The CoM’n’Play-Science project aims to help Europe better understand the new ways in which informal science learning is taking place through various coding, making, and play activities that young Europeans are nowadays increasingly engaged with outside school and higher education science classrooms, beyond the formal boundaries of science education. The project investigates a wide range of loci and modes of this kind of informal science learning, including: a) learning occurring in the context of such activities intentionally organized to achieve informal science learning; b) informal science learning that occurs as a by-product of youngsters’ various coding, making, and play activities that are not intentionally meant for science learning, and which may take place either in organized contexts or independently in everyday life. Carefully positioning the research within the context of the overarching contemporary discourses on STEM/STEAM education, RRI, and science capital, the proposed project aims to shed light on the nature and impact of the informal science learning gained through coding, making and play activities. It identifies diverse practices and looks deeper into a sample of them, whereby participants of real-life activities are surveyed, observed, and gamefully engaged in intensive research. The project further explores the impact of this this kind of informal science learning on: a) formal science education and more traditional informal science learning interventions; and b) scientific citizenship, investigating in particular the attitudes, values and dispositions that young people as learners and as citizens may develop through such activities towards science, scientists, and science-related information in everyday life. The project enables the exploitation of its research findings by developing relevant guidance for practitioners and recommendations for policy making and further research, and through an overall extrovert project approach.

The GAIA project focuses on the educational community; faculty, staff, students and parents at all levels of education: primary/secondary/high schools and universities. Targeting Energy Efficiency in the context of the educational community is clearly very important due to a number of reasons since raising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energy reductions and it will also indirectly affect their immediate family environment, while achieving energy reduction in the school buildings. GAIA will create an innovative ICT ecosystem (including web-based, mobile, social and sensing elements) tailored specifically for school environments, taking into account both the users (faculty, staff, students, parents) and buildings (schools, universities, homes) that will motivate and support citizens' behavioural change to achieve greater energy efficiency. GAIA will include also a set of pilots in different countries. GAIA will directly educate over 6.900 users, influence and attempt to transform their behaviour through a series of trials conducted in the educational environment and in homes. We expect a larger number of people to be informed about the activities of GAIA and be positively affected towards an energy-efficient behaviour transformation.

According to the EU’s Climate Adaptation Strategy (COM(2021) 82), “improving knowledge and managing uncertainty” is key for realising the vision of a climate neutral and climate-resilient Union, as “Climate change is having such a pervasive impact that our response to it must be systemic”. Thus, there is an urgent need for an integrated approach for an enhanced understanding of the interaction, complementarity and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation measures, especially regarding the expected increase in region-al mean temperature, precipitation and changing soil moisture (IPCC AR6 WG I). Furthermore, this under-standing and knowledge needs to be provided to a broad audience to support local authorities in EU partner countries in developing regional programmes. KNOWING aims to develop a modelling framework to help understand and quantify the interactions between impacts and risks of climate change, mitigation pathways and adaptation strategies. The framework will be used to assess thAdvancing climate science and further broadening and deepening the knowledge base is essential to inform the societal transition towards a climate neutral and climate resilient society by 2050, as well as towards a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target by 2030. There is a need for research that furthers our understanding of past, present and expected future changes in climate and its implications on ecosystems and society, closing knowledge gaps, and develops the tools that support policy coherence and the implementation of effective mitigation and adaptation solutions. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge of the Earth system and the ability to predict and project its changes under different natural and socio-economic drivers, especially regarding complex interrelations, rebound effects and behavioural aspects. Therefore, a holistic, system-aware and behaviour centred approach is needed to identify and implement realistic and effective climate mitigation pathways.