Climate change is one of the most urgent problems facing mankind. Implementation of the Paris climate agreement relies on robust scientific evidence. Yet, the uncertainty of non-greenhouse gas forcing associated with aerosol-cloud interactions limits our constraints on climate sensitivity. Radically new ideas are required. While the majority of forcing estimates are model based, model uncertainties remain too large to achieve the required uncertainty reductions. The quantification of aerosol cloud climate interactions in Earth Observations is thus one of the major challenges of climate science. Progress has been hampered by the difficulty to disentangle aerosol effects on clouds and climate from their covariability with confounding factors, limitations in remote sensing, very low signal-to-noise ratios as well as computationally, due to the scale of the big (>100Tb) datasets and their heterogeneity. Such big data challenges are not unique to climate science but occur across a wide range of data science applications. Innovative techniques developed by the AI and machine learning community show huge potential but have not yet found their way into climate sciences – and climate scientists are currently not trained to capitalise on these advances. The central hypothesis of IMIRACLI is that merging machine learning and climate science will provide a breakthrough in the exploration of existing datasets, and hence advance our understanding of aerosol-cloud forcing and climate sensitivity. Its innovative training plan will match each ESR with supervisors from climate and data sciences as well as a non-academic advisor and secondment and provide them with state-of-the-art data and climate science training. Partners from the non-academic sector will be closely involved in each of the projects and provide training in a commercial context. This ETN will produce a new generation of climate data scientists, ideally trained for employment in the academic and commercial sectors.

<< Background >>In the EU-28, there are 17 million young people who are neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET). The 21st century, characterized by a fast-moving global economy, economic crisis, and many challenges of post-industrial society is considered a risk factor for the new generations to construct their future career paths, to school-to-work transition and social exclusion and marginalization. As the Eurostat (2021) shows, the NEET problem is urgent because its implications are two-fold: on a personal level, young are more likely and to suffer social exclusion; on a social level, they represent a considerable loss in terms of unused productive capacity and a high welfare payments cost.The psychological literature highlights that in this environment adolescents have difficulty thinking of their future: fear, insecurity, anxiety seems to replace the experiences of trust, security, and hope. In this scenario, it is important to support adolescents by promoting a positive vision of the future and to be proactive, stimulating the propensity to manage changes adaptively, with versatility, flexibility and enhancing hope and optimism for a meaningful future. NEFELE aims to impact at an upper level: through new teaching approaches for teachers, the project will promote a pedagogy that considers vocational and positive youth development. Acting on a teacher education level guarantee a relevant snowball effect (teachers and then adolescents). The actions of NEFELE focuses on Teacher Education: teachers are called upon to provide students with the support for developing skills and competences related to the transitions between different stages of education (high school-to-university) and/or school-to-work, promoting flexibility and adaptability, and a vision of the future that goes towards hope and optimism. NEFELE’s actions aim to tackle a crucial period for pupils future planning, i.e. middle school. Early adolescence (11-12 y.o.) is the active precursory engagement to develop initial career adaptabilities, concern about the future and confidence in future career choices. Following this rationale, it is strategic to impact on initial ITE and CPD. Being the teachers as scaffolders of adolescents’ career planning, it is urgent to train pre-service and in-service teachers of middle school, not adequately trained in this sense during university courses, to carry out this pedagogical need.<< Objectives >>NEFELE will model an innovative teaching methodologies for middle school teachers. Studies demonstrate the link between the role of teacher and adolescents career decision, but the teachers are not trained in HEI on these topics. NEFELE will impact on HEI courses through teachers in ITE courses and CPD who can impact on adolescentsNEFELE project fosters synergies between research and innovation in the field of education, supporting effective and innovative pedagogies and promoting new technologies as drivers of improvements in HE. The project aims to impact HE practices by improving innovative teacher methodologies for middle school teachers in supporting adolescents career construction’ based on Massive Open Online Courses, Tangible User Interfaces, and Open Educational Resources. MOOC will allow the implementation of the new learning methodology (first project result, PR1) impacting the pre-service and in-service teachers. Users will also be trained in the MOOC use (second project result) and in the game (NEFELE BOX, third project result) to be used in the middle school curricula, enhancing their digital skills. The game applies the TUI paradigm to enhance adolescents’ 21st-century career skills (e.g., curiosity, fantasy, creativity) and positive future orientation. Thus, the project aims to bridge the virtual environment of most game-based learning tools with the physical and tangible characteristics of real objects. TUIs paradigm presupposes the innovative aspect of the hybrid approach: digital and physical world at the same time. Finally, NEFELE tools will be shareable and usable in an open online repository (NEFELE PLATFORM, four project result). This platform will exploit the gamification principles, sharing OERs, and directly fostering digital skills. The actions contained in the NEFELE project are implemented to take positive and long-lasting effects through MOOCs, TUIs, and OERs in HEI courses. CONCRETE OBJECTIVES - Design an innovative methodological framework for enhancing Teacher Education courses in HEIs to teacher support in adolescents' career construction and producing guidelines and policy recommendation for enhancing HEI courses.- Design, implement and validate a training model in a MOOC based on the methodological framework for enhancing HEI courses.- Develop an authoring tool that allows the creation for the teachers of exercises and games as OERs for middle school pupils based on Tangible User Interfaces.- Develop a shared Platform based on a Gamification Approach to make the OERs. The platform also includes guidelines and recommendations to support career construction through enhancing HEI courses.