Manufacturing is among the key driving forces of the European economy and their engagement is a must to achieve Green Deal goals. greenSME project aims to drive manufacturing SME towards green, digital, and social sustainability. To achieve this main goal, the project will strength SME capacity for advanced technologies adoption to become competitive and climate neutral, maximising the benefits for all parts of society. This vision implies SMEs to develop a strategic approach to sustainability. The project vision, EU manufacturing industry sustainability shift, will be achieved through greenSME HUB which gathers sustainability awareness and industry engagement activities, ecosystem networking space and tailored advisory services to SMEs through the SME sustainability transformation pathway. ?The greenSME HUB will become a knowledge sharing area that gathers resources, activities, and stakeholders to enable the uptake of AT by SMEs for sustainability. ?SME sustainability transformation pathway. The pathway gathers the whole process of guidance that will be given to the SMEs for their shift towards sustainability. ?The SMEs that have developed a greenSME sustainability assessment will be eligible to apply for financial support. The project will dedicate a budget of 3 MEuros for supporting SMEs in the implementation of the sustainability strategy action plans greenSME project is firmly committed with open science policy, and project exploitable result will be shared and disseminated. Project main outcomes are: 1) EU manufacturing SME sustainability Roadmap, 2) greenSME HUB. A knowledge sharing community that gathers manufacturing ecosystem stakeholders and all the developed sustainability communication material within the project, 3) greenSME sustainability assessment tool and Advanced Sustainability Action plan (ASAP) definition methodologyand 4) SME Sustainable pathway and AT implementation good practices white book.

Increased introduction of digital technologies into manufacturing is leading to increased automation. Estimates indicate that the potential for automation in predictable physical work is at 33% followed by 22% in data collection and 11% in data processing. The increased globalisation in manufacturing also introduces requirements in terms of team work, intercultural and language capabilities, the need to deal with shorter production cycles, and changes in demographics requiring workers to stay active for longer. Europe faces considerable challenges in addressing future skills needs. From the perspective of the workforce the issues are increasingly complex where current training and educational solutions are discrete and lack interconnections and are largely dissociated from work activities. Growing gaps in knowledge and know-how make it increasingly challenging to adapt, work proactively and contribute to innovations. FIT4FoF aims at addressing a range of these issues by analysing current skills initiatives, better to understand how to address workers' needs, analysing technology trends across 6 industrial areas of robotics, additive manufacturing, mechatronics/machine automation, data analytics, cybersecurity and human machine interaction, to define new job profiles, which will inform education and training requirements. FIT4FoF will develop a new education and training framework, which places workers (women and men) at the centre of a co-design and development process that recognises and addresses their skills needs. By applying educational approaches based on Communities of Practice, FIT4FoF will empower workers to be drivers of the design, development and delivery of their own upskilling programmes. FIT4FoF will develop Alliances of Communities of Practice to broaden the approach across Europe, creating replication strategies enabling educational/training design and development practices to be transferred between regional communities across Europe.

E2DRIVER will develop a collaborative-cooperative training platform boosting the automotive supply industry collective intelligence on energy efficiency. The platform will provide access to training material, online lessons, guidelines, energy and financial tools, virtual reality modules and a community of key actors in the sector for SMEs to undergo energy audits and implement their recommendations. To this end, E2DRIVER training methodology will enable the development of specific training plan itineraries based on the company’s needs and trainees’ role in the company, which will increase the effectiveness of the training sessions and the awareness on energy issues among the staff. The development of E2DRIVER platform will not be a static action resulting from the project execution, but will enable a continuous update of the training material, best practices, benchmarking analysis and guidelines due to the implementation of an ontological flip teaching method, which enables trainees to generate their own knowledge and training materials to be shared through E2DRIVER cooperative networks. E2DRIVER platform will be tested and validated in 40 companies from the automotive supply industry in four countries that represent over 50% of the EU employees in this sector: Spain, France, Italy and Germany. Moreover, a total of 60 trainers will be certified in E2DRIVER training methodology, which will ease the replication of the project results and the business consolidation of E2DRIVER platform. E2DRIVER gender-balanced consortium includes three well-known research institutions with expertise in energy efficiency, social science and decision-making processes. In addition, a partner in charge of training at national level and an association as multiplier organization has been involved in every pilot country. Finally, this competitive consortium is complemented by two research oriented SMEs focussed on exploitation and dissemination issues.

In view of the fierce global competition, decision makers in Europe acknowledge challenges that the electronics industry faces. The launch of large-scale investments and support measures to drive innovation, such as ECSEL, PENTA, IPCEI, are an important step in strengthening this key sector of the economy. Europe needs to define long-term visions and strategies for the whole European electronics industry in order to keep its competitive edge and foster value creation. A major contribution is currently ongoing with the revision of the EC strategy on electronics, which will be taken into account in the proposed project. At the same time, digitisation of industry and society is a megatrend that urgently requires electronics as the hardware building blocks complementing and interacting with other areas like software, communications, computing, robotics and photonics. 5E will underpin digitisation, and support specifically the electronics industry in seizing opportunities by federating – not merging – the 3 European electronics ecosystems. Federation will be achieved by developing a joint vision based on the state of play and focusing on interfaces, as well as on opportunities for collaboration and cross-fertilisation. A technology and application meta-roadmap will be elaborated and implemented in the 3 electronics areas, in application sectors, in the areas of digitisation, as well as on the European and regional policy levels. Dedicated actions will further reinforce cooperation and outreach across Europe - in all relevant value chains, sectors, areas and target groups – and at the international level. Targeted actions reach out to EU projects, large industry, SMEs, start-ups, demand-side, users and wider public, and include a toolbox, digital library and showcase as well as a contest. 7 influential partners with deep technological and methodological expertise join forces and are supported by 37 Associated Partners (industry, demand-side, digitisation, regions).