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Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as a more sustainable alternative to produce food. UA has several types of emerging systems (ES) that are exponentially growing from an experimental to an industrial scale of development. UA-ES include vertical farming, integrated greenhouse rooftops in buildings, local woodsheds, etc. UA-ES are expected to reach mature levels of development in the mid to long-term future and are being designed to recirculate and minimise the use of resources (e.g. nutrients, water, substrates and CO2) for production of low carbon intensity food in cities, among other benefits. Therefore, it is expected that UA-ES will provide more sustainable food production compared to rural, more-traditional agriculture systems in terms of energy and water use as well as benefits for air quality and biodiversity in cities. Understanding and quantifying the effective contribution that UA-ES will make to the environmental sustainability of cities requires the ability to both evaluate UA-ES environmental impacts in the future and to compare them to the impacts of traditional agriculture in the same future context. The project PROspecTive Environmental AssessmeNt of Urban Agriculture-Emerging Systems (PROTEAN) will focus on developing temporally-explicit environmental impact assessment models for both UA-ES and traditional agriculture to determine the extent to which UA-ES may contribute to the sustainability of future food production. These ex-ante, temporally-explicit environmental impact assessments will also help to flag influenceable system parameters that can make UA-ES more environmentally sustainable in the future. Thus, future undesired environmental impacts, costs, and effects may be more easily avoided for UA-ES than for mature agriculture systems. Providing assertive guidance on how to improve UA-ES depends on our current capacity to understand the key leavers of change that may drive the future impacts of these systems.

Antibiotic resistance is a global health issue that threatens modern medicine and how we treat bacterial infections. Investigating how bacteria live is important to fight against antibiotic resistance as it can lead to new approaches for dealing with bacterial infections, and new targets for antibiotics. The research project we are proposing aims to further our understanding of a system called Tol-Pal in a class of bacteria called Gram negatives. Tol-Pal has been shown to have a role in cell division and is important for the growth of Gram-negative bacteria. At the moment, we do not fully understand how the components of Tol-Pal work together to carry out this function. In this project we hope to use structural biology techniques to see what a complex of three of the proteins in the Tol-Pal system, TolQRA, look like. We hope that finding out what TolQRA looks like will help us to investigate the mechanism of TolQRA within the Tol-Pal system, and further our understanding of Gram-negative bacteria and how they work.

Knowledge-based improvements of Li-ion battery cost, performance, recyclabiKnowledge-based improvements of Li-ion battery cost, performance, recyclability and safety are needed to enable electric vehicles to rapidly gain market share and reduce CO2 emissions. SPIDER’s advanced, low-cost (75 €/kWh by 2030) battery technology is predicted to bring energy density to ~ 450 Wh/kg by 2030 and power density to 800 W/kg. It operates at a lower, and thus safer, voltage, which enables the use of novel, highly conductive and intrinsically safe liquid electrolytes. Safety concerns will be further eliminated (or strongly reduced), as thermal energy dissipation will be reduced to 4 kW/kg, and thermal runaway temperature increased to over 200°C. Moreover, SPIDER overcomes one of the main Li-ion ageing mechanisms for silicon based anodes: notably, the loss of cyclable lithium, which should increase lifetime to 2000 cycles by 2022 for first life applications with further usefulness up to 5000 cycles in second life (stationary energy storage). In addition, SPIDER’s classic cell manufacturing process with liquid electrolyte will be readily transferable to industry, unlike solid electrolyte designs, which still require the development of complex manufacturing processes. Finally, SPIDER batteries will be designed to be 60% recyclable by weight, and a dedicated recycling process will be developed and evaluated during SPIDER. In addition, SPIDER materials significantly reduce the use of critical raw materials. Finally, four SPIDER partners are identified by the European Battery Alliance as central and strategic for the creation of the needed European battery value chain: SGL, NANO, VMI & SOLVAY. In conclusion, SPIDER proposes a real breakthrough in battery chemistry that can be readily adopted within a sustainable, circular economy by a competitive, European battery value chain to avoid foreign market dependence and to capture the emerging 250 billion € battery market in Europe.

