The UnSETTLE-NET project aims to bring together 4 international experts to submit a highly competitive proposal at the forthcoming ERC Synergy Grant 2019 (call will close late autumn 2018). The objective of the ERC Synergy Grants is to enable two to four Principal Investigators to work in synergy in order to jointly address ambitious research questions that could not be addressed by the individual Principal Investigators working alone. The UnSETTLE project will bring together partners with unique and complementary expertise to address a key problem in the field of chronic infections: how to train and boost innate immune cells to detect and eliminate stealth pathogens (viruses that establish latency, and intracellular bacteria that establish chronic infection)? Some pathogens have evolved multiple evasion strategies through co-existing evolution with their host to evade both innate and adaptive immunities, and then persist in their host by suppressing immune responses. These so-called stealth pathogens take refuge in a subcellular compartment and maintain undetectable replication levels to continue propagating in their host, all the while suppressing or thwarting host immunity. The aims of our synergy project are 1) to quantify and boost distress signals emitted by latently and chronically infected cells and 2) to understand the dysregulation of the immune system associated with latent and chronic infections. The UnSETTLE project will open up an entirely new and unconventional direction in the field of chronic infections, that will make a break with conventional approaches that seek to boost pathogen replication to trigger its detection, or to train acquired immunity to locate specific antigens. The key to the project is to boost sentinel innate immune cells to distinguish latently or chronically infected cells from self. The project already brings together 3 internationally-recognized Principal Investigators with unique and complementary expertise to address the ambitious project objectives: virology (HIV molecular virology, AIDS pathogenesis, endogenous retroelements, evolutionary virology), microbiology (intracellular bacteria, Coxiella, Brucella), innate immunity (innate signalling, intrinsic immunity, and innate immune cells), high-throughput screening of nuclear translocation events, endogenous peptides with antiviral activity. Our main goal is to include a fourth Principal Investigator expert in immunology and to prepare a solid and competitive version of the UnSETTLE proposal. The aim of the UnSETTLE-NET project will be (i) to identify the 4th PI, (ii) visit two key technical platforms for mass cytometry and animal facility, (iii) organise a workshop with all participants, and (iv) outsource the scientific editing of our proposal.

RobMoSys will coordinate the whole community’s best and consorted effort to build an open and sustainable, agile and multi-domain European robotics software ecosystem. RobMoSys envisions an integration approach built on-top-of, or rather around, the current code-centric robotic platforms, by means of the systematic application of model-driven methods and tools that explicitly focus on (system-of-) system integration. As proven in many other engineering domains, model-driven approaches are the most suitable approach to manage integration that is intended to be “all-inclusive” with respect to technologies and stakeholder groups. RobMoSys will enable the management of the interfaces between different roles (robotics expert, domain expert, component supplier, system integrator, installation and deployment, operation) and separated concerns in an efficient and systematic way by making the step change to a set of fully model-driven methods and tools for engineering robotics systems. RobMoSys will drive the non-competitive part of building the eco-system aiming at turning community involvement into active support for an ecosystem of professional quality and scope. It will provide, based on broad involvement via two Open Calls, important concretizations for many of the common robot functionalities (sensing, planning, control in the broad sense). It will fulfill two complementary missions: (1) establish a common methodology enabling a composition-oriented approach to address complexity in robotics and face the integration burden caused by type diversity, target diversity and platform diversity; (2) stimulate and boost an ecosystem of methodology-based toolchains that supports the interaction of separated roles. RobMoSys is designed for widest inclusion - from the very beginning and throughout the overall course of the project - of the expertise and body of knowledge of the robotics community and of related relevant technology and application domains (Tier-1 concept).

SERENDI-PV proposes innovations towards two main pillars: (1) increased lifetime, reliability, performance and profitability of PV generation; (2) utility-friendly high-penetration of the PV generation in the grids with improved stability, smart communication between stakeholders and increased knowledge of the PV fleet management. SERENDI-PV will develop advanced PV modelling, simulation and design tools, monitoring data analytics for fault diagnostic and improved O&M, as well as lab and field testing Quality Control (QC) equipment and procedures for better assessment of the reliability of PV components and systems. The innovations will be developed with particular attention to the new PV applications that are becoming increasingly relevant on the market, such as bifacial PV, floating PV and BIPV. SERENDI-PV will pave the way towards higher PV penetration through a better understanding of the PV installed capacity, smart digital models for energy and services communication exchange between system stakeholders, the development of mid-term, short-term forecasting, and nowcasting for PV system aggregations, new business models for PV added revenue, and the creation of a collaborative platform for modelling, data analytics, QC, databases and grid integration. The solutions will be developed on the data from nearly 500,000 PV installations monitored within the consortium, representing a wide range of system sizes and typologies, including large ground-mounted PV plants, mid-size commercial and industrial PV systems, and small-scale rooftop residential PV systems. The results will be achieved through an interdisciplinary approach combining the complementary expertise of the 19 different partners that take part in the consortium and that represent all the relevant stakeholders concerned by the topic of this project. The project will include several key demonstration activities in the operational environment corresponding to each one of the key innovations proposed

The overarching aim of the EURYDICE project is to increase students' employability in the field of renewable energies, on the basis of closer collaboration between university and industry. Industry often complains that practical experience of the graduates is missing. This lack can be found on all the layers of the education system in South Africa: vocational training, diploma studies, bachelor and master degrees as well as doctoral studies.Within this project we focus on renewable energies with the overall goal to enhance employability. The energy generation landscape in South Africa is undergoing a fundamental transition, as the vision of the energy strategy is to contribute to an affordable energy for all. Closing the gap between TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training Colleges) studies and diploma study by the definition of industrial experience requirements for University of Technology (UoT) diploma students. This leads to an increased preparedness and “studyability” of UoT diploma students. Industrial stakeholders will be integrated into the process. The project will develop an “Industrial Portal” as working tool. Increasing industrial experience in UoT bachelor education by the integration of practical experience into the curriculum. Within the project offered Fast-Track Acceleration program for graduates, enables students for a fast employment or starting a new enterprise in the field. To increase industry cooperation in post graduate education “OpenLabs” and “MobileLabs” are developed within the project. It is intended that industry brings industrial problems into the “Labs”, which will then be solved by the students.Workshops and summer schools guarantee that best-practices in defining and implementing the measures are being used, that input of all relevant stakeholders (i.e. South African students) is been taken into account.