ROCK aims to develop an innovative, collaborative and circular systemic approach for regeneration and adaptive reuse of historic city centres. Implementing a repertoire of successful heritage-led regeneration initiatives, it will test the replicability of the spatial approach and of successful models addressing the specific needs of historic city centres. ROCK will transfer the Role Models blueprint to the Replicators, adopting a cross-disciplinary mentoring process and defining common protocols and implementation guidelines. ROCK will deliver new ways to access and experience Cultural Heritage [CH] ensuring environmental sound solutions, city branding, bottom-up participation via living labs, while increasing liveability and safety in the involved areas. ICT sensors and tools will support the concrete application of the ROCK principles and the interoperable platform will enable new ways to collect and exchange data to facilitate networking and synergies. The added value is the combination of sustainable models, integrated management plans and associated funding mechanisms based on successful financial schemes and promoting the creation of industry-driven stakeholders’ ecosystems. A monitoring tool is set up from the beginning, running during two additional years after the project lifetime. Main expected impacts deal with the achievement of effective and shared policies able to: accelerate heritage led regeneration, improve accessibility and social cohesion, increase awareness and participation in local decision making process and wider civic engagement, foster businesses and new employment opportunities. Involving 10 cities, 7 Universities, 3 networks of enterprises, 2 networks of cities and several companies and development agencies, a foundation and a charity, ROCK is able to catalyse challenges and innovative pathways across EU and beyond, addressing CH as a production and competitiveness factor and a driver for sustainable growth.

Cyber threats are the most significant and growing risk for public administrations (PA). However, technological, organisational and structural issues hamper the ability, especially for local PAs (LPAs) to improve their cyber security level. Budget constraints and evolving legal, ethical, societal and privacy regulations render the situation even more complex. COMPACT’s goal is to empower local LPAs to become the main actors of their cyber-resilience improvement process. COMPACT’s objectives are to 1) increase awareness, skills and protection; 2) foster information exchange between European LPAs; 3) link LPAs to major EU initiatives, including the newly created cyber-security private-public partnership. COMPACT innovates at technological level and at process level – an important dimension in engaging LPA employees in the improvement of cyber-resilience. At technological level, COMPACT innovates in real time security monitoring, security awareness training, information sharing, cyber-security gamification, risk assessment, and threat intelligence. At process level, COMPACT adapts the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle for LPAs to do iterative removal of security bottlenecks and achieve compliance to EN ISO/IEC 27001 and BS ISO/IEC 27005. COMPACT delivers an integrated platform with 4 types of tools/services – 1) risk assessment, 2) education, 3) monitoring, and 4) knowledge sharing – characterized by a high degree of usability by non IT experts and automation. It protects LPAs’ investments by interoperating with market solutions from major vendors. It eases deployment and adoption by being both cloud-enabled (i.e. it addresses cloud specific issues) and cloud-ready (i.e. it can be deployed – if users wish– on the cloud). COMPACT validates its results through 5 challenging use cases provided by 5 users in 4 European countries. 90% of COMPACT solutions will achieve TRL7 and the residual part TRL6.

Today, RW is mostly conceived as an arrangement enabling flexible work organization. However, REMAKING contends that RW can be more than that. If the multiple effects induced by RW on individuals, business models and the socio-economic sphere are properly understood and addressed by policymakers, it might become a lever contributing to shaping ongoing social, economic, and spatial structural changes. At the basis of REMAKING there is a profound consideration of the ongoing megatrends (i.e., digital transformation, flexibilization of production models) that have initiated RW and of the recent shocks (i.e., the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine) that have consolidated the diffusion of different forms of RW. Through this angle, the multiple effects induced by RW call for rigorous analyses to support decision-makers in balancing opportunities and problems linked to RW for a potential rethinking of territories, namely in rural areas. REMAKING aims at delivering a policy-oriented framework reflecting the new and multi-faceted realities of RW, facilitating policymakers to adopt place-based policies balancing the opportunities and risks of RW and sharing practices to foster mutual learning on RW in the novel scenario of megatrends and shocks. These objectives will be achieved through participatory research activities across 4 case studies, each addressing a different form of RW (digital nomadism, post-pandemic, high-skilled in hi-tech sectors and enforced remote workers). The 4 case studies encompass overall 7 countries(Italy, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Ireland): for each country, 1 second-tier city and 1 rural area will be studied. REMAKING generates an impact on socio-spatial transformation processes across second-tier cities and rural areas in terms of improved planning, design and implementation of multi-level policy, promotion of territorial socio-economic resilience and development, and advanced understanding of RW multiple impacts.

