New trends such as teleworking and e-commerce, as well as the need for a further increase of digital tools in all sectors (i.e., health, education, transportation, farming, etc.) demanded by the Covid-19 pandemic, are pointing out once again digital territorial inequalities, supply-chain disruptions and deficiencies in economic opportunities that hamper resilience and prosperity of rural communities. Accessibility and connectivity are key issues to mitigate this erosion of socio-territorial cohesion. However, identifying a common solution for equipping rural communities with increased access to services, opportunities and adequate innovation ecosystems ensuring that no one left behind is a challenging task, mainly due to the diversity of challenges and needs of different locations. In this respect, XGain fosters a sustainable, balanced and inclusive development of rural, coastal and urban areas by facilitating access to relevant stakeholders, such as municipalities, policymakers, farmers, foresters and their associations, to a comprehensive inventory of smart XG, last-mile connectivity and edge computing solutions, and of related assessment methods. The XGain overall project objective is, to deliver a Knowledge Facilitation Tool, facilitating business model development, supporting decision-making in the selection of an ecosystem of technologies, consisting of connectivity options and edge processing solutions, by following a multi-actor and practitioner-oriented approach, and by coherently assessing their socio-economic and techno-environmental effects, aiming at: increasing systemic resilience and energy efficiency; contributing to climate mitigation; and reducing the digital divides between different types of citizens, farms, sectors and regions.

SolarHub’s overall objective is to strengthen connections between and scale-up 5 Greek and Turkish solar energy innovation ecosystems as a single, hybrid, cross-border, and interconnected Solar Energy Excellence Hub with an emphasis on agriculture applications. SolarHub's 4 Specific Objectives (SOs) are explicitly framed by the call's 5 Core Components and target the call's Expected Outcomes and the destinations Expected Impacts. These SOs are to: 1. Co-develop a Hub Strategy and a Joint Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda 2. Execute a diverse set of complementary interventions, engaging all players of the quadruple helix to support R&I and accelerate commercialization 3. Implement joint R&I activities to co-develop 4 pre-designs of diverse solar energy solutions 4. Maximize the project’s impacts through Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication activities carefully tuned to actively engage all players of the quadruple helix To achieve these objectives, a diverse and complementary set of measures are proposed that include 1. Creation of relevant R& I strategies & policies 2. Networking between SolarHub & stakeholders 3. Multi-level engagement & training 4. Combination of R&I infrastructures for synergies 5. Creation of targeted joint programmes and linkages between the 2 countries based on sound technological solutions 6. Communicating the above to all major stakeholders in the targeted regions 7. Exploiting the positive results from all the above to setup a sustainable collaborative initiative after the end of the project. SolarHub's consortium contains 21 partners (7 Academic, 9 Business, 3 Public Authorities, and 2 Societal Actors) that are well-balanced between Academia and Business, and fully completes the quadruple helix. SolarHub is a 4 year project with 5 carefully designed Work Packages that efficiently exploit the consortium's diverse knowledge and expertise to develop Green solutions to today's Societal Challenges.

Contributing to the CCRI project portfolio, CisWEFE-NEX will demonstrate the implementation of a circular systemic WEFE Nexus, an innovative, fully integrated, & sustainable approach applying the principles of circular economy for closing loops in the key value chains of food, water & nutrients in severely water stressed regions: 1. Water: - A net positive freshwater balance to the water cycle (JRC 2021) will be achieved through combining olive mill wastewater reuse (as a co-product from biophenols extraction) with saltwater desalination at scale without using fossil fuels for use as drinking & irrigation water. - Waste streams from desalination (brine & bitterns) will be repurposed in nature-based solar saltworks as table & Epsom salt, made possible because of zero chemical use in the desalination process. 2. Energy: - Cutting-edge renewable energy technologies will be developed & demonstrated to achieve a net-zero direct fossil GHG emissions process. - Agri-photovoltaics (crops under PV panels) and biogas from advanced (ultrasonic cavitation assisted) anaerobic digestion fed from olive mill & other biowastes. 3. Food: - Innovative nature-based techniques will be demonstrated to enable truly sustainable, healthy, and fresh food & seaweed (containing bioactive compounds for pharma use) production at scale. - Saltwater integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (free of growth hormones, antibiotics, synthetic fertilisers, & preservatives). - Regenerative agriculture (organic permaculture reusing precious water & nutrients) and extractive reuse of biophenols from olive mill waste as bioactive products of very high nutri-pharmaceutical value. 4. Ecosystems: - Monitoring of traditional & emerging (micro)pollutants using cutting-edge analytics will prevent harmful impacts on the environment & food grown from it with predictive alerts & remedies through a mobile controlled cavitation unit providing (waste)water treatment services (advanced oxidation processes, disinfection).

The ECHO project seeks to establish Energy Community and innovative energy services Excellence Hubs in Türkiye, Greece, and Portugal. These hubs will accelerate the energy transition by fostering innovation ecosystems, building capacities, and empowering local stakeholders. Employing a quadruple helix model, the ECHO consortium engaged academia, industry, government, and civil society in a collaborative framework. To achieve this, ECHO will: - Create a networking platform for continuous stakeholder collaboration, enabling resource sharing, knowledge exchange, and the dissemination of best practices. - Implement an expert collaboration program, injecting cutting-edge knowledge and practices to enhance the project's R&I potential. - Deliver tailored training programs to develop hard and soft skills across the energy community value chain. - Establish diverse pilot projects demonstrating advanced energy services, technology transfer, and solutions to energy poverty. These pilots will emphasize either direct citizen ownership (Renewable/Citizen Energy Communities) or models where service providers own assets while upholding democratic principles and strong community engagement. ECHO's focus on sustainable, scalable, and inclusive Energy Communities aligns with EU energy transition goals. By bridging regional strengths and empowering stakeholders, ECHO will contribute significantly to a resilient and equitable energy landscape.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancer types and its increased occurrence may be attributable to adverse health behaviors, especially in lower socioeconomic status populations. Stemming from the specific risk factors identified with CRC, ONCODIR integrates multidisciplinary research methods from health policy analytics; social and behavioural science; AI-powered multi-omics and retrospective data analytics as well as decision support theories to deliver evidence-based cancer prevention programmes and innovative AI-powered personalised prevention approaches. ONCODIR recognises that the evaluation of the ONCODIR prevention programmes needs to address cost effectiveness, affordability and cost benefit parameters. Thus it will also investigate cost balancing and demand generating financial schemes that will lead to enhanced CRC prevention programmes. The coherent technological ecosystem that ONCODIR is developing is based on robust AI trustworthiness and privacy preserving principles to deploy recommendation services that will be specified by citizens, health policy actors and SSH experts, during three design thinking workshops. SSH research will address aspects such as the life-status, nutritional and social habits in tandem with Economics, Sociology and Local/Regional Cultural identity and Ethics. ONCODIR’s results will be validated in three Laboratory Integration Tests (LITs) and three Large-scale Intervention Pilots (LIPs) in five EU member states, with the active involvement of medical scientists, health care providers, foundations and consortium experts. The ONCODIR consortium is composed of complementary partners, coming from multidisciplinary research, technological and SSH domains, with a proven track record of high-quality research capacity. The carefully structured workplan, embodies a holistic approach toward meeting the ONCODIR objectives and delivering feasible policy-supporting outcomes of significant exploitation potential. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on ‘Prevention and early detection.