The ECOMED project (Economies of the Mediterranean at the end of the Middle Ages, 1350-1500) brings together some 41 researchers from Spain, France, Italy and Greece, all of whom are specialized in the study of the Mediterranean worlds and are particularly interested in questions related to interculturality and the interconnection between different societies. It starts from the observation that there is a divergence between historiographies concerning Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, the former being based on a body of research on climate, the effects of the plague and the economic situation, which is still largely lacking for the Mediterranean area. The project considers the Mediterranean area as a unique space where the questions are posed in the same way. The heterogeneity of the documentary regime of the Byzantine, Muslim and Christian worlds has given rise to very different historiographies, although the problems encountered are similar: the presence and recurrence of the plague, the multiplication of famines and famines in a climate that had become unstable and tended to be wetter and colder at the beginning of the "Little Ice Age", the political instability manifested by incessant and devastating wars and state recompositions constitute facts that are common to the entire basin. The relevance of a divergence in the 15th century between the South and the North must be examined, as must the differences between East and West, while all the evidence also points to practices favouring interculturality between the Muslim and Christian worlds. The ECOMED project will study the environmental challenges encountered on both sides of the sea; agricultural and artisanal production; the use and circulation of raw materials and merchandises; the institutions and conflicts structuring the period and the area; and social mobility and growth.

Solar resource is the optimum renewable energy source to build a climate-neutral energy economy in Europe. However, it is under-exploited for producing heat and electricity, and even more for solar fuels. Today, the large needs for heat and electricity are covered by large-scale power plants delivering an energy vector or another, but not both. CONVERGY is a modular use of concentrated solar beams to produce electricity or heat when needed, considering real-time energy demand and their “selling price” for a given location, largely smoothing the main drawback of the renewable energy sources: its intermittency. It is also a single infrastructure for several energy vectors, a path towards energy production cost reduction and so a support for penetration of renewable energies in EU. The main objectives of CONVERGY are to: - Unlock the current technological bottleneck by developing concentrated photovoltaic receiver modules reaching efficiencies >43% at cell level and >41.9% at receiver level. - Demonstrate and validate at lab-scale (TRL4) the modular use of a single field of heliostats for both heat and electricity production. - Align modular production potential with solar resource to reach levelized cost of electricity of 0.08 €/kWh and roadmap where to implement solution. Main impacts will be to build a knowledge platform on modular use of solar resource that will contribute to save up to 600 tons carbon emission in 2030 and up to 20 Mt in 2050. Also, the project will provide a backbone for the use of energy in future scenarios, support the emergence of new business models where EU actors all along the value chain will be reinforced. The European scientific network from this proposal brings together 5 European partners including 1 University / 2 RTO for technology development, 2 industrials for demonstration and for technology integration and operation, and 1 non-European partner, worldwide leader of concentrated solar use, and ready to transfer knowledge towards partnership. It will provide the support to strengthen the network collaboration towards the setup, the submission and the acceptance of the European project Convergy to be submitted at the next H2020-LC-SC3-RES-1 call.

Agriculture is an important pressure on water resources and the relationship between water availability and food production is critical for a human population in continuous growth. The issue of water resources evolution is particularly acute in Mediterranean countries where irrigation can represent up to 80% of the consumptive uses of water. Developing and implementing practical measures and tools that support a more productive and sustainable management of scarce water resources is considered a priority at European level. IDEWA proposes the development of innovative irrigation management tools based on readily available multi-sensor remote sensing data that will allow monitoring: i) water use and drainage at the field and basin scale and ii) ecosystems impact. Although poorly known or quantified, drainage actually is a key water flux controlling both the soil salinity over irrigated areas and the stream flow through return flows. IDEWA thus aims to explicitly include the drainage in the representation of the water balance of the crop field to the basin, in order to link water productivity, water quality and ecosystems preservation issues, and to provide a decision support system for managing them jointly. We propose i) to focus on two representative case and well-monitored study areas in the Ebro (Spain) and Tensift (Morocco) basins where the remote sensing monitoring tools can be demonstrated at the field scale and ii) to extend the results in terms of irrigation, drainage, water balance closure, and ecosystems impact at the basin scale using multi-sensor remote sensing (soil moisture, evapotranspiration, vegetation water status and water quality) data extensively. Dialogue with local stakeholders (farmers, irrigation agencies, basin agencies) in the selected study areas will allow for developing strategies to optimize the irrigation efficiency in terms of not only the water productivity, but also the water quality and its impact on river flows and ecosystems.

