"The aim of this project is to improve the inclusion of vision impaired people and their quality of life. Even 14 years after the ratification of WHO's ""International Classification of Functioning, Disability and health"" (ICF), vision impaired people make the experience, that the assessment of their performance is still reduced to their impairment. Concerns about their physical autonomy and mobility dominates the valuation of qualities and skills, which they achieved in education, studies or vocational training.The strategy of the project is to improve the image of of the target group concerning autonomy and mobility, by introducing an innovative training concept for sports. This strategy was successfully realised and evaluated during a national funded project in Germany. In the national study, the implementation of this theoretical model along with the implementation into sport-live proved to be successful and applicable. In the planned transnational setting, adaptations will be done to address the special needs of the VIP and the trainers/instructors in the participating countriesThe idea behind this strategy is to motivate the visually impaired students to be physical active. Besides the health aspect, the vision impaired people enhance their social contacts and their image to be mobile and independent. A potential employer who is reading in a CV, that a visually impaired job applicant is active in swimming, climbing, archery or long distance running, is not in doubt anymore, if this person may come to work every day or is able to join the washing rooms for his own. In contrary this person becomes interesting.The training concept, which should be transferred to the partner organisations, was developed and successfully accomplished during a four year lasting project in Germany. The training concept can be realized in an every-day environment with a minimum of administrative or infrastructural effort. The concept can be transferred to the requirements of several organisations, sport clubs, interest groups and similar bodies.In this project the training concept will be adapted to the requirements and preferences to the project partners and transferred to a curriculum.An initial train-the-trainer course will be carried out in English for the trainers and teachers of the project partners. During the next step, the available curricula an teaching materials will be translated to the languages of the partner countries (BG, D, EN, IT, RO). The partner organisations from Bulgaria, Italy and Romania will then carry out a course for their trainees and students, according to the developed curriculum.The participating trainers are supposed to act also as multipliers for their colleagues and external trainer/teachers. Those courses will be executed with the translated teaching materials. The efficiency and the success of the project will be evaluated during the whole project period. The evaluation report should provide sufficient information to interested organisations and stakeholders about the efficiency and acceptance of the course.All project results, like the curriculum, teaching materials and the comprehensive evaluation, will be published in all partner languages on a CD-ROM. All files are also available for download from the project homepage. The products are licensed under Creative Commons Licence and can be used and adapted by interested organisations and individuals."

The innovation ecosystem of the EU is suffering from a strong fragmentation with a big gap between innovation leader regions and emerging innovators. This divide severely limits the potential for innovative Start-ups from emerging and moderate innovator region to access capital and get adequate support for bringing their innovations to market. To tackle these challenges, INNOVATE-EU will strengthen and connect five local innovation ecosystems: the innovation leader region Baden-Württemberg (BW) in Germany, the moderate innovator regions of Lithuania and Aragon in Spain and the emerging innovator regions of Latvia and Northeast Romania. Its goal is to address the innovation gap between these regions, connect them to an EU-wide network of innovation ecosystems, and strengthen their deep tech Start-ups and Scale-ups by building on three (fundamental) pillars: i) a detailed analysis of the target groups and needs of the local innovation ecosystems followed by knowledge exchange and a detailed action plan to address the disparities, ii) the formation of the interconnected and inclusive INNOVATE-EU innovation support community and its connection to European communities, iii) direct support and trainings for promising deep tech Start-ups and Scale-ups providing them with the necessary knowledge, tools, and contacts for successfully upscaling their business models and bringing their products to market. Through this approach INNOVATE-EU will create an interconnected and inclusive innovation ecosystem with access to a wider European innovation support community and concrete pathways for existing and emerging deep tech entrepreneurs to access growth and investment opportunities. This will result in the overcoming of the innovation gap between moderately and highly innovative regions in Europe and the unveiling of disruptive and otherwise hidden Start-ups and Scale-ups in deep tech.

