Recent evidence of increasing accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics (MnP) in soils and groundwater raise severe concerns by agricultural and water industries, food manufacturers, regulators, environmental interest groups and citizens. Private and public sectors require detailed understanding of environmental and public health risks posed by MnP in soils and groundwater. The PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network creates supra-disciplinary intersectoral capacity for analysing the fate, transport and impacts of MnP in soils and groundwater to develop solutions for reducing their environmental and public health risks, supporting the EC’s circular plastic economy strategy. The central aim of the PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network is to deliver international scientific excellence through a holistic supra-disciplinary and inter-sectoral research and training network on solutions to the emerging crisis of MnP pollution in subsurface ecosystems in soils and groundwater, integrating knowledge across traditional discipline boundaries to benefit the public and private sectors. The supra-disciplinary research programme includes unique training opportunities for a cohort of 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) (plus one individually funded through ETHZ [CH] and three funded through UoB, RU and Polymateria [UKRI] as Associated Partners) in environmental and social science, ecotoxicology, soil science and aquatic ecology, analytical chemistry, agronomy, data science and numerical modelling as well as responsible innovation, method standardization for use in regulatory decision making and risk assessment. The integrated training programme will prepare DCs with skill sets that are urgently required in agricultural, water, chemical, and manufacturing industries, environmental and regulatory agencies, academia, and the public sector and includes training provision by key stakeholders that will directly benefit from the training in this network.

Cooling is the fastest-growing use of energy in buildings but is also one of the most critical blind spots in today’s energy debate. Rising demand for space cooling is putting enormous strain on electricity systems in many countries, as well as driving up emissions. Comparing to heat, power, and transport, cooling had long been under-represented in the EU energy policy until 2016 when the European Commission took the first step with the launch of its Heating and Cooling Strategy. The strategy identifies actions of ‘increasing the share of renewables’ and ‘reuse of energy waste from industry’ as two key areas for decarbonizing cooling to meet the EU’s climate goals by 2050. Accordingly, the targets are only achievable with fast development and deployment of new efficient and effective cooling technologies driven by either ‘renewable electricity/heat’ or waste heat. This CO-COOL RISE project assembles an international, interdisciplinary consortium from 12 research institutions and 5 industrial companies to collectively accelerate the cooling technology development and deployment, with complementary expertise/skills including composite solids, phase change materials (PCMs), complex fluids, process intensification (heat and mass transfer), cold thermal storage, refrigeration systems, as well as techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), marketing analysis, and entrepreneurship skills. Based on the innovation of composite solids (sorbents/PCMs) and fluids (PCMs and hydrate slurries) as well as related components and systems, the project aims to develop renewable/recoverable energy driven, storage-integrated cooling technologies which could offer energy resource-efficient and cost-effective solutions to meet end-users’ low carbon cooling demand.

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.