Contributing to reach the European Green Deal objectives and the Europe 2050’s goals, the SEANERGY Project aims to provide a solution for exploiting the untapped potential of EU-ports energy’s system by implementing the SEANERGY Master Plan which assesses stakeholders to execute the necessary activities towards transforming ports, regardless of their geographical context, into active members of the clean energy and fuel generation grid of EEZ. Activities such as training, reskilling, awareness spreading and communication channels creation, will set the basis of the green port transitioning, creating spaces of dialogue and teaching among all agents of the industry (private and public), which will, in turn, boost the development and integration of these technologies, along with prepared professionals that will be able to manage and implement them promptly, securely and efficiently. The SEANERGY project will be developed in 3 stages: (1) understanding of actors and port E&F systems and identifying limitations; (2) developing the Master Plan and Handbook, which will serve as a training manual for stakeholders, as well as implementing the Industry-Academy programme to train future professionals in clean energy technologies and fuels and how to apply the knowledge in ports; (3) expanding the scope of the Master Plan beyond Europe.

Waste2BioComp project aims to demonstrate relevant scale production of bio-based products and materials, as alternatives to traditional materials with high environmental footprint, using innovative manufacturing technologies. The project integrates all stages in the bio-based products´ life cycle, starting from R&I activities regarding the sourcing of feedstocks for the development of bio-based precursors and intermediate materials, smart inkjet printing techniques, and smart manufacturing technologies for final products, and the final demonstrators, which will entail the production on a relevant scale of the following bio-based products: shoe sole materials with different hardness; three-layered shoe insoles; plastic films/packaging with different flexibilities; social face masks; fashion garments printed with bio-based inks; leather and textile shoes printed with bio-based inks; paper for packaging printed with bio-based inks. Waste2BioComp will also develop sustainability and toxicity assessments to the developed materials and products, as well as re-manufacturing and recycling approaches to ensure circularity by closing the material loop. Furthermore, the project will develop dedicated training activities to support the creation of a skilled workforce in biomaterial-based manufacturing sectors, particularly for the textile, footwear, and packaging activities. Therefore, Waste2BioComp will have a significative impact on the reduction of the use of fossil-based materials, not only in the approached three value chains (textiles, packaging, and footwear), which are highly resource and polluting intensive sectors, but also with potential for several other sectors and applications. The project will run for 36 months, and it will be constituted by 13 partners from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.