Critical minerals and elements are highly significant for Europe's economy, particularly within strategic sectors. However, the demand for new, often essential materials conflicts with the decreasing activity in primary raw material mining. As a result, there is an impending need to fulfil these demands within European borders, reducing reliance on third countries. This was recently reflected in the European Raw Materials Act as a clear necessity from the EU, being a potential solution the use of green and non-invasive technologies to recover and refine CRMs. Besides this, it is known that the reserves and productions of mineral resources in Slovakia are mainly located in Kosice region (46% Slovak geological reserves), thereby, enhanced networking and positioning activities between TUKE and the top-class leading research institutions are needed in order to close the still apparent research and innovation gap within the EU. Furthermore, TUKE is a distinguished mining university and serves as the primary reference centre within Slovakia, which will be boosted and reinforced in three main strategy lines through several learning tools and materials. These will be focused on: 1) exploration, recovery and mining monitoring exploitation, 2) capacity to drive sustainability, circularity and social assessment 3) Strengthening TUKE’s research management & coordination capacities, and administrative skills. The WIDEX implementation will include the creation of a new cluster in Central Europe, an excellent Virtual Centre, as well as a Stakeholder platform around the green and non-invasive technologies ecosystem, and a WIDEX’s WHITEBOOK based on the lessons learned.

In the face of a rapidly advancing digital healthcare terrain, the DTRIP4H project emerges as a momentous effort to revolutionize predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory health paradigms within the EU. Amid significant incidence of chronic conditions and cancer, there is a pressing need for a proactive shift in health strategies. Yet, the full potential of European research infrastructures (RIs) is curtailed by investment deficits, fragmentation, and the intricacies of data management. Digital Twin (DT) technology introduces a new age of precision by enabling sophisticated simulations and analyses of intricate biological processes. In DTRIP4H, we start a new initiative in Europe “decentralized health digital twin ecosystem consisting of RIs”. Using DTs, we aim to resolve critical challenges around data harmonization, equitable access, and stringent privacy safeguards. Incorporating technologies such as federated learning, Generative AI, and Virtual Reality (VR), the project aspires to create a decentralized digital twin environment (DDTE). This will empower both internal and external RI users, such as researchers, innovators, and SMEs, to craft DT applications that address specific scientific challenges, utilizing a blend of real-world and synthetic data in compliance with regulatory frameworks, i.e. GDPR. We will develop 7 innovative proof of concept thematic health-related Use cases fulfilling the needs of scientists, SMEs, and industrial end users, particularly in health topics related to cancer treatment, drug development, human environmental exposome, precision treatment for schizophrenia and personalized medicine through Artificial Intelligence (AI), AR/VR empowered DTs utilizing DDTE, while adhering to FAIR data principles. DTRIP4H adopts a human-centric methodology to elevate research efficacy, narrow the skills gap, and align with the objectives of the European Research Area (ERA) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Food security is a global challenge and is impacted by, rapidly compounding effects including climate change, supply chains, human labour shortages, driving the need for traceability, and technological innovation and automation to name a few. The latest important price increases of agricultural row products show the limitations of the available resources. Through this Joint Undertaking, the AGRARSENSE consortium of 57 partners (including 4 affiliates) plan to take agricultural technology and productivity to the next level, beyond the State-of-the-Art, by combining some of the most advanced organisational capabilities from across European industrial 16 Large Enterprises, 25 SMEs and 16 Research & Technology Organisations (RTOs), from 15 countries. The development of the most advanced sensory and autonomous agricultural capabilities requires a sophisticated governance structure, ensuring that all partners are aligned across Use Cases and Work Package deliveries. The AGRARSENSE consortium has one of the world’s leaders in Forestry automation, Komatsu, as Project Coordinator. The AGRARSENSE project goal of creating a holistic ecosystem of sensory and automated capabilities will further extend Europe’s lead in optimizing and securing agricultural value chains. To drive such an ambitious impact agenda, we have selected seven Use Cases which will, collectively, contribute to solving the challenges outlined. These Use Cases are Greenhouses (UC1), Vertical Farming (UC2), Precision Viticulture (UC3), Agri robotics (UC4), Autoforest (UC5), Organic Soils & Fertilizers (UC6) and Water (UC7). These Use Cases are fused together by the most advanced hardware, software and system integration technologies, which will drive new solutions for partners and the collective AGRARSENSE impacts at scale.

Complex environment and traffic conditions have major impact on the safety and operations of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). Weather affects not only the vehicle performance but also the roadway infrastructure, thereby increases the risk of collision and traffic scenarios variations. So far, most automated vehicles have been primarily trained and tested under optimal weather and road conditions with clear visibility. However, the systems will have to prove that they are equally reliable and accurate under any weather and road condition before they can see widespread acceptance and adoption. ROADVIEW integrates a complex in-vehicle system-of-systems able to perform advanced environment and traffic recognition and prediction and determine the appropriate course of action of a CAV in a real-world environment, including harsh weather conditions. ROADVIEW develops an embedded in-vehicle perception and decision-making system based on enhanced sensing, localisation, and improved object/person classification (including vulnerable road users). ROADVIEW ground-breaking innovations are grounded on a cost-effective multisensory setup, sensor noise modelling and filtering, collaborative perception, testing by simulation-assisted methods and integration and demonstration under different scenarios and weather conditions, reaching TRL 7 by the end of the project. ROADVIEW implements the co-programmed European Partnership “Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility” (CCAM) partnership by contributing to the development of a more powerful, fail-safe, resilient and weather-aware technologies. The consortium is a perfect combination of leading universities in the field and research institutes, high-tech SMEs, and strong industry leaders. Beyond their research excellence, the consortium members bring a unique portfolio of testing sites and testing infrastructure, ranging from hardware-testing facilities and rain and wind tunnels to test tracks north of the Arctic Circle.

ROSEWOOD is designed to develop regional networks that will connect actors of the wood mobilization value-chain from forest owners to relevant regional authorities but also forestry industry to cover and find answers to the main challenges in the field, especially the sustainability of the wood mobilization. Through the sharing of technological and non-technological innovations, best practice cases and RDI results, this multi-actor approach will close knowledge gaps and create new opportunities for economic partnerships between stakeholders and (inter)regional authorities. ROSEWOOD‘s focus on the transfer of know-how and information will enable and support foresters and regional authorities to exploit innovations and best-practices and facilitate the capture of grass root ideas for forestry development. ROSEWOOD will also provide practitioners with development skills (educational and entrepreneurial) and facilitate organizational innovations leading to novel exploitation chains through the development of a coaching methodology facilitating the uptake of new ideas and best practices. In addition, ROSEWOOD will explore the possible synergies between R&I investment and European Structural and Investment Funds to support the uptake of innovations within the value chain. These actions will contribute to an economically viable and sustainable development in forestry and in rural areas towards the enhancement of an EU Bioeconomy. ROSEWOOD‘s co-ordination and support actions will be implemented via Wood Mobilization Regional Hubs located within 4 communities across Europe providing greater opportunities for forestry to align its activities with local and regional development plans.