Clinical features of patients infected with the 2019-nCoV have revealed that these patients suffer from severe respiratory failure, and presence of a life-threatening pulmonary oedema (PPO). Approx. 30% of 2019-nCoV-patients further develop life-threatening Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Mortality rate of these patients is very high. Initiator and Scientific Coordinator of the project, APEPTICO, is a SME biotechnology company (EMEA/SME/012/09) developing peptide-based products targeting life-threatening pulmonary diseases, including oedematous respiratory failure, acute lung injury, primary graft dysfunction, high altitude pulmonary oedema and PHA type 1. APEPTICO’s lead-compound Solnatide (INN) has been designed for the therapeutic treatment of patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and various forms of life-threatening Pulmonary Oedema (PPO). Orally inhaled Solnatide has delivered clinical proof-of-concept in one Phase I, and in two Phase II clinical studies (EUDRACT No. 2011-000223-33, 2012-001863-64, 2013-000716-21). Today, no medicine has been approved for the therapeutic treatment of Pulmonary Permeability Oedema and ARDS. Currently, Solnatide is subject to a Phase IIB trial (EUDRACT No. 2017-003855-47) for the “treatment of pulmonary permeability oedema in patients with ARDS”. The Phase IIB clinical trial has been approved by the German and the Austrian Competent Authorities, as well by Ethic Committees of leading Medical University Hospitals in Germany as well Austria. Most recently, APEPTICO has entered into a partnership with HAISCO Pharmaceutical Group in Chengdu, Sichuan, P.R. China. HAISCO has access to core areas and leading Medical University Hospitals in the P.R. China. Accordingly, APEPTICO proposes to immediately apply the Solnatide IMP for the treatment of patients infected with the 2019-nCoV and to demonstrate safety, tolerability and clinical efficacy of Solnatide IMP in 2019-nCoV patients. The overall project coordination and external communications is by RTDS Association (www.rtds-group.com/association)

Safe and secure food production is central to the European Farm to Fork policy. However, secure crop production still depends on the widespread use of chemical pesticides, which is associated with negative impacts on the environment and human health. Diminishing use of so-called ‘candidates for substitution’ identified in Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 is of particular importance for combating harmful effects. SAGROPIA employs integrated pest management (IPM) to demonstrate substitution and reduction of chemical pesticides in the cultivation of potato and sugar beet. These row crops are prone to diseases such as early and late blight and cercospora leaf spot and to pests such as nematodes and the Colorado beetle. SAGROPIA will bring forward thirteen biological and low-risk pesticides from three company partners with the aim to replace several ‘candidates for substitution’ active substances , including the nematicide oxamyl and the fungicides difenoconazole, fluopicolide and metalaxyl. It also aims to reduce overall use of ‘candidates for substitution’ copper and insecticides pirimicarb, lambda-cyhalothrin and esfenvalerate by at least 50%. SAGROPIA’s approach combines several biocontrol solutions that, individually, have already proven activity on specialty crops and are close to market. SAGROPIA solutions are formulated, production is upscaled, and their mode of action is being studied. To grant affordability and ready acceptance by farmers, SAGROPIA envisions not simple replacement of chemical pesticides but incorporation of its solutions into innovative, comprehensive IPM strategies. Effectiveness will be demonstrated in participatory real life-trials performed in five potato and sugar beet growing European regions with active participation and engagement of farmers. Thorough sustainability assessments will give account of economic feasibility and show improved performance in terms of natural resources, people and the environment, besides preparing novel solutions.