FastTrack will deliver climate-resilient urban, peri-urban and rural areas through the deployment of sustainable mobility innovations across 24 local areas, involving 20 local authority project affiliates, and 4 ambassadorial partners. FastTrack presents a suite of interlinking methods that provide local authorities with opportunities to learn from the best, capturing and presenting the experiences of those who have successfully accelerated transition. FastTrack’s twin-track core learning programme includes five separate FastTrack Capacity Building Weeks over 24 months: 1. Deep learning and exchange within the consortium, across four topic-based clusters guided by interests expressed by our 24 authorities. Each event will be led by an Ambassador (from Antwerp, Bologna, Budapest or Stockholm), supported by technical partners (WP2) 2. Meet the FastTrackers events, where 24 authorities will be introduced to skills and learning on cross-cutting topics (such as data, funding and governance) and will develop innovations with insights and inputs from external stakeholders recruited through a FastTrack database (including innovation networks, projects, funders, and end-users) (WP3) This programme will be informed by a rapid, intense review of innovation and exchange practices (WP1). An internal, competitive programme will fund small-scale “springboard studies”, rewarding outstanding innovation ideas with the most widespread internal interest and greatest potential for applicability and replicability across the EU. In culmination, programme pillars will be gathered in a performance management activity to oversee 24 deployment plans, as authorities rapidly refine, focus and develop innovations (WP4). Exploitable recommendations for process, and new solutions, technologies and approaches, will be supported by a further outreach phase, giving extra opportunity for on-the-ground deployment to be reflected in FastTrack’s final recommendations and results.

A major, albeit underestimated, by-product of urbanization is the exponential increase of human exposure to artificial light. Outdoor illumination, artificial sky glow, domestic lighting, light-emitting screens, etc. entrain circadian clock. Despite scientific evidence on the pathogenic role of circadian rhythms disruption in predisposing to NCDs, affecting sleep, metabolism, immune function and many aspects of behavior and mood, EU cities are mostly focusing on improving lighting services’ efficiency, reducing costs and emissions, but failing to consider lighting impacts on health and wellbeing. Through an open-online Urban Lighting and Health Atlas, ENLIGHTENme will collect and systematize existing data and good practices on urban lighting and will perform an accurate study on the correlations among health, wellbeing, lighting and socio-economic factors in 3 pilot cities -Amsterdam, Bologna and Tartu, where a target district will be selected due to its exposure to artificial light and to reflect social inequalities. Through the establishment of Lighting Urban Labs within the district, citizens and stakeholders will co-create innovative Lighting Urban Plans measures and define the implementation of a smart outdoor lighting system and indoor lighting changes in a pilot area within the district. There, a population-based study on elderly – addressed as a vulnerable group particularly prone to suffer circadian misalignment – will allow to assess lighting-dependent risks on mental and health conditions and surveys involving the overall district population and users will allow assess the impacts of urban lighting on quality of life and wellbeing. The results will allow to develop a dedicated Decision Support System and guidelines and recommendation on the impact of lighting on health and wellbeing, proposing innovative lighting policies, measures, technologies and interventions aiming at improving citizens’ health and wellbeing in cities. ENLIGHTENme is a part of the European Cluster on Urban Health.