The Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME), a region with a population of about 400 million, is affected by dust storms, dryness, heat extremes, and unparalleled air pollution. The region has been identified as a climate change “hot spot”, with adverse impacts ranging from extreme weather events to poor air quality, expected to further exacerbate in the coming decades. To address these challenges, EMME-CARE proposes the establishment of a world-class research and innovation Centre focused on environmental challenges, via the upgrade of an existing regional Centre of excellence, the Atmosphere and Climate Division of the Cyprus Institute (CyI). The integrated program of EMME-CARE will address these issues through a combination of research, innovation and education. This will involve laboratory studies, instrument development, continuous comprehensive atmospheric observations, field experiments and computer modelling of the regional climate and atmospheric environment. EMME-CARE will combine national and regional proficiency with international expertise along with unique research infrastructure to foster sustainable development in the EMME, and reduce dependency on external knowhow and services. The programme focuses on greenhouse gases, the water cycle, extreme weather, atmospheric dust and air pollution. These environmental challenges represent an important horizontal priority in the Cyprus Smart Specialization Strategy, interconnected to other vertical priorities such as health, with strong links to the public and private sectors. EMME-CARE will make use of the strategic geographical location of Cyprus as a gateway between Europe and the Middle East, and will further excellence by building on a critical mass of top scientists and engineers, promoting innovation via regular exchanges of staff and students with strategic partners, regional networking, technology transfer, entrepreneurship and spinoffs.

The project Quantum Computing for Excellence in Science and Technology (QUEST) will create a research group in Quantum Computing (QC) at the Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) of The Cyprus Institute (CyI) under the leadership of the ERA chair Dr. Karl Jansen of the German Electron-Synchrotron (DESY), who is also the leader of the Center for Quantum Technology Applications (CQTA) at DESY. The ERA chair holder will establish a Quantum Computing Hub as a collaborative platform for exploiting QC for applications in science and technology in partnership with CQTA. He will recruit and mentor a senior researcher to lead the team beyond the project end, offer training and education for a new generation of scientists and engineers, and pursue collaborations with other local research teams and internationally, securing further funding for sustainable development. QUEST responds to the rapid developments that demonstrate the potential of QC for breakthroughs in science and technology and the lack of leadership and critical mass of researchers in Cyprus in this field. The project aims to make Cyprus "quantum ready", closing the gap that currently exists with advanced EU countries due to the absence of expertise and infrastructure in QC, thus aligning with the objectives of the widening program in general and the ERA chair action in particular. The objectives of QUEST also align and are made feasible by the role of CaSToRC as the national high-performance center of Cyprus, namely by the mission of the center to carry out computation-based interdisciplinary research, and spread knowledge and provide support to local researchers in using computing technologies for research and innovation. QUEST will allow Cyprus to take advantage of opportunities in QC at the European level, such as by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and the quantum technologies flagship program, which are presently not being fully exploited.

