At first sight, privacy and strong identity seem inherently at odds. Indeed, if users are strongly identified during a transaction, then privacy is non-existent. Nevertheless, there exist mechanisms that can reconcile privacy and strong identity, either by trusting an online identity provider (IDP), or by using cryptographic mechanisms such as anonymous credentials. The former approach, made popular by technologies such as SAML, OpenID Connect, and Facebook Connect, has the disadvantage that the IDP forms a single point of failure in terms of privacy and security, because it can impersonate and track its users online. The latter approach has the disadvantage that users have to rely on trusted hardware such as smartcards to protect credentials from compromise and from illegitimate sharing. OLYMPUS will take a radically new approach offering the seamless user experience of online IDPs, but without their drawbacks. Namely, OLYMPUS will pioneer the concept of distributed oblivious identity management, where the role of the IDP is split over multiple authorities, so that no single authority can track or impersonate their users. By exploiting advanced techniques based on threshold cryptography, the OLYMPUS framework will let users maintain unlinkable identities with different service providers while using standard devices and a single password or biometric. By leveraging existing eID solutions to create a strong link to physical identities, and by integrating into existing frameworks to ease adoption by service providers, OLYMPUS will establish a secure and interoperable European identity management framework. Its practical feasibility and relevance will be demonstrated in two pilots. The first combines the framework with soft identity proofs to build a mobile driver license application that can be used for offline purchases of restricted goods. The second use case will leverage pseudonymous identification in the financial world to simplify online credit application

"The key objective of the TICRUZ consortium is to enhance capacity for international cooperation between universities in Latin America’s least developed regions and HEIs in EU countries, by facilitating transfer of knowledge and best practice in transparency and credit recognition. Furthermore it aims at promoting the exchange of knowhow and good practices among the partnership HEIs, thus creating IT’s tools in the management of mobility programmes as a part of a future internationalization strategy that may positively contribute to their development. This project will capitalize on the strengths of existing partnership, Erasmus Mundus CRUZ DEL SUR. It consists of 10 full member HEIs, targeting a total of 6 countries, 3 in Latin America: Honduras, Panama and Argentina; and 3 in Europe: Spain, Latvia and Portugal. Most of the Latin American HEIs (4 from 6) are situated in vulnerable areas (Less Developed Regions), into which the project intends to make a big impact. EU HEIs will play an extremely important role in the mobility implementation considering the experience gained during the last 30 years within the scope of Erasmus. The internationalization and modernisation of the Latin American HEI's for the comprehensive development constitutes the project backbone through the stenghthening of the International Relations Offices by means of training seminars focused on ""Academic Recognition"" and ""Informatics Tools for Mobility Management"". The transfer of know-how will be essential, in order to achieve a credit transfer system and to facilitate the study recognition in this Region. This project responds to the necessity of finding new and innovative solutions for the reinforcement of internationalization strategies of higher education institutions individually and potentially at national and regional level."

Aquaculture is one of five sectors in the EU's Blue Growth Strategy, aimed at harnessing untapped potential for food production and jobs whilst focusing on environmental sustainability. TAPAS addresses this challenge by supporting member states to establish a coherent and efficient regulatory framework aimed at sustainable growth. TAPAS will use a requirements analysis to evaluate existing regulatory and licensing frameworks across the EU, taking account of the range of production environments and specificities and emerging approaches such as offshore technologies, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, and integration with other sectors. We will propose new, flexible approaches to open methods of coordination, working to unified, common standards. TAPAS will also evaluate existing tools for economic assessment of aquaculture sustainability affecting sectoral growth. TAPAS will critically evaluate the capabilities and verification level of existing ecosystem planning tools and will develop new approaches for evaluation of carrying capacities, environmental impact and future risk. TAPAS will improve existing and develop new models for far- and near-field environmental assessment providing better monitoring, observation, forecasting and early warning technologies. The innovative methodologies and components emerging from TAPAS will be integrated in an Aquaculture Sustainability Toolbox complemented by a decision support system to support the development and implementation of coastal and marine spatial planning enabling less costly, more transparent and more efficient licensing. TAPAS partners will collaborate with key industry regulators and certifiers through case studies to ensure the acceptability and utility of project approach and outcomes. Training, dissemination and outreach activities will specifically target improvement of the image of European aquaculture and uptake of outputs by regulators, while promoting an integrated sustainable strategy for development.

The project HighTPSAFM (High throughput spectroscopy atomic force microscopy for the foot printing of bacteria and cellular organelle) intends to develop and implement high throughput and high resolution modes of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with spectroscopy-like capabilities and enhanced sensitivity to detect and identify heterogeneous compositional contrast. The aim is to develop the instrumentation in order to answer and elucidate mechanisms of timely questions in molecular and cell biology, i.e. related to the Histone Code Hypothesis and bacterial resistance. Unresolved requirements involve simultaneously be minimally invasive while providing high throughput, high resolution and spectroscopic capabilities, such as chemical identification, or footprinting in the case of bacteria, cells and other biological systems, with high sensitivity. The applicant has already gained international recognition for his achievements in the field and become an emerging scientist of note. The project further represents a significant advance in the applicants’ career by expanding it towards applications in the fields of biotechnology and complementary optical techniques. The project will establish the candidate, and collaborators, in the field by building a European interdisciplinary and international team of growing stature and recognition. The project includes the building of a competitive network of collaborators in Europe with partners that will jointly serve to support and systematically fulfil the objectives. The two year project will further provide sufficient experience to the candidate as an independent researcher while being supported by an international referent in nanotechnology with state of the art infrastructure and facilities at of the Universidad de Murcia UM (CIOyN, Spain) and at Linz (JKU, Austria) as secondment. These have proven experience in the development and translation of microscopy instrumentation and new acquisition and data processing techniques.