As stated by the EC, renovation by the private housing sector towards increased energy efficiency is seriously lagging behind. As more than sufficient technological solutions are available, focus must be on removing non-technological barriers. The main barriers relate to fragmentation of the renovation offers, resulting in inefficient or only partial solutions. In addition to financial restrictions and unclear benefits, house-owners do not have a structured way to obtain all the necessary information related to renovation measures. One of the ways to solve this, is the use of ‘1-stop shop concept.’ Many initiatives have already been put into practice. Some of these projects were successful, but several were not. They often lack an understanding of the concerns and demands of the house-owners. REFURB 2.0 will tackle the complex interplay of these barriers through coordinated process organisation, innovation and optimization. REFURB 2.0 will bridge the gap between supply and demand side by: • developing a holistic approach to the renovation process in which technology combinations trigger step-by-step deep energy renovation of existing, private residential buildings towards NZEB-standards. • accommodating the technology solutions to the decision-making psychology and ‘language’ of residential house-owners; this will provide the drivers for empowerment and mobilisation of house-owners for deep renovation. • developing a quality and performance protocol to build trust on the demand side. The above mentioned activities will result in dedicated renovation packages for different market segments and regions in Europe, starting with the private residential sector. A small scale pilot will be carried out in order to validate and demonstrate the REFURB 2.0 solution. This will be followed by a roll-out plan to stimulate EU wide uptake. In addition, a transferability plan will be established for other sectors, whereas the social housing sector will be the first ‘follower.

Water is central to all human activities, to all components of the EU Green Deal and to several UN SDGs. The Water4All Partnership aims at enabling water security for all on the long term through boosting systemic transformations and changes across the entire research – water innovation pipeline, fostering the matchmaking between problem owners and solution providers. It gathers more than 70 partners, R&I funders, environment ministries, local authorities, European, national and regional-scale networks, research performing organisations. It will collaborate with other relevant R&I initiatives. Water4All proposes a portfolio of multi-national, cross-sectoral activities, targeting a variety of actors, intending to generate the following outputs: - Strengthen the water R&I collaboration at European and international levels, across at least 31 countries, notably through Joint Transnational Calls - Coordinate and leverage the activities of the Water R&I community - Support and promote the demonstration and access to market of innovative solutions - Produce, share and better communicate water-related knowledge & data, from local to global scales - Enhance talent development of water R&I professionals - Foster capacity development and life-long training of water policy-makers, stakeholders and civil society - Design & implement approaches for participatory development of innovation Water4All will run its activities across 7 themes of its strategic agenda: water for circular economy; water for ecosystems and biodiversity; sustainable water management; water and health; water infrastructure; international cooperation; water governance. Water4All’s outputs will contribute to: - Deliver sound knowledge, tools and evidence basis on water for policy- & decision-making - Improve consideration of water impacts in all relevant policies - Enhance the field/market use of innovative solutions to water challenges - Increase citizens’ awareness and engagement for an inclusive water

R-Aces means a step-change in the contribution of European Industry to the climate targets of the EU. The sector after all represents 25% of all energy demand – and 50% of all cooling and heating - on the continent; yet only 16% comes from renewables. By focusing on collective measures and clustering, the efficiency of industry can be drastically increased. The focus of R-Aces therefore is to turn high-potential, high-impact industrial clusters into Ecoregions that achieve at least a 10% reduction in emissions. An Ecoregion is an area where energy, material and information exchanges occur between various companies and actors to reduce waste and energy/material consumption. Each region is centered on an (eco-)industrial park or (eco-)business park, linked to its surroundings by a 4th/5th generation district heating/cooling network. The consortium sees this project as a capping stone, condensing the knowledge and experience gathered throughout H2020 into a set of three focused tools embedded in selected support actions. The tools consist of an assessment tool; legal decision support for joint contracts; and a smart energy management platform for clusters. The support actions are built around peer-to-peer learning, more formal coursework and serious games. Together they enable a cluster to really become an EcoRegion and set up meaningful energy collaboration. The entire package of tools and support is aimed at the high-potential clusters identified in the European Thermal Roadmap. It will be validated in three of them (all are part of the consortium); actively deployed in another seven; and disseminated to ninety of them. In addition, the tools and support methodology will be made available to third parties in a sustainable way after the end of this two-year project. The project consortium consists of the entire value chain needed for energy collaboration – suppliers, ESCO, cluster managers, support – and represents many years of proven experience in this field.

The proposed project seeks to support the development of interconnected innovation ecosystems across the EU with a starting point in three focus regions; the Greater Copenhagen region, Flanders and Northern Portugal. To this end, the partners will apply the S3-Innovation Model for development of Transformational Actions towards a circular economy, specifically focusing on actions for Reducing, Reusing and Rethinking resources within three sectors; plastics, textiles and construction. This methodology will be employed to map and analyse regional capacities and potentials for transformation through the involvement of quadruple helix focus groups to include priorities from different actors in the innovation ecosystems. Based on these mappings, the partners will identify cross-regional actions with potential to drive circular transformation across European innovation ecosystems. To enable concrete collaborations, the partners will develop one joint cross-regional action plan for collaborative actions in each of the three focus sectors, particularly focusing on actions for ‘reusing’, ‘reducing' and ‘rethinking’ resources. To prepare the ground for future implementation of the joint action plans, the partners will focus heavily on dissemination across EU territories and capacity building for ecosystem stakeholders. Moerover, the consortium will establish dedicated virtual collaboration spaces and communities on an already existing virtual platform to convene ecosystem stakeholders around project activities concerning circularity within plastics, textiles and construction. Upon the post-project implementation of the action plans, the proposed project is expected to contribute to increased market uptake and adoption of innovative solutions through concrete actions for connecting innovators to public buyers. Moreover, the project is expected to facilitate an infrastructure which enables closer connections between research institutions and innovators.