SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will bring together 15 national organisations owning and / or managing major solar power research and innovation programmes throughout Europe, covering photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). According to the challenges addressed in the work programme on Low Carbon Energy, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund has different objectives: • To implement a joint call on subjects of highest priority and European added value in line with the Solar Europe Industry Initiative within the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan • To pool resources and to provide critical mass for transnationally highly relevant and innovative projects • To mobilise 20 MEUR of public funding (national and EC funding), and, together with the resources provided by the private industry sector, a total of 40 MEUR. • To enhance coordination, coherence and networking between national programmes SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will contribute to substantial cost reductions of solar power technologies, economic development of the European solar power sector and to reinforce Europe’s strong position in solar power technologies. Reducing technology cost and advancing manufacturing technologies, applications and grid / system integration are essential to increasing the deployment of solar power technologies. This way, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will greatly contribute to: • Acceleration of the time to market by advancing technologies • Affordable, cost-effective and resource-efficient technology solutions • Decarbonisation of the energy system • Sustainable, secure energy supply and completion of the energy internal market • Strengthening the European industrial technology base (growth and jobs in Europe SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund follows on from SOLAR-ERA.NET project and network and previous PV-ERA-NET network, taking advantage of more than ten years of ERA-NET experience and expertise from all major key stakeholders in the solar research, innovation and industry sector.

infra4Dfuture will develop a demand-driven overarching strategy and coordination mechanism for the modernization of transport infrastructure including a shared strategic vision on future infrastructure capabilities and common pathways for innovation development and implementation. Facing a variety of emerging challenges, such as climate change, resilience, ageing infrastructure, maintenance, digitalisation, automation, energy and electrification, the National Transport Infrastructure Authorities (NTIA) have urgent requirements for infrastructure innovation. In view of the long cycle times in infrastructure management and the rapid mounting pressure from these challenges, there is a need for fast delivery of ready-to-implement, cost-effective innovative solutions matching the requirements of the NTIA that jointly build the TEN-T network. The infra4Dfuture consortium encompasses 20 partners from 17 countries, 19 of them being NTIA, joining forces to develop: • a strategic coordination mechanism aiming to deliver a concerted cooperation and collaboration across a portfolio of relevant European and national innovation programmes and initiatives; • a shared strategic vision on future infrastructure capabilities, each capability encompassing a series of innovation focus areas for innovation. infra4Dfuture is based on a sound and coherent consultation and dialogue process with relevant stakeholders. This process will be structured in a sequence of strategic, decision-making conferences and a supporting, tactical sequence of expert workshops and regional events. These will culminate in the founding of the infra4Dfuture Stakeholder Platform for Infrastructure Innovation and Implementation (ISPIII) at the TRA 2020. ISPIII will ensure a continuance of the coordination mechanism and shared vision beyond the duration of the action. Follow-up ISPIII events will take place at the consecutive biannual TRA conferences.

Smart Cities and Communities have been identified as key to achieving the energy efficiency targets for 2020 and 2050. The main objective of this ERA-NET is to stimulate successful practice and facilitate replicability within Smart Cities and Communities projects and also across projects in order to achieve a technological shift in the current energy system and provide smart and integrated solutions for technology, government and society. ERA-NET Smart Cities and Communities aims to create solutions in the form of projects, which demonstrate or at least constitute a decisive step towards implementations that (1) help cities deal with a long uncertain time horizon, (2) monitor ongoing experiences and implement change in the project when necessary, and (3) avoid pitfalls already encountered by others and facilitate collective learning of stakeholders embedded within a physical and social context. Additional activities within the planned ERA-NET are: (A) to work towards a joint call with China and (B) to align national R&D funding with Structural Funds. (A): A structured and systematic approach towards a joint call with China on smart city research will be developed making highest use of existing relations, activities and experience of European Funding Agencies with Chinese partners in order to develop a joint call with China. Beneficiaries of this call (mainly research organisations and companies) would be given a good starting position for further research and development projects. (B) The realisation of smart cities measures requires large investment volumes. Thus, the combination and clustering of different financing instruments is necessary. In line with the new "smart specialization" strategy of the EC, the proposed additional activities should encourage and enable Member States, regions and their Managing Authorities to align their national R&D funding schemes with available Structural Funds (in particular ERDF, but also ESF resources).

The ENTRUSTED consortium proposes to establish a Network of Users for governmental Satellite Communications, with the aim to achieve a reliable collaboration and coordination between them to eventually agree on common user needs and requirements, to share information about existing and planned future SatCom capabilities and to have a framework to establish symbiotic relationships when beneficial for the partners. The main project's results will be a consolidated set of institutional EU user requirements for secure SatCom services and a long-term Roadmap and Coordination plan for research and innovation activities related to the user technologies, to serve as reference guidelines for the future user related activities and pave the way for a potential future EU GOVSATCOM programme.