- Promote and disseminate the project results at institutional, national, and EU levels by fostering a freely and easily adoption to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders.<< Implementation >>NEFELE project aims to reach the objectives with a 30-months project that involves 6 Partners from 5 different countries: Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Netherland.The project involves 4 higher education institutions, 1 company and 1 network of Universities in the field of distance education.NEFELE partnership includes:- UNINA (University of Naples) in Italy, the partner leader, that will bring its expertise in the in the areas of psychological and cognitive sciences, as well as in developed learning platforms and methodologies, including manipulative technologies, game-based learning, gamification and online courses.- UVEG (University of Valencia) in Spain which has a long tradition of Positive Psychology studies to promote well-being and health in adolescents.- HOU (Hellenic Open University) in Greece, which develops and maintenances online platforms and it is expert in the development and delivery of online courses and MOOCs- SUSPI (Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana) in Switzerland, which is recognized as a Teacher Training Professional University (centuries-old tradition) and provide its leading role in career guidance for adolescents.- SM (Smarted srl) in Italy, is a SME that will represent the technological branch of the NEFELE project bringing its expertise in applying technologies and innovative methodologies in education, included the paradigm of Tangible User Interfaces.- EADTU (European Association of Distance Teaching Universities) will bring to the Consortium its evaluation competences and an excellent network to reapply the NEFELE training course in different countries. EADTU is the leading institutional network for innovative online, open and flexible universities and is at the heart of the modernization agenda. These countries constitute a representative sample of Europe and can be replicated across other member states with the effort of the EADTU that is a network of 25 countries covering 200 universities.The project encompasses three main phases:Project investigation: the consortium wants to create an ad hoc, new, and innovative framework for teachers starting from Career Development Framework, Positive Youth Development Framework, and the TUIs Methodology. Specifically, the TUIs are natural candidates to lead a revamping of the classical psycho-pedagogical practices. These activities will be integrated and re-thinking to be useful strategies in teachers' hands. This first project result created a theoretical and methodological framework that be implemented in Teacher Education This prototype framework will be the input for the development of the MOOC, the NEFELE BOX, and the creation of OERs materials available on the NEFELE PLATFORM.ToolsDesign and creation of the tools usable by the teacher training. The consortium intends to create a MOOC through the definition of the Training Approach, and the syllabus based on the outcomes of the first project result.The second tool is the NEFELE BOX based on the TUIs paradigm. The final part of the MOOC will contain practical examples of the use of the NEFELE BOX. The tools will be presented in E6.PlatformCreation of the NEFELE PLATFORM to make the tools of the training model open, shareable and usable. Contents as OERs (produced by the Consortium and the participants during the co-design events) will be shared. The training model available on the Platform will be compliant with the norms of CPD programs and certification systems at stake in each country. The platform will make all the contents of the project shareable, guidelines and good practices for educational practitioners, policy recommendations, and allow the uploading of all contents to those who will use the NEFELE training model.<< Results >>Through the project results, the Consortium expects to enhance HE courses by providing innovation in Teaching Education. NEFELE (from ancient Greek, Νεφέλη) in Greek mythology is a nymph of the clouds. It is the name given to a magic cloud, which was modeled by Zeus guided by the appearance of Era. Providing adolescents with space to metaphorically look at and shape the clouds is meant to be a way to train their aspirations. Teachers can help pupils by developing these tasks. Thanks to its novel approach, the Partnership expects to achieve results at different levels and moments:SHORT-TERM- Sustainable training model for enhancing support adolescents’ career construction in middle school practice.- Enhancing teachers’ competences and digital skills by NEFELE training model. Co-design workshops (E2, E3, E4) are planned also to empower teachers’ digital skills through the implementation of the NEFELE box. Other teachers, teacher educators, and professionals in the field of education not involved in the events will have the possibility to learn these competences using the MOOC. Finally, users then add the OERs elements in the Platform to access digital creativity. Distance and blended learning needs are current topics in Teacher Education policy recommendations and curricula, not usually address appropriately.MEDIUM-TERM- Effect of the platform on other not directly involved in the project. We expect that the NEFELE PLATFORM is used by middle school teachers, educators, psychologists. It would be desirable that other people involved in adolescents' career choice can find inspiration from the OERs and then use, re-use, and adapt those resources.- Impact on adolescents. Teachers will use the new pedagogy in middle school classrooms, impacting adolescents. It will increase several 21st-century future-oriented skills (i.e., curiosity, fantasy, imagination, interests) enhancing career decision-making and future positive vision. The final goal is to bring adolescents to start “shaping their NEFELE”.- Use of NEFELE BOX in guidance practices. NEFELE dissemination and exploitation activities will boost the adoption of the BOX as a useful tool in the orientation practice of students in different settings (e.g., career guidance centers).LONG-TERM-Integration of the NEFELE model in HEI. The HEIs are expected to play a central role in the experience of integrating the project results into their policy and educational activities, internalizing it as a strategy and tools to integrate their activities. The open methodology of NEFELE is useful for this purpose.- Integration of the NEFELE training model in CPD programs. We expect that the open training (available on the NEFELE platform) and certified to users can be integrated into the curricula of in-service teachers and other professionals in the field of education.- Reducing NEET-rate. The pedagogical and technological approach has the final impact of reducing the NEET phenomenon, applying early prevention with actions on teacher education. We expect a long-term impact on career choices and transition points (i.e., from middle school to high school, from high school to university, school-to-work).

