Project Ô intends to demonstrate approaches and technologies to drive an integrated and symbiotic use of water within a specific area, putting together the needs of different users and waste water producers, involving regulators, service providers, civil society, industry and agriculture. The project seeks to apply the pillars of integrated water management (IWM) as a model for “water planning” (akin to spatial planning) and to demonstrate low cost, modular technologies that can be easily retrofitted into any water management infrastructure at district/plant level, hence enabling even small communities and SMEs to implement virtuous practices. Technologies and planning instruments complement each other as the first make possible the second and the latter can provide as example or even prescribe the former (and similar technologies allowing virtuous water use practices). Indeed the technologies support the regulators in implementing policy instruments, as foreseen by IWM, for convincing stakeholders (like developers and industry) to implement water efficiency strategies and could include instruments for e.g. rewarding virtuous behaviours (for example: advantageous water tariffs), planning regulations that award planning consent more swiftly or even prescribe the use of water from alternative sources (including recycling). Project Ô has in summary the overall objective of providing stakeholders (everybody using or regulating the use of water in an area) with a toolkit that enables them to plan the use of and utilise the resource water whatever its history and provenance, obtaining significant energy savings in terms of avoided treatment of water and waste water and release of pressure (quantity abstracted and pollution released) over green water sources. This overall objective will be demonstrated in up to four sites each in different Countries of Europe and in Israel, involving industries, aquaculture and agriculture as well as local authorities of different sizes.

HYPOP aims to raise public awareness and trust towards hydrogen technologies and their systemic benefits, through: a) the preparation of guidelines and good practices that will help to define more effectively how citizens, consumers/end-users and stakeholders can be involved in the implementation of H2 technologies. b) the creation of a web platform collecting communication material, mainly videos, on new hydrogen technologies, developed according to the early findings of the public engagement activities. HYPOP is led by ENVI, an innovation accelerator for business with 20 years’ experience in the hydrogen sector. HYPOP is represented by a well-balanced Consortium representing 6 Countries: National Hydrogen Clusters (IT, B, PL, BG), three Research Organisations (IR, ES), an Agency for the Promotion of European Research (IT). Four guidelines will be developed: one more public oriented that will report on best practices to involve citizens, the other 3 collecting the results coming from the involvement of stakeholders’ groups (First Responders, Permitting Authorities, Certification Body). HYPOP will also contribute to the definition of indicators to be used for Social Life Cycle Assessment of hydrogen technologies, and for this will focus on 2 applications: residential and mobility, which will enter into the daily life of people. HYPOP will also be connected with some ongoing H2 projects characterised by demonstration activities in public spaces. Some of them have already been identified, i.e., Everywh2ere, Reflex, H2Ports, REMOTE: they are well known to the consortium partners and have faced some barriers often due to a lack of specific reference cases for the authorities called upon to grant safety and other permissions for the installation or use of the demonstrators. The HYPOP website aims to become the hosting site of similar videos explaining upcoming hydrogen technology currently under development and demonstration.

Trinity College Dublin has co-ordinated European Researchers’ Nights every year since 2013. Building on this rich experience of public engagement and researcher development, the START project team will once again coordinate an event across multiple partners and locations in 2024 and 2025. START will spark deeper, more impactful engagement with the public and bring researchers and citizens together in dialogue about the role research and research careers play in our everyday lives. Based on the idea Start Talking About Research Today, the START partners will create a project that will activate various sites around Ireland to highlight the fact that research happens everywhere and takes many forms. START will provide an opportunity for the general public and researchers to engage with each other in new ways. Through a combination of in-person and virtual activities, demonstrations, tours, talks and more, START will promote the idea that research is a living, fundamental part of our society that impacts on and involves everyone. START will work to achieve a number of specific goals: 1. Create new dialogues between researchers and the general public that will lead to a deeper, more profound and sustained engagement with each other; 2. Raise awareness of research and research careers as positive forces in our society; 3. Highlight the role of the European Union in supporting research and discovery. Public engagement and communications workshops will be offered to all MSCA-funded researchers in the first instance, as well as other participants in the events on the Night. A series of activities and showcases will be held across a variety of locations to raise awareness in the months preceding European Researchers’ Night. The START project group has a wealth of talent and experience in public engagement activities, including previous ERN events, and the project team will draw on this expertise to ensure that START 2024/25 is grounded in best practice.

EU – CIEMBLY addresses the need for the introduction of new forms of citizens’ participation and deliberation in EU political life and, particularly, an EU Citizens’ Assembly whose design and implementation fully addresses issues of intersectionality, inclusiveness, and equality. While there has been an admirable appetite to improve the landscape of participatory and deliberative democratic mechanisms at the EU level, this has not always been accompanied by adequate considerations of how to build these mechanisms to ensure avoidance of intersectional discrimination and the exclusion of vulnerable groups of citizens. In fact, the concept of ‘intersectionality’ within EU law has presented difficulties even without bringing into the picture the context of citizens’ democratic participation. The time is ripe to create a new participatory tool with intersectionality at the forefront. This project will provide the analytical framework and the prototype through which such a tool can be created in the form of a Citizens’ Assembly that can be established at the EU level and with features allowing for the transfer of a (modified) prototype to the national and local levels of EU Member States. To do this, the project moves from theorising to evaluating and finally piloting such a tool and concludes with recommendations. In this way, EU-CIEMBLY seeks to be the first project that uses an academic and theoretical understanding of issues of intersectionality, equality, and power relations in the design of an innovative and inclusive EU Citizens’ Assembly.

REMHub project proposal will create a cutting-edge digital innovation hub propelling EU excellence for Rare Earth Elements (REEs ) and magnets. REMHub will develop test and pilot novel technologies for exploration and primary production of rare earths and recovering rare earths from side streams to enhance supply security of REEs in EU. In addition, Re-X (Recycle, Reuse, refurbishment and repurposing) technologies for rare earths and valuable metals from end-of-life products as well as electric machine design for easier permanent magnet recycling will be developed. The project will also identify and engage relevant stakeholders for developing REE value chain in EU. In addition, in the innovation hub will ensure that the novel technologies developed in the project will be commercialized and offered as services in a digital platform. The project will also have dynamic communication and dissemination with the aim to involve and engage the public to develop trust and awareness related to REEs as well as to build capacity in EU. The hub targets transformative material sourcing for REEs and REE magnets, including traceability, digital twinning, and digital passport. The project partners cover the entire REE value chain starting from mineral exploration, through mineral processing and refining to metal production and magnet making as well as recycling. The project incorporates safe and sustainable by design framework (SSbD) including design for Re-X (recycling, re-use, refurbishment, repurposing) approach integrating easy dismantling and circularity properties. REMHub will significantly improve the supply security of REEs in the EU and with the digital innovation hub considerably accelerate the development of technologies and services to faster and easier market entry.