Although blended learning is an education program that is known and used in several domains, it was not yet used -and so very much innovative- in the forestry sector. During this project 21 forestry expert from ES, FR, Au, De and Be have been trained in developping innovative, interactive online learning materials. They have developted digital learning materials for professionals from the forestry sector. The developed digital training modules were combined into so-called “training lines” specifically developed for forestry professionals, covering subjects and expertise that they need today in order to stay on top of knowledge and expertise in their domain. Thanks to the participation of an agogic training expert in blended learning and specialized forestry training institutes (FTI) from different European countries, transnational exchange of expertise -which was necessary to reply to the specific training needs of forestry professionals- was possible.Before this project the participating FTI's mainly developed and transmitted expertise via classical teaching and handbooks. A part of the trainings included already sometimes basic online support (for example with introductory texts, background documents or by making available the presentations used during the training) via their websites. But with this project of Blended learning the European Forestry sector (EFS) has entered the world of blended and online learning. The developed digital learning materials, which are available in different digital formats were widely disseminated amoung the different networks of the participating Forestry partners within this project, in order to make an extensive implementation of online content into classical training schemes possible. Thanks to the experience of Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen, partners have been able to level up their basic online support into professional development of digital training materials on the one hand and online and blended teaching and learning on the other hand. As a result blended learning and teaching has became more commonly used and known in the EFS. This has increased the scope of forestry professionals that could be reached thanks to (partly) online exchange of knowledge. Throughout Europe, forestry professionals have specialties of their own, and innovative techniques arise at local level, specific to the country/terrain conditions/ … Despite the local differences, specific expertise is of high interest for forestry professionals elsewhere in Europe. The use of digital training materials facilitate now the exchange of expertise and the accessibility to knowledge within the sector and between professionals, not only on local or regional level but also on European level and beyond. Professionals are now aible to consult the digital content whenever they want, without traveling, avoiding important investment of money, time and traveling. Indirectly, the results of the BLEFT-project contributes to the greening of the professionalism of the EFS. In addition, professionals can now easily select the training modules replying to their specific need. So thanks to the use of blended learning, several barriers have been reduced. The partnership has developed digital learning materials in English and in the national language(s) in order to overcome language barriers.For an important part of the forestry professionals guidance was necessary in this foreseen digitalization of the trainings and training materials. The national networks of the partners have been used in order to reach the regular clients and well-known contacts of the sector. The existing relation of trust with the sector has facilitated the introduction of this innovative training method. The extended network including different types of actors from the sector all over Europe has spread the project results beyond the participating partners and countries.During the project, a public project website/page and partner networks and regular communication means were used in order to inform interested parties on the progress of the project. The developed project website, which is also published on the European Platform for Project Results, ensures that the developed training lines – consisting of several separate modules in different digital formats - will be publically and freely available, also after the project has ended. Also the guidelines and tutorials on how to create online content have been recorded and made publically available for any other interested party via this platform and via links on partner websites to this centralized platform.

SUPERB pursues the overall goal to create a lasting enabling environment for transformative change towards large-scale forest and forest landscape restoration, which empowers decision makers to take just and informed decisions for restoration of biodiversity, ecosystem services and carbon sequestration in a manner that minimises region specific trade-offs and maximises synergies between ecosystem services. SUPERB develops and synthesises a multidisciplinary, practical, and scientific restoration knowledge basis and makes it publicly available. In 12 large-scale demonstrators across Europe, we will showcase best practices responding to key forest restoration and adaptation challenges on some hundreds of hectares per demo and with the potential for immediate upscaling to over one million hectares in 10-15 years. For large scale restoration to be successful, many actors from different sectors and disciplines must behave synergistically and in a mutually reinforcing way. We will speed up transformative change and further upscaling through innovative stakeholder involvement across scales to ensure the favorability and uptake of the proposed approaches. A comprehensive multi-language online Forest Ecosystem Restoration Gateway will guide stakeholders to find answers to their restoration questions, advise them on how to deal with barriers and enablers and provide access to easily applicable and comprehensible tools and materials that support restoration, e.g., best practices for forest restoration or the development of scalability plans, a tree species selection application, an innovative funding guide, and much more. The Gateway will also host a restoration Marketplace, where market agents, e.g. potential funders and landowners, can agree on bids for restoration projects. SUPERB will boost and measure its impact through its extensive and systematically enlarged stakeholder communities and networks, to ensure the relevance of the project outputs and their positive uptake.

Globally, tourism sector is one of sectors the most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this and concurrent crisis such as the climate crisis, Ukraine-Russia war, energy, tourism sector is under great transformation. In 2021, tourism accounted for 6.1% of the global GDP contribution - compared to 10.3% in pre-COVID times, forecasting to return to 2019 levels only by 2025. Furthermore, in the last two years lockdowns and the energy crisis have heavily affected work-life, leisure, and recreational patterns of EU citizens, bringing significant changes to daily routines, new demands for sustainability and nature-based tourism. To face these problems and yield these new opportunities the sector needs to radically innovate, while keeping local communities and the environment at the core of its strategies. However, the sector lacks specific interdisciplinary and governance skills that generally refers to “sustainable tourism destination management” (STDM), while HEIs and VET are currently lacking training that foster the ability of young students, professionals, public officials to solve sustainability & innovation challenges. Therefore, WeNaTour aims to increase the capacity of HEIs, VETs and businesses to integrate research results, innovative practices, and digitalisation into a first-class educational offer to foster sustainable tourism and its principles while supporting the creation of new products and services on two emerging markets: (1) company welfare, and (2) nature-based tourism for health and well-being. It will do so by facilitating the co-creation of knowledge, developing high-quality multidisciplinary training among EU networks of HEIs, VET and businesses active in sustainable tourism. WeNaTour will actively work across Italy, Romania, Austria, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, while developing a wide international Alliance on Sustainable Tourism to replicate and exploit results and lead to sector transformation and long-lasting impacts.

This proposal SFS-03a-2014-aligned focuses to minimize the risk of introduction/impact of emerging pests threatening EU agriculture and forestry. The targets are: 1) Xylella fastidiosa and its vectors in olive, grapevine, citrus, stone fruit, ornamentals and landscape trees of high socio-economic importance; 2) ‘Ca. Liberibacter solanacearum’ and its vectors affecting a number of strategic crops such as potato, tomato and carrot; and 3) Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus (anomorph. Chalara fraxinea) and Phytophtora spp. seriously affecting broadleaf and conifer species in forest ecosystems. Targeted pests, their vectors and the host response will be explored using innovative approaches (NGS, transcriptomic). Diseases surveillance and epidemiology given by current methods will integrate improved survey protocols and remote sensing. Innovative IPM will include studies of microbiome to develop sustainable solutions in line with the EU plant health legislation. New knowledge gained with POnTE will result in an outcome-based pest prevention and management work plan to: a) implement area-wide pest risk assessments; b) prevent the entry and develop surveillance and early detection tools (diagnostic kits, lab-on-chip, new biomarkers); c) mitigate the spread and reduce the socio-economic impact; d) IPM based on disease resistance, disease-free seeds, cultural practices and physical environmentally-friendly treatments; e) support knowledge-based decision-making policies at EU level. The proposal fosters and promotes a multi-actor approach and transnational research collaborations among 25 Partners at the forefront of research in plant protection, agro-engineering and economics. It involves key industries/SMEs that develop diagnostic kits and services, agrochemical and seed companies, stakeholder groups. End-users will participate in the development of the project and immediately implement the practical solutions derived from the outcomes to solve these serious emerging diseases.