The iHERE project- Digital HEalth liteRacy Education for vulnerable groups - derives from the premises as set generally in a) the European Parliament reports and recommendations on the importance of providing healthcare to vulnerable groups, as health professionals report difficulties in communicating effectively with these populations about risk-taking behaviors and barriers to accessing information, b) the 'eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020' which identifies the lack of awareness of eHealth opportunities as one of the barriers to a wider uptake of eHealth solutions and, proposes activities support aiming at increasing citizens’ digital health literacy; what is important here is that ICT for health and wellbeing is becoming increasingly important to deliver top-quality care to all citizens currently living in EU.The project includes 8 partners (EhB, PROLEPSIS, RESET, UVEG, AKADEMIE KLAUSENHOF, TUCEP, XPCSA, CSI) from 6 European countries (Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus) and it targets disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups, such as immigrants & refugees, poor health and low income people, jobless and marginalized social groups under the risk of exclusion and/or experiencing poverty. These groups often face particular health challenges due to their lower socioeconomic status and lack of adequate social support, they are vulnerable to a number of threats to their physical and mental health, experiencing additional barriers such as the structure of the overall health care system, underdeveloped health literacy, absence or limitation of learning opportunities; their specific health needs are poorly understood, communication with health care providers remains poor, health systems are not prepared to respond adequately, access in health and other basic services is hard. Additionally, apart from legal restrictions on entitlements to health care, they may be particularly affected by user fees, as well as by impeded access to health insurance. In this context, the project addresses the objectives: a) to promote inclusive training by addressing diversity and reducing disparities for learners with disadvantaged backgrounds, through innovative integrated approach, b) to digitize the quality learning content and use ICT as a driver for systemic change to increase the quality and relevance of health care training of vulnerable groups; give access to education and digital training tools to those facing particular vulnerability due to educational, economic, cultural and social obstacles, c) to empower adult educators and particularly educators in the relative fields with innovative training tools and resources (such as curriculum, digital tools, methodological guidelines) concerning the adult education, the Health Literacy and Care, the vulnerable populations training and inclusive practices as well, d) to design and implement outputs and project products for the vulnerable groups concerning their training to face the challenges of Health Care and Literacy, the potential or/and existing barriers arising from the low level of health information, knowledge, practical access in health resources (human, institutions, etc), the health threats, e) to create and form tailored needs toolboxes/resources regarding the diversity and the synthesis of the participants profile, f) to establish the necessary context for a shift in the way the vulnerable groups should be addressed for their effective Health Care and Literacy, g) to provide the essential context in EU, for health promotion, health care & prosperity, wellbeing attitudes, EU security in health systems delivery. The activities include respective intellectual outputs, training/learning activities and multipliers events (National Seminars/Workshops, Final Conference) and the iHERE IOs comprise of the Curriculum and Resources Toolbox, the Digital Context and Components, the Methodological Framework Guidelines. The participants are adult trainers and lifelong educators, training centers leaders, health sector members, public bodies – social affairs representatives, public servants, policy makers, community leaders, community members, NGOs leaders, representatives, associations and organizations with the focus on the marginalized groups and mainly disadvantaged individuals experiencing poverty and/or inclusion, individuals belonging in the vulnerable social groups as the end-users. Last, concerning the overall local, regional, national & EU impact, it is expected that the eHealth empowerment of the vulnerable social groups will lead to a positive change and quality in their life and health conditions, to practical non-discrimination and inclusive strategies with good health factors and wellbeing; the project also sets the essential context in EU, for health promotion, health care & prosperity attitudes, EU security in health systems delivery.