Original Mediterranean agroecosystems were based on a combination of olives, vines and wheat grown in the same management units, basically consisting in agroforestry systems where the tree component was represented by olives and vines (Sanjuán & Migliorini, 2023). Such systems might inspire an agroecological transition including elements of innovation for increasing farm productivity while securing the capacity of agroecosystems to be indefinitely biodiverse. The general objective of RevAgroForMed is to contribute to the revitalization of the agroforestry systems in the Mediterranean Region with a view to enhancing its productivity while improving soil quality and increasing climate resilience, through research, innovation, and action in the field of agroecology, organic farming and precision agriculture techniques applied to agroforestry systems. We identify two strategies to improve agroforestry performance in combination with agroecology, organic farming and precision agriculture techniques: i) the first concerns traditional agroforestry systems, updating them with revitalizing agroecological practices like cover crops, mulching, diversified rotations, participatory genetic improvement methods, integration of animals and application of advanced certification systems dedicated to agroforestry; ii) the second strategy should integrate agroforestry practices with ecologically intensified organic, microorganic and precision farming techniques to promote the adoption of agroforestry as a structural diversification to boost ecological transition in agriculture. Research, innovation and action under the umbrella of RevAgroforMed will be developed by applying a living lab approach. The living lab model applied to agroforestry focuses on promoting sustainable farming practices that combine agriculture, livestock and forestry to improve agricultural productivity, biodiversity and environmental resilience. The structure of the living labs will consist of a 'lighthouse' farm, where the analysis of the solutions will focus, and a network of action and target farms, which will ensure the management of the innovation and its implementation at the end of the project. The impact of innovative agroforestry systems and technologies will be assessed in terms of land, energy, water, productivity, impacts on biodiversity, soil quality and environmental pollution, response to climate and macro-economic fluctuations of state variables, soil biodiversity in terms of microbiome and microarthropods. Multivariate statistics methods will be used to identify and describe local farm typologies and assess to what extent sustainability impacts of practices and innovation found on field and farm scale will reflect at landscape level. Based on such results, stakeholder awareness will be strengthened by i) carrying out workshops on application of in-field visual methods for soil quality assessment like use of weeds as bioindicators, earthworm sampling, spade test, penetration resistance, ii) application of digitization methods to map and trace trends of soil quality records, iii) developing in each AFLL networks of lighthouse and action farms hosting demonstration activities to boost the adoption of successful innovations while generating a sort of butterfly effect, and iv) a summer school aimed at sharing metagenomic technologies applied to the study of biodiversity for young researchers, including a round table discussion aimed at popularizing the topics covered during the school, involving farms and other stakeholders. RevAgroForMed aims to engage with the public contexts of different regions in the Mediterranean through policy briefs, gender action, certification of ecosystem services of agroforestry targeted to societal stakeholders, networking of farmers by digitalization of information on soil quality, new technical, and socio-economic business models proposed to the community.

Biodiversify aims to make the proof of concept that high species diversification (HSD) effectively provides ecosystem services in substitution for external inputs for improving agroecosystem sustainability and resilience. While these principles are well known, they are still little exploited in practice. Yet, HSD may increase food security and the health of farmers and ecosystems. Three production systems covering a large land use area and a wide gradient of pedo-climatic conditions of the Mediterranean region, farming systems and socio-economic contexts are considered: 1) arable cereal-based systems, 2) vineyards, and 3) olive-based systems. The project will consider conventional and traditional farming in rainfed and irrigated zones located in six countries (Algeria, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Tunisia). Biodiversify will organise a network of eight case studies that will define key questions to be addressed at the regional and farm levels. Solutions will be co-designed and co-evaluated through participatory workshops. A gradient of HSD solutions based on spatio-temporal species diversification will be analyzed using 1) legumes and neglected species in rotations, 2) multi-service cover crops during fallow period, 3) intercropping of cereal-legume mixtures for grain and forage, and 4) agroforestry for olive-based systems. Biodiversify will support a wider use of species and germplasm/cultivars, including traditional populations from the Mediterranean basin. Complementary approaches and methods including field experiments, knowledge synthesis and modelling will be used to design and assess current and HSD farming systems. Biodiversify will produce a portfolio of scientific and practical information for farmers and stakeholders to foster the adoption of HSD farming systems. It will also communicate towards the society and policy-makers to explain the benefits of developing a sustainable HSD agriculture to address current environmental and social challenges.