<< Objectives >>Our Erasmus+ project aims at reinforce the capacity of Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in conducting applied research activities, specifically by better supporting the involvement of students in such activities and emphasise the opportunity this partnership represents for both teachers/researchers and students. In the end, we aim at increasing and strengthen the role of UAS in the knowledge society.<< Implementation >>We intend to identify best practices in the matter, develop a new training framework, publish a guidebook and a toolbox as concrete resources to support teachers, researchers and students to collaborate in research activities. International opportunities and gender dimension will also be integrated in our activities. We will also organise several events to train the staff on the subject and sensitise the UASs communities on the opportunity to liaising students and research activities.<< Results >>Concrete results of the project are multiple: creation of a new training framework, development of a guidebook, construction of the toolbox, organisation of national and transnational (networking) events. In the end, the effect of the project will be to create better conditions to integrate students in research activities and reinforce the partnership between teaching and research missions of UAS in a long-term perspective.

INNOWWIDE aims to bring European highly innovative SMEs to the forefront of international markets by prototyping and shaping a new and unique financial scheme (the “INNOWWIDE Call for proposals”) that will allow them to conduct Viability Assessment Projects (VAPs) in cooperation with local stakeholders, creating the conditions to increase the uptake of European innovative solutions in markets outside Europe. Two calls will be implemented with a total budget of 7,2M€, allowing to fund 120 VAPs (60k€/VAP), and targeting markets of developing countries, large emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico) and developed countries with the same allocation for each of these three country categories. The strength of this initiative lies in: (1) the experience of project partners concerning calls for proposals design and management, having 8 European funding agencies among them; (2) a SME-centric approach, to be implemented thanks to the extensive access and links to the European SMEs that project partners have; and (3) an ambitious stakeholder mobilisation plan with a strong focus on third country players thanks to partners international network of delegations (130 offices abroad in 45 countries). Project impact will be evaluated following a holistic, multilevel assessment approach covering European and international dimensions, done at VAP and at call level, and providing information from qualitative and quantitative points of view. This valuable information will be used to draw R&I policy conclusions, that will be shared with relevant policy bodies through the creation and operation of the “INNOWWIDE Policy Working Group”.

"In response to the effects of the economic crisis, curtailed public budgets and the magnitude of future challenges, social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerge as a key policy priority in the EU. They are sources of social innovation and a contributing factor to building up the innovation capacity and competitiveness of EU economies. This turns them into increasingly critical elements of the EU development strategy. Yet business and economics education and training does not adequately reflect this trend.The interdisciplinary academic field of social entrepreneurship has not been well developed in the EU. The term itself is often understood poorly or narrowly. The study of CSR is limited in terms of academic hours and content. The project was built on the rationale that for business to be motivated and able to achieve a social impact, the very content of CSR and Social Entrepreneurship as subjects in education would need to develop and business education needs to grow more responsive to what have until now largely been public agendas for dealing with the pressing challenges facing society. BEST project has had the overall objective to promote cooperation and exchange of good practices among relevant organizations from 7 Program countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK), in view of enhancing the quality and relevance of education in the field of social entrepreneurship and CSR, fostering social innovation and supporting the social impact and responsibility of business.The specific objectives of the project were:- to support research and best practices exchange in the field of social entrepreneurship, social innovation and corporate responsibility, in view of making business/economics education more relevant to sustainable regional and local development;- to initiate cross fertilization between business/economics studies and sustainable development studies in order to develop an innovative curriculum that fully integrates the subjects of social entrepreneurship and CSR into business/economics and entrepreneurship education;- to develop a model certification procedure allowing business to evaluate and certify the skills of volunteers that contribute to CSR initiatives;- to maximize the impact of the integrated innovative curriculum by demonstration initiatives, training of trainers and the development of a pilot e-learning platform for training in CSR and Social Entrepreneurship;- to contribute to the promotion of social entrepreneurship and corporate responsibility among business, society, media and education providers.This project was a partner initiative involving 7 Higher Education Institutions, a NGO and 2 institutions providing non-formal education and professional training. The activities of the project included development of intellectual outputs, transnational project meetings, sustainability activities, dissemination activities, a joint training of staff, and evaluation activities. The main project outputs and results were: - Research report ""Involvement of business in promoting sustainable development at the regional and local levels in Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and the UK"";- Compendium of good practices for corporate responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and social innovation;- “Millennial Business Europe: Entrepreneurship for Sustainability” good practices electronic database - Course syllabuses for Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development;- Training/teaching materials for courses on Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development;- E-learning platform with online courses for training in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship;- Model procedures for recognition of skills and competences acquired through internships and volunteering in CSR and SE initiatives;- A Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship;- 7 national-level conferences “Business Education for Sustainability” in the 7 project countries;- Blueprint label for business education “Business Education for Sustainability” (BEST);.The project’s longer-term impact has been:- to create public awareness of both the support needs and the potential of social business;- to create an “image” of social entrepreneurship and social business as a pragmatic and solutions-oriented approach that is nevertheless oriented towards social action and change;- to contribute to improving the visibility and credibility of social entrepreneurship and corporate responsibility, and to foster a more adequate understanding of this business field, including through research, sharing of good practices, and credibility enhancing labelling;- to underscore and enable the importance of incorporating “social” business studies into mainstream education, in view of both building skills and changing the mindset of the future business leaders."

