INT-ACT focuses on intangible cultural heritage – i.e., practices and aspects of culture that shape our understanding of ourselves, our sense of belonging, and our relationships to each other and to the tangible cultural environment – as a means of bridging the past, present and future to provide novel approaches to transforming society and addressing societal challenges facing humanity at these times of epochal changes. INT-ACT does this by: 1) developing effective methods for extracting, structuring, and presenting the Emotional, Experiential and Environmental (3E) dimensions as formalised knowledge, 2) developing transdisciplinary methods of inquiry for capturing, compiling, and preserving the 3E dimensions contained in human narratives, 3) proposing and testing interaction techniques, narrative methods and audio-visual media choices for immersive eXtended Reality (XR) environments that present the 3E dimensions of intangible cultural heritage in the context of their associated tangible cultural heritage sites, and 4) providing solutions that address societal challenges by utilising these immersive XR environments. INT-ACT uses four selected tangible cultural heritage sites to develop its methods of extracting their associated intangible cultural heritage knowledge and human narratives, which are used for creating the content of four small-scale XR-based demonstrators. These demonstrators are then used in four case studies dealing with cultural, social and technological changes facing citizens and cultural heritage, namely: cultural tourism, ageing societies, disappearing communities, and immigration and multiculturalism. Each of these case studies targets a different societal challenge of importance and relevance to the multidisciplinary consortium of INT-ACT.

INCA project investigates the impact that so-called digital platforms have on European democracies and institutions. Indeed, while promoting economic growth and labour transformations, these platforms pose challenges to policymakers and citizens in relation to people’ participation in decision-making processes, wealth inequalities and erosion of trust into public institutions. In particular, so-called GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) are becoming more and more infrastructures for opinion-making, labour organization and political debate. Their increasing power in shaping and influencing such issues through lobbying, industrial relations and cultural impact opened up a wide debate on the way to deal with these transformations. While European societies grew up based on liberal democracies and institutions with their capacity to sustain a coordinated market economy, today their role seems to be reduced because of the difficulties to regulate platforms’ corporate power that spread through politics, economy and culture. INCA aims to • define forms to sustain trust in institutions and new models of governance capable to combine the growth of platforms with social inclusion and citizens participation in decision making processes; • stimulate alternative business models and industrial relations so to make GAFAM and platforms accountable to social fairness while preserving their innovation; • to clarify the way GAFAM influence European citizens opinion conditioning democratic processes. Exploring the socio-historical roots behind platforms growth and the erosion of a coordinated market economy, collecting solid data on GAFAM lobbying, industrial relations and opinion-making, and producing participatory actions for the empowerment of democratic processes and citizens’ engagement, INCA contributes to instil greater democratic accountability and inclusion in economic processes prompted by digital transformations.

NOMAD gathers partners from China, Greece, the UK, Italy, Romania, Malta and the Netherlands to develop an innovative, small-scale tech solution designed to recover fibre and specific nutrients from digestate for formulation into high performance bio-fertiliser products. It addresses key digestate issues including environmental and health risks, handling, variable composition and the increasing volume being produced. Currently, turning digestate into bio-fertiliser products is not feasible for most small plants due to lack of available, cost-effective equipment, and the expense of achieving end of waste standard PAS110. Building on partners’ previous work, the proposed technology will utilise heat from combustion of waste timber and recovered energy from a collection vehicle to improve energy efficiency while simultaneously addressing regulatory compliance. Specific nutrients will be extracted from the liquid fraction and water recovered for reuse. The remaining sludge will be blended & composted with ash (derived from waste timber combustion) and biochar to produce optimised, nutrient-balanced soil conditioners. The model rests on the solution’s mobility and modularity as one unit could serve multiple plants, tackling digestate from a range of feedstocks with shared costs making it more viable than installing systems at individual plants. Other project activities include stakeholder engagement; field trials across contrasting regions; policy recommendations; a comprehensive impact assessment of the business model; and dissemination of key outputs. The project aims to replace non-renewable mineral fertilisers with low-carbon, organic equivalents; minimise environmental and health risks associated with digestate; create a new, disruptive business model for rural decentralised AD; and achieve a more favourable climate for circular economy development through successful stakeholder engagement.

The construction sector is responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions, 50% of all extracted materials, and 35% of waste generated. TIMBERHAUS will contribute significantly to decreasing these numbers and reaching Europe’s climate policy targets by developing innovative circular solutions for sustainable wood construction. TIMBERHAUS will use the considerable expertise and innovation power of the multi-actor consortium consisting of key stakeholders across the value chain to realise the full circular and sustainable potential of wood construction. Game changing wood processing technologies based on machine learning and artificial intelligence will be developed and used in the prototyping of innovative wood construction products incorporating currently underutilized wood resources and post-consumer wood. Supporting the New European Bauhaus, holistic and circular wood building blueprints for multi-story buildings incorporating local cultural traditions and design languages as well as human health and well-being aspects will be co-created and demonstrated as digital pilots together with European cities and their stakeholders. New knowledge on the quantitative limits and opportunities of wood as a resource will be generated to give valuable input to forest and climate policy development. To support the European Commission’s framework for carbon removal certification, TIMBERHAUS will develop a robust and cost-efficient methodology to quantify the carbon removal benefits of wood construction products and other materials. A European observatory for wood construction will be established to provide best practise guidelines and monitor statistics and market uptake. Localised and EU-level decarbonisation strategies for buildings will be developed along with roadmaps for mainstreaming multi-story wood buildings. Based on project learnings, policy recommendations will be provided along with recommendations for new or updated European harmonised technical specifications and Eurocodes.

The construction sector is responsible for over 35% of the EU’s total waste generation, and accounts for about 50% of all extracted resources and an estimated at 5-12% of total GHG emissions. WOODCIRCLES will contribute significantly to decreasing these numbers by developing innovative circular solutions for sustainable wood construction to help reduce Europe’s dependence on non-renewable resources, cut GHG emissions, reduce waste generation, and offer long-term carbon sinks and substitution of fossil-based and carbon-intensive products. WOODCIRCLES will combine the considerable innovation power of the expert consortium consisting of key stakeholders from all parts of the value chain to release the full circular and sustainable potential of wood construction. Based on identified needs and market potentials, the consortium will develop new value-added value chains for upcycling of wood waste materials and optimized design-for-disassembly building system solutions to significantly increase recycling rates of wood in construction. An ‘Urban Sawmill’ sorting and production facility capable of turning in-homogenous low value wood construction waste into a standardized homogenous value-added, cost-effective baseline product, will be prototyped. WOODCIRCLES will integrate digital tools and solutions in all developments and create digital twins for the large-scale, real-life demonstrators – the Urban Sawmill and the building system prototypes to demonstrate the benefits of digital technology for circular construction. Active involvement of partner cities and their building ecosystems through technical and thematic co-engagement activities will increase deployment. All developed materials, components and system prototypes will be demonstrated, piloted and fully documented – including sustainability assessment – for immediate market uptake. Based on developments, recommendations for new or updated European harmonised technical specifications and Eurocodes will be provided.