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is the most common form of ovarian cancer. The 5-year survival rate is low, as patients are often diagnosed after cancer cells have spread from the ovary to other parts of the body. Their preferred site to spread to is the omentum, which is the fatty tissue covering the abdomen. The omentum provides an environment, named the metastatic niche, that supports cancer cell migration, growth and survival, enabling a tumour to form. Fibroblasts are a type of cell within the omentum which are partly responsible for forming this environment. They do so through the assembly of a protein fibre meshwork which surrounds the cancer cells, named the extracellular matrix (ECM). However, how fibroblasts in the omentum become able to assemble ECM in a manner which allows cancer cells to thrive is not yet understood. During my PhD project, I aim to develop a better understanding of how fibroblasts assemble ECM in this way to create a suitable environment for tumour formation within the omentum. To achieve this, I plan to use techniques including CRISPR, fluorescence microscopy and BioID in cell lines I will generate from ovarian cancer patient omentum samples.

Irregular and unaccountable transactions, cyber threats, non-user-friendly inefficient or impractical banking processes, complex contracting procedures and cumbersome financial market and insurance infrastructures constitute obstacles to European open market development. CRITICAL-CHAINS delivers a novel triangular accountability model and integrated framework supporting accountable, effective, accessible, fast, secure and privacy-preserving financial contracts and transactions to protect against illicit tranasctions, illegal money trafficking and fraud on FinTech e-operations. This is an innovative cloud-based “X-as-a Service” solution stack including several layers: 1) Data integrity checking by involving financial institutions in the distributed Blockchain network; 2) Transaction and financial data flows analytrics, modelling and mining; 3) Threat Intelligence & Predictive Modelling for Inter-Banks and Internet Banking, insurnace and financial market infrastructures; 4) Multilateral Biometric-based and Role-based Authorisation & Authentication; 5) Hardware Security Module (HSM) enabled Cyber-Physical Security, embedded systems & IoT security for secure access using Security-Privacy-Contexts Semantic Modelling; 6) Secure and smart use of Blockchain based on keyless signature infrastructure and hybrid (a)symmetric cryptography utilising truly random key generation. CRITICAL-CHAINS is to be validated within 4 case studies aligned with 3 critical sectors: banking, financial market infrastructures and the insurance sector. This will evaluate system reliability, usability, user-acceptance, social, privacy, ethical, environmental and legal compliance by scrutiny of the geo-political and legal framework bridging the European economy with the rest of the world. The Consortium respresents a strong chemistry of relevant expertise and an inclusive set of stakeholders comprising end-users (customers), CERTS, the financial sector (Banks & CCPs) and the Insurance sector

Blood vessels, including arteries and capillaries, are equipped to constrict and dilate in response to changes in their environment. Importantly, vessels are known to respond to pH. A key example is in the lungs, where lung damage prevents these regions from taking up oxygen, making the area hypoxic and acidic. This causes vessels in the damaged area to constrict, reducing blood flow. However, the ways by which vessels respond to pH are not fully understood. Recently, the gene encoding a pH-sensing protein named PAC has been identified. PAC is an ion channel, forming a gated pore in cell membranes which opens in response to acidic pH and allows movement of chloride ions. Here we propose that PAC is important for vessels to respond to acidity. We will investigate this by measuring chloride currents in vascular cells, and by using a technique called myography which allows us to observe vessel constriction. We will apply these techniques to study channel structure, and explore potential drugs which target the channel. Overall, this will further our understanding of how blood vessels respond to pH. The long-term goal is enabling PAC to become a target for diseases of the lungs and other organs.

In the domain of Cybersecurity Research and innovation, European scientists hold pioneering positions in fields such as cryptography, formal methods, or secure components. Yet this excellence on focused domains does not translate into larger-scale, system-level advantages. Too often, scattered and small teams fall short of critical mass capabilities, despite demonstrating world-class talent and results. Europe’s strength is in its diversity, but that strength is only materialised if we cooperate, combine, and develop common lines of research. Given today’s societal challenges, this has become more than an advantage – an urgent necessity. Various approaches are being developed to enhance collaboration at many levels. Europe’s framework programs have sprung projects in cybersecurity over the past thirty years, encouraging international cooperation and funding support actions. More recently, the Cybersecurity PPP has brought together public institutions and industrial actors around common roadmaps and projects. While encouraging, these efforts have highlighted the need to break the mould, to step up investments and intensify coordination. The SPARTA proposal brings together a unique set of actors at the intersection of scientific excellence, technological innovation, and societal sciences in cybersecurity. Strongly guided by concrete and risky challenges, it will setup unique collaboration means, leading the way in building transformative capabilities and forming world-leading expertise centres. Through innovative governance, ambitious demonstration cases, and active community engagement, SPARTA aims at re-thinking the way cybersecurity research is performed in Europe across domains and expertise, from foundations to applications, in academia and industry.