ClimaGen will demonstrate how Climate-resilient regeneration and renaturing for, by and with vulnerable neighbourhoods, can help cities and regions in their transitions towards net-zero. 5 Demonstration cities (Belgrade, Gdańsk, Tartu, Torino, and Trondheim), will implement 25% increased share of newly created and/or restored public green spaces in each city. 4 Replication Cities (Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Gernika and Thessaloniki) will experiment with shorter-term co-creative measures with the same objectives and methods to plan for future implementation of the measures. All 9 cities will run their own Work Packages in ClimaGen, supported by 5 cross-cutting concepts and 4 transversal WPs: ClimaGreens will nurture integrated renaturing measures that create resilience at several scales, and avoid maladaptation in the journey to climate-neutrality. ClimaLabs will provide local and regional collaborative governance, with arts, culture and youth, entrepreneurship and financing, and organisational resilience in long-term planning strategies. ClimaImpact will generate evidence-based decision support and valuation of co-benefits, in easy-to-understand and, where possible, visualised formats. ClimaValue will offer outreach, capacity building and policy guidance, with strategic advocacy together with sister projects and close collaboration with Missions/NEB communities, while an evidence-based ClimaGen Guidance Package will disseminate results and knowledge to cities. City Dialogues and cross-cutting Sense-Making Sessions will support local implementation and common learning. Together these define impact pathways to knowledge sharing, scaling and replication. The ClimaGen Games will tie these activities together with a portfolio of participatory, gamified, citizen-science-based methods to engage all partners and stakeholders in an inclusive manner, and to use their diversity as a strength.

Better Factory will provide methodology for Manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with Artists to develop new and personalized products. At the same time Better Factory will provide technology for SMEs to become fully connected cyber-physical-systems, transforming them into Lean-Agile production facilities capable of manufacturing new and personalized products alongside existing products. Main results: - An Advance Production Planning and Scheduling (APPS) system which can be deployed on a free and open IoT platform at 10% of the cost in 50% less time. APPS will automatically reconfigure the collaborative robots considering the individuality and gender of worker, and will also reduce 10% assets, 25% area, 30% resources, 35% logistics, 40% machines and tools and workplaces, resulting in 13% cost reduction, 15% production increase and 30% time to market. - A Marketplace, a one-stop-shop, where Manufacturing SMEs can buy services from Technology suppliers, Artists, CCs, training providers and financial brokers. - A portfolio of 16 cross-border Application Experiments by 48 SMEs selected through 2 competitive Open Calls, that will test APPS, SME+Artis collaboration and other services, and leveraging 11M€ of public and private funding becoming success stories. - Services, including Technical, Business and Art mentors, infrastructure, training and access to finance. Better Factory network consists of 28 members. 18 DIHs (10 CCs, 8 industry associations), 6 Technology suppliers and 4 service providers for marketing, access to finance, FSTP management and legal framework. Partners are currently engaged in I4MS-Go, DIH², HORSE, L4MS, MIDIH, AMABLE, BOWI, SHOP4CF. Better Factory covers 16 EU countries, 17 regions with 10 of them from EU-13. Better Factory will demonstrate that public funded research can help manufacturing SMEs & Mid-Caps achieve digital excellence and global competitiveness through Lean-Agile production for the manufacturing of new and personalized products.

<< Objectives >>The overall goal of the project is transnational policy learning in the context of regional and municipal multi-actor projects. In addition to the development of cooperation structures between the participating partner organisations, the project will also discuss success factors for multi-actor projects and examine which (digital) tools are compatible and have real added value for the target group and how disadvantages can be reduced in this way.<< Implementation >>A total of three transnational meetings are planned in Cluj and Dortmund. In addition to the physical meetings, digital communication structures will be established to ensure a regular exchange. On the national level, there will be preparatory meetings with the stakeholders involved in order to sharpen the goals and expectations of the project and to elaborate the technical inputs.<< Results >>The result of the project is a long-term cooperation of the participating organizations, continuous professional consultations about the latest developments in the respective multi-actor projects in Cluj and Dortmund, as well as regular bilateral meetings of young people and professionals from the two cities.