European agriculture is increasingly challenged by climatic variability and weather extremes causing drought and temperature stress to crops that are very often highly sensitive to abiotic stress conditions, resulting in low productivity and yield loss. Camelina sativa is a reemerging native European oilseed that has retained its natural stress tolerance and receives attention because of its untapped breeding potential, adaptability, yield stability and high performance in variable environments. UNTWIST will unravel the stress response mechanisms of the climate-resilient crop Camelina and reveal its successful stress adaptation strategies for implementing them in new agronomic solutions. UNTWIST brings together a unique consortium with complementary expertise in stress mechanisms, (epi)genetic regulation, physiology, metabolism, crop modelling, and crop management to drive biological discovery. Stakeholder expertise by three SMEs will allow smooth knowledge transfer into crop improvement and new management strategies. UNTWIST will use genetically diverse Camelina cultivars in open field and stress-controlled experiments together with sophisticated systems-based approaches to uncover the plant’s adaptive multi-layered stress response mechanisms. Complex data integration will provide genome scale models revealing plant strategies for managing uncertainty and a validated accurate model to predict crop performance in variable environments. Moreover, UNTWIST will deliver new tools and markers for effective translation into other crops. Finally, UNTWIST will meet the climate challenge in agriculture by providing elite-adapted Camelina germplasm and developing agronomic management practices for ready adoption by farmers into new climate resistant cropping systems.

The production of wood-based materials is an important industrial sector in the EU: approx. 40 million m³ particleboards (PB) and 20 million m³ medium density fiberboards (MDF) are produced in Europe every year, utilizing about 5 million tonnes of fossil-based adhesives.To reduce the climate impact of these products, the substitution of fossil-based chemicals in these adhesives is necessary. Moreover, most of the currently used adhesives contain formaldehyde, which is a cancerogenic substance. In SUSBOARD, partners along the whole value chain from renewable resources to furniture come together to bring a 100% bio-based, formaldehyde-free, technically and economically viable adhesive close to market. In the previous RIA project SusBind, an adhesive based on over 80% of renewable material was developed and demonstrated to function in high-quality boards. SUSBOARD will substitute the fossil-based component of this adhesive system with bio-based polylysine, thereby delivering a 100% bio-based solution. This new adhesive system showed very promising results during preliminary testing, where it surpassed the SusBind adhesive in terms of strength development. The adhesive production will be scaled to multi ton-scale and the adhesive will be tested in two different applications, the production of PB and MDF. The SUSBOARD consortium will validate the technical and quality-related performance of the adhesive in industrial board production as well as the board quality for further processing and furniture production. The whole project will be accompanied by an SSbD analysis to ensure sustainability and demonstrate the lower impact of the new adhesive on the environment (up to 30% lower CO2 footprint) and human health. The developed adhesive will be the first cost-competitive, sustainable and completely bio-based adhesive for industrial wood board production. The project partners are therefore leading the way to more sustainable, fossil-free furniture production.

PEAKapp targets the development of an unprecedented ICT-to- Human ecosystem to trigger lasting energy savings through behavioural change and continuous engagement, to enable increased consumption of clean and low-priced electricity from the spot market for household customers, to connect them to social networks, to motivate them through serious gaming, and to boost the efficacy of Smart Home building energy management systems by integrating their functionalities into the PEAKapp solution. With this first close-to-market-ready attempt to provide households with a dynamic electricity tariff in the EU, the door is opened for the most significant impact on the household electricity market since its liberalisation. The ICT ecosystem will be designed to require smart meters as only hardware with respect to in-house equipment, such that the system can be implemented almost immediately, given the EU targets for smart meter roll-out. These low hardware requirements allow for a fast market uptake, and thus a noticeable impact on EU energy consumption can be experienced with almost no delay and without the need of having to equip the 230mio dwellings in the EU with any extra efficiency hardware. Validation of the ICT ecosystem under real life conditions in the publicly owned social housing sector will be carried out in Austria, Estonia, Sweden and Latvia, and analyses of the collected data will allow for ground-breaking insights into consumer behaviour, while outstanding EU energy market analyses will derive implications for regulatory practice to better support energy efficiency goals. An outstanding market uptake strategy makes >3 electricity utilities ready-to-sign the implementation of the ICT-system, advises the European social housing sector about its benefits, and fosters European and international market uptake by distinguished exploitation activities, where the leading US stakeholder EPRI takes responsibility without funding.