<< Background >>The concept of “urban health” and the role of urban design in the quality promotion of the cities’ living spaces has been present in the international debate for some decades, but only since the publication of the “New Urban Agenda” (WHO 2016), health has been defined as “one of the most effective markers of any city’s sustainable development”. These aspects are beginning to be highly debated on a scientific level, but have not yet been introduced into university education.Moreover, the pandemic emergency we are experiencing imposes even more compelling reflection on the relationship between health and the city, and on the role of university research and education to understand what the city of the future will and should be like.However, a gap between education, scientific research and professional practice hinders the achievement of a seamless collaboration among the different stakeholders involved in the urban regeneration of our cities.Therefore, CliCCHE aims at overcoming these gaps by- promoting a newer fully-integrated transdisciplinary educational methodology and adopting unconventional tools to deal with the effects of climate change on urban health and equity in teaching urban regeneration of European cities. Thanks to this project, EU universities and public administrations can train future experts able to plan interventions to limit climate change effects on health and equity in urban contexts.- implementing a quintuple helix among educational institutions, research centres, public administrations, civil society and citizens powered by the active contribution of students who are the pivotal engine of the helix being – already or in the future – recipient of the educational offer, citizens, future professionals and/or public officers, and even researchers by participating and flanking professor/teachers during the CliCCHE project.Experiences from the different countries (from the far east Cyprus to the far west Portugal, from small to large countries) will provide a wide range of differences in administrative, organizational and managerial systems. The partners of the consortium will hence represent a significant test bed for the development and testing of the solutions, which will result adaptable also to other European contexts. The CliCCHE consortium, composed by 5 European partners, covers different thematic areas (urban planning and urban design, environment, energy and climate change, urban health, public art, medical sciences) to build a network able to capitalize the work done independently by each partner and to work together on a shared Educational toolkit for health-oriented and climate-proof urban planning. The partnership is made up of:University of Camerino, applicant, with several international publications on urban regeneration and urban health; The Cyprus Institute, with consolidated expertise on climate modelling and forecast, scenario calculations and impact assessments and immersive virtual environments; University Institute of Lisbon ISCTE and specifically CIES -Iscte, with relevant expertise in research & teaching on applying urban ethnographic studies to different sciences; CNR IRIB has experimented an innovative assessment approach that combines urbanization and health, through specific greenness indicators; University of Belgrade, with original methodologies related to academic education in the domains of artistic design of public urban spaces.<< Objectives >>CliCCHE aims at developing and testing newer non-formal learning/teaching experiences that aim to stimulate students’ motivation, enhance their engagement and amplify their contribution to generate a participative environment. Interactive data visualization modalities (virtual, mixed and augmented reality), public art and urban simulation game explorations will be used to generate new learning opportunities and let the students and citizens acquire transferable skills such as complex and multi-disciplinary thinking coming from the nexus between urban planning, human health, environment protection, climate change impact, and knowledge of participatory processes. To this aim, the CliCCHE educational methodology and tools will be developed seamlessly with the contribution and the involvement of representative groups of citizens, professionals and public administrations.CliCCHE has been designed to achieve the following objectives:- allowing students to evaluate climate change effects on urban health and equity and so to identify and design appropriate adaptation strategies;- increasing the students' interest in the topic of urban regeneration through an innovative participatory process (urban simulation game);- innovating the teaching activities by applying a transdisciplinary approach, and involving citizens through immersive virtual environments, simulation games and public art;- promoting changes in the public administration (municipalities) and provide knowledge and tools, which could develop health-oriented, climate-proof urban plans and projects;- raising citizens' awareness of climate change effects on health in urban context and strengthen their role as co-designers of urban spaces.These non-formal learning tools will be adopted to identify and define climate change adaptation strategies at the urban scale.Since the produced educational methodology and tools will be finalized by a European consortium and integrated in its educational offer, it will be possible to transfer it in other EU countries.<< Implementation >>CliCCHE will be developed as follows:- Conduction of a Research on adaptation strategies against climate change to mitigate the impacts on human health in urban areas (R1); from the results of this research, a manuscript will be produced and submitted for publication to a relevant peer-reviewed scientific journal and a series of technical articles will be written by project partners to transfer results to different target groups (urban planners, architects, engineers, public authorities, student communities etc.);- Development of a transdisciplinary methodological framework for curriculum design (R2) that will be discussed in a training course for teachers and researchers (C1) and then presented to the relevant committees of the educational institutions of the consortium, and of an educational toolkit for healthy urban planning and urban participation (R3);- Testing and further development of R2 and R3 during a series of physical or on-line workshops with students at partner level, and final testing within a Joint Intensive Course (C2) involving 20 students.