Changes in rural areas, such as depopulation, land abandonment and the loss of biodiversity, may proceed very slowly yet are often irreversible. Policymakers can steer these developments in order to reduce their negative impacts but this requires knowing whether current policy instruments are effective, who is benefiting from them and in what measure, what driving forces will be most influential and how they will affect people, planet, profits and land-use. To be truly useful, this knowledge must transcend siloed thinking and be the corollary of a joint effort uniting different actors under a common cause. PoliRur will provide this knowledge by combining several key activities needed to design effective place-based, human-centric and forward-looking rural policies. These include actionable research that takes place within an inclusive learning environment where rural populations, researchers and policymakers come together to address common problems; an evaluation exercise that uses text mining to assess the perceived effectiveness of past or planned policy interventions; and a foresight study that tries to glean the development trajectory of agriculture and its allied sectors until 2040 using several scenarios in which the evolution of rural populations occupies a central place. As a result of these activities, PoliRur will leave decision makers at different levels of government better equipped to tackle existing and emerging rural challenges, rural populations more empowered and rural areas more resilient.

RESPONSE supports the Lighthouse cities of Dijon (FR) and Turku (FI) and their Fellow cities Brussels (BE), Zaragoza (ES), Botosani (RO), Ptolemaida (GR), Gabrovo (BU) and Severodonetsk (UA) to facilitate them deliver positive energy blocks and districts. Through RESPONSE ,the two LHs will achieve a local RES penetration of 11.2 GWh/y, energy savings of 3,090 MWh/y and an emission reduction of 9, 799 tons CO2eq/y within their districts. To achieve this goal, RESPONSE demonstrates 10 Integrated Solutions (ISs), comprising of 86 innovative elements (technologies, tools, methods), that are being monitored with specific impact metrics (KPIs). It attracts the interest of various stakeholders by generating innovative business models enabling the upscale and replication of the solutions forming a validated roadmap for sustainable cities across Europe and beyond. RESPONSE adopts an energy transition strategy, which includes 5 Transformation Axes (TAs), encompassing the 10 ISs. TA#1 focuses on transforming existing and new building stock into Energy Positive and Smart-ready. TA#2 focuses on the decarbonization of the electricity grid and the district heating/cooling systems, supporting fossil-based regions in transition and the development of energy communities. TA#3 proposes grid flexibility strategies and novel storage systems for optimizing energy flows, maximize self-consumption and reduce grid stress. TA#4 links existing CIPs with apps and other digital infrastructure to enable digitalisation of services and connected city ecosystems, integrating also smart e-Mobility to promote the decarbonisation of the mobility sector. TA#5 offers interdisciplinary citizen engagement and co-creation practices putting citizen at the forefront of shaping the cities they live in and towards the development of each city’s 2050 own bold city-vision. Special focus is given to creating resilient and safe cities increasing quality of life and lowering the impacts of climate change.