Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as powerful tools for sustainable environmental monitoring, playing a vital role in comprehending the diverse effects of climate change on ecosystems. The integration of state of the art techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) with UAV technology has introduced innovative pathways for various environmental applications. However, their full potential remains to be explored. ACCELERATE proposes the development of a fertile inter-discipline and inter-sectoral ecosystem that aims to radically contribute towards enhancing UAV technology to enable the sustainable environmental management. The specific objectives of the project are to: a) Create a continuously updated ecosystem with UAV datasets suitable for environmental studies and climate change impact assessment, b) promote methodological advances in the field of UAVs technology, by exploiting the unique capabilities of those data with state-of-the-art techniques and c) establish clear guidelines and homogenized protocols for the characterization of the exploitation of UAVs in specific application domains. Experimental analysis will also be carried to showcase the practical use of the project outputs via four carefully selected and innovative Use Cases, that will serve as Key Performance Indicators of the project. ACCELERATE brings together enthusiastic staff from academia and industry via a series of carefully-designed secondments, establishing a unique fertile collaborative research and innovation environment to promote pioneering research in environmental and socioeconomic studies implementation within urban, natural and agricultural environments. A strong inter-sectoral experienced research team of 17 partners from 9 countries, of 8 academic and 8 industrial partners coming from Greece (2), Romania (3), Italy (2), Cyprus (1), United Kingdom (4), North Macedonia (1), France (1), Germany (1) and Portugal (1) constitute the project’s Consortium.

The continuous increase of the scope and the scale of the anthropogenic activities in which agriculture plays a significant role contributes to a rapid negative impact on the carbon cycle. The impact of agriculture on CO2 emissions will be further increased, considering that the world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 . EU has committed to mitigate the carbon footprint from agriculture as described in the CAP (Objective 4), the European Green Deal and its flagship strategies, the Farm to Fork and the Biodiversity strategies. The efficiency of these carbon footprint from agriculture strategies will be mainly determined by the synergy amongst all stakeholders (policy, industry, academia, civil society) in the quadruple helix within the place-based innovation ecosystems. The widening countries involved in this project, Cyprus, Greece and North Macedonia, as part of the Balkan-Mediterranean region, are heavily impacted by climate change