- Development of Guidelines on health practices oriented to climate change adaptation in urban planning (R4), aimed at scientifically evaluating the impacts of sound planning practices on human health and identifying within the methodology how to integrate health issues in urban planning and design teaching practices; from this guideline, a manuscript will be produced and submitted for publication to a relevant peer-reviewed scientific journal and a series of technical articles will be written by project partners to transfer results to different target groups (urban planners, architects, engineers, public authorities, student communities etc.).<< Results >>The impacts of the project will be many, and vary according to the target groups concerned.Universities and Research Institutes will organize courses and develop research lines focused on urban regeneration topics inspired by adaptation to climate change to provide urban health and discuss the possibility to incorporate the outcomes of the project in agreements with local authorities for the adoption of the CliCCHE methodology in urban regeneration projects.Students will increase their awareness on health issues, as the inspiring principle behind the regeneration of cities threatened by climate change. They will also acquire new competences from the transdisciplinary methodology built on the nexus urban planning, human health, environment protection, climate change impact, which will prepare them to professional practice. Furthermore, they will experience and contribute to a participatory process that will let them acquire skills useful to interact with society.Public administrations can increase their knowledge and awareness about the threats posed by climate change on urban health, acquire assessment methodologies and tools to incorporate these topics in their practice. In this manner, they will develop a conscious sense of responsibility related with climate-proof and healthy urban regeneration and be able to promote and health-oriented and climate-proof design of urban spaces.Other local stakeholder will understand how they can contribute and fit in a health-oriented and climate-proof urban regeneration process and develop, even, new services and solutions to, at the same time, face the challenge posed by climate change and contribute to a healthier urban environment.

The project Modelling and Simulation for Engineering Applications (SimEA) aims to consolidate and upgrade the Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) of the Cyprus Institute (CyI) by attracting and establishing a team of outstanding researchers, led by a Professor of international caliber to maximally utilize and upgrade the existing facilities and pursue a program of research excellence and innovation. The SimEA ERA Chair will expand the research portfolio of CaSToRC to include computation-based engineering adding the missing technology leadership, collaborate with other research groups in Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) and internationally, enrich the educational programs of CaSToRC and CyI and set the appropriate mechanisms to forge collaboration with industry. The alignment of these objectives with the Cyprus smart specialization strategy and European priorities in Energy, Health and Information Technologies provides previously untapped funding opportunities for CaSToRC that would help sustain the team beyond the lifetime of the project. CyI strongly supports the creation of the ERA Chair by pledging a tenured faculty position and a grant of 700,000 Euro for infrastructure upgrades to best serve the research and innovation programs of the project. The international character and interdisciplinary environment of CyI, its strong funding track record, the attractive remuneration, job security and infrastructure grant offered are key elements that conduce to attracting an ERA Chair of the highest international standing. In turn, such a scholar will build a vibrant research group, bring competitive funding and spearhead entrepreneurship and industrial collaboration consolidating CaSToRC as a hub for computational science and engineering in Cyprus and the EM in alignment with the center’s mission to help the nation transform to a knowledge-based economy and to act as a gateway for advanced computing between Europe and the EM region.

The overall objectives of the GRAVITATE project are to create a set of software tools that will allow archaeologists and curators to reconstruct shattered or broken cultural objects, to identify and re-unify parts of a cultural object that has been separated across collections and to recognise associations between cultural artefacts that will allow new knowledge and understanding of past societies to be inferred. The project involves, as partners, a world-renowned museum, an archaeology institute, and research partners working in the manipulation of 3-D objects, semantic analysis and ICT integration. The project is driven by the needs of the archaeological institutes, exemplified by a pertinent use case, the Salamis collection shared between Cyprus and the British Museum. Expertise in 3-D scanning from previous project experience enables the partners to embark on a programme of geometrical feature extraction and matching on the one hand, and semantic annotation and matching on the other. The integration of these approaches into a single decision support platform, with a full suite of visualisation tools will provide a unique resource for the cultural heritage research community. We anticipate that the insights to be gained from the use of these tools will lead to faster and more accurate reconstruction of cultural heritage objects for study and exhibition, to greater opportunities for reunification of objects between collections and greater insights into relationships between past societies which can be communicated as coherent narratives to the public through new forms of virtual and tangible displays, involving the reconstructed objects themselves as well as 3-D printed objects and digital visualisations.