There is a notable increase of cases of people with ASD and, accordingly, higher number of adults and elderly with ASD. So, there is an urgent need of disposing professionals with enough knowledge, skills and competences to provide a quality and efficient service to these persons and their families. In this regard, IPA+ project responds to these needs to better prepare different kind of professionals for competent care or attention in order to respond to the demands of this population. Thus, the project aims to strengthening skills of professionals working (presently or expected in the future) with people with autism through the development, at European level, of a course that will be based on basic and specific and real curricular requirements. So, the project entails the development, implementation, transfer and dissemination of an innovative training focused on a minimum package of theoretical contents, intervention strategies as well as professional competences and attitudes enabling professionals dispose a basic background to deal with autism in different labour settings. Moreover, the specific objectives of IPA+ are: - To know the curricular and training requirements of a course of this nature addressed to professionals working with people with ASD.- To define the basic knowledge and competences about autism that every professional must have for a competent and satisfactory care based on the research about curricular requirements.- To design a new training and work based learning for the development of competent professionals from different fields.- To implement this training in a sample of professionals in the different countries participating in the project.- To evaluate the quality of the course.- To make freely available all project outputs for potential users and stakeholders through the development of a toolkit.- To hold national and international conferences for disseminating the project outputs. - To establish a network of people working on ASD projects for knowledge exchange and co-creation.IPA+ involves 5 entities from 4 different countries: - Polibienestar Research Institute from the University of Valencia, Spain (coordinator of the project).- Autismo Burgos, Spain.- Portuguese Federation for Autism, Portugal.- Serbian Society of Autism, Serbia.- Autism Europe, Belgium.The coordinator is a research institute at a public university with a large know-how on ASD, research and methodologies. The three involved autism associations will be involved in the different activities in a close contact with our target users. And, an international association with strategic alliances with a large number of partners will be in charge of the project dissemination and evaluation.The project will begin with a research on curricular and training requirements for professionals in the field of ASD through a mixed methodology: review of the literature and the organisation of focus groups with relevant stakeholders. The results of this research will be crucial for the development of the subsequent phases of the project. Secondly, the curriculum will be developed on the basis of the curricular research and will be validated with experts through a Delphi study. Once the curriculum will be ready, partners will develop the associated learning units. Through a complementary learning activity, these learning units will be piloted among key persons from each partner organisation and also validated by the whole consortium. This learning activity will be very relevant to train the future trainers of the course which will be implemented in Spain, Portugal and Serbia by a blended format. Finally, the main findings and outputs developed in the project will be compiled in an attractive, useful and easy-to-use format through a Toolkit which will be available at the IPA+ website.IPA+ will deliver a research, a curriculum and associated learning units, a validated course and a toolkit for a wide kind of professionals working with people with ASD or interested in this labour sector. These outputs will be supported by a comprehensive and integrative assessment along the different activities framed in the project, as well as by a complete package of dissemination activities, such as multiplier events, a project website, eNewsletters, etc. So, IPA+ is expected mainly to:1. Raise awareness and increase knowledge of ASD for different profiles of professionals.2. Increase background, motivation, willingness and confidence of professionals to work with people with ASD. 3. Increase collaboration and cooperation between service providers in the field of autism and other organisations from different fields: education, healthcare, social services, etc.4. Generate a good practice at European level regarding training of professionals working with people with ASD agreed by experts from different countries.5. Create open-access resources and outputs for a wide and relevant audience of stakeholders.

The pandemic emphasised the need to accelerate the deployment and market uptake of digital health technologies, many of which were developed to contribute to the fight against the spread of COVID-19. This recent transformational innovation in Europe offers the opportunity to revolutionise the Health sector, which needs to adapt to the latest technological developments and become more digital and more sustainable. Providing an opportunity to university students and graduates to enhance the entrepreneurial, digital and green skills needed by a transformed healthcare sector is essential towards innovation. Health2Innovation aims to inspire, mentor, train and empower students and graduates, through the development and execution of a dedicated, standalone and hybrid training course focusing on the skills needed by a digitally transformed health sector.Health2Innovation brings together higher education institutions, incubators, vocational education training organisations, SMEs and tech experts from Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland and Romania to exchange knowledge and best practices, co-design and deliver a training course targeting students and/or graduates in Life Sciences, Medicine, Business, Engineering or ICT-related studies. The partnership will create a training course on the basis of each partner’s expertise knowledge and experience that will enhance learners’ understanding in key areas related to health, such as digital health, data literacy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biotechnology and circular economy, as well as their entrepreneurial, digital and green skills. The partnership will also develop a digital learning hub and a mobile app and it will also bring to life a Health Innovation Bootcamp and an Apprenticeship programme in innovative health clusters, namely the Medicon Valley in Denmark and Sweden and the Lille Northern France Health Cluster.