A-AAgora aims to develop the implementable NbS (Nature based Solutions) through innovative governance structures and technological architecture. It targets to boost resilience to climate change and mitigating its impacts in coastal areas. It identifies synergies by promoting a deliberative process to complement other priority areas within the EC Mission - by setting a Community of Practice and developing a digital knowledge system. It develops NbS at three replicable demonstrators (Demo-PT, Demo-IE, Demo-NO), which can upscaled. The project seeks improved public engagement and enhanced decision-making processes at different political levels based on scientific knowledge and targeted social and economic awareness, using an EBM approach. It builds on the successful implementation of NbS at the Demo’s to which the necessary socio-technological tools will be produced as required for a realistic EBM planning cycle (up to TRL/SRL 7). The Living Lab concept will foster the exchange synergies at multiple scales between researchers and users, decision-makers and local communities, industry and SMEs. A-AAgora will demonstrate that restoration of aquatic ecosystems is possible at a large scale through reduction of pressures, EBM, and effective NbS including blue reforestation to boost coastal resilience to climate change impacts. As well, the A-AAgora will make the most of cross-Mission synergies, by targeting marine ecosystem restoration in coastal communities particularly vulnerable to the risks of sea level rise that urgently need to adapt to ensure their population and infrastructure are safe, climate-proof and weather-resilient. The design of innovative architecture, enabling interoperability with other systems and will also foster a more ‘digital ocean’.

CLAiR-City will apportion air pollution emissions and concentrations, carbon footprints and health outcomes by city citizens’ behaviour and day-to-day activities in order to make these challenges relevant to how people chose to live, behave and interact within their city environment. Through an innovative engagement and quantification toolkit, we will stimulate the public engagement necessary to allow citizens to define a range of future city scenarios for reducing their emissions to be used for supporting and informing the development of bespoke city policy packages out to 2050. Using six pilot cities/regions (Amsterdam, NL; Bristol, UK; Aveiro, PT; Liguria, IT; Ljubljana, SI; and Sosnowiec, PO), CLAiR-City will source apportion current emissions/concentrations and carbon emissions not only by technology but by citizens’ activities, behavior and practices. CLAiR-City will explore and evaluate current local, national and international policy and governance structures to better understand the immediate policy horizon and how that may impact on citizens and their city’s future. Then, working with the new methods of source apportionment to combine both baseline citizen and policy evidence, CLAiR-City will use innovative engagement methods such as Games, an App and Citizen Days to inform and empower citizens to understand the current challenges and then subsequently define their own visions of their city’s future based on how their want to live out to 2050. The impact of these citizen-led future city scenarios will analysed, to develop city specific policy packages in which the clean-air, low-carbon, healthy future, as democratically defined by the city citizens, is described and quantified. The results of the CLAiR-City process will be evaluated to provide policy lessons at city, national and EU levels. Additionally, the toolkit structure will be developed for all EU cities with more than 50,000 citizens establishing a basis to roll out the CLAiR-City process across Europe.

The Role of Universities in Innovation and Regional Development (RUNIN) is a European Training Network for Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) in the field of science and innovation studies. The aim of the network is to train researchers on how universities contribute to innovation and economic growth in their regions through research seeking to examine how universities fulfill their third mission in relation to regional industry and explore the range of university engagement with regional firms and institutions. The project operationalises the main research question of how universities can contribute to innovation and regional development through four main themes: People and Networks, Policies and Interventions, Places and Territories, and Practices and Governance. The aim of the training programme is to equip the next generation of researchers with the skills required to work across employment sectors, collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders and find the practical relevance of their specialist knowledge, in the process creating new knowledge on universities’ role in innovation and regional development. There is an increased focus on the instrumentalist position of universities as important drivers of regional development, and the aim of the training programme is therefore to equip a new generation of researchers who can work within this field in the academic world or as specialist policy makers at the regional, national or European level. The programme will capitalise on host institutions’ infrastructure, including supervision, methods training and quality assurance review systems. In addition, it will offer a comprehensive programme of learning through individual research projects, secondments, and eight targeted training events aimed at developing both research-specific and transferable skills.