Europe is at the beginning of a major transition to a low carbon economy and is experiencing substantial growth in the expansion of renewable energy generating capacity. However, parallel to this technological investment, many Member States are witnessing increasing levels of local opposition to individual projects, particularly for wind energy, which is now the cheapest form of energy generation. This has a range of consequences including increased deployment costs/delays, increased regulatory demands, reduced market support and highlights a major social challenge for the energy transition. In response to this, MISTRAL aims to nurture a new generation of researchers who can effectively evaluate the complexity of social acceptance issues facing the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure and propose innovative solutions in a variety of research, government and business contexts. It will do this by fostering a vibrant inter-disciplinary environment to change the way we understand and respond to declining social acceptance of renewable energy infrastructure and engage a wider range of inter-sectoral stakeholders to develop innovative solutions. MISTRAL will also provide an innovative training environment where young researchers can develop advanced skills in research and transferable skills, benefit form a range of diverse secondment experiences and debate current issues with some of the world leading researchers in the field, in order to develop advanced capacities for progressing Europe’s energy transition.

NannoChem aims to determine whether long-term changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) impact the coupled processes of photosynthesis and calcification within the coccolithophores, a key group of marine phytoplankton. Recent studies proposed that the availability of dissolved phase CO2 in the surface ocean is a primary control on coccolithophore cell size, calcification rates and evolution. If true, this has major implications for primary production in future high CO2 oceans. Here we propose to test these hypotheses by generating a unique set of multi-proxy records of coccolithophore chemistry, cell size and calcification over the past 10 million years. These records will come from an exceptional new late Miocene to modern sedimentary archive of unprecedented quality, recovered from the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean during the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 363 (Oct-Dec 2016; West Pacific Warm Pool). NannoChem will go beyond existing studies, and generate a new state-of-the-art, by: 1) generating the first direct record of coccolithophore carbon isotopic vital effects by comparison with planktonic foraminiferal estimates of the isotopic composition of surface ocean dissolved phase carbon; 2) generating the first long-term records of coccolithophore calcification across all main placolith-forming families; 3) constraining other potential controls on coccolithophore vital effects by generating paired records of cell growth conditions; and 4) working with Expedition 363 scientists to constrain the impact of long-term changes in cell physiology on organic biomarker (alkenone) estimates of Neogene atmospheric CO2 concentrations. NannoChem will deliver exceptional training and three-way knowledge transfer between the Experienced Researcher, the Host and Secondment Partner (Prof. Beaufort, CEREGE). This unique combination of specific skills and expertise is required to deliver NannoChem's ambitious and important research objectives.

Following the endorsement of the Deep Geothermal Implementation Plan (DG-IP) by the SET-Plan Steering Group, a Deep Geothermal Implementation Working Group (DG-IWG) is being established to advance the DG-IP, with the aim of reaching collectively the technology targets that will place Europe at the forefront of the next generation of low carbon technologies. The objective of this project proposal is to create a support unit for the DG-IWG to achieve its goals efficiently and productively. The support unit will have three main work streams, 1) to provide the DG-IWG with relevant information and data from the various stakeholder groups to support the decisionmaking process and the implementations actions of DG-IWG on required actions; 2) to promote and organise initiatives to mobilize growth of and implementation within the geothermal community, e.g.: workshops, brokerages, consortium building and exploitation of RD&I results; 3) provide a secretariat for the DG-IWG for assistance on administrative issues and synergies & strategy support. The consortium will push forward a broad mobilisation of the Geothermal community to implement the action in the IP. Furthermore the project will focus on the development of synergies and strategies. New ways will be explored to maximize the impact of knowledge, funding and market growth at european, national and regional scale. This aproach supports to creation of a durable and long-lasting R&I ecosystem in the different Member-Sates and regions. The partners will focus on a multi-actor, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach. As such the project will support the collaboration and networking among representatives of the triple helix (research, industry and government) at the regional and national level and with their counterparts from the Horizon 2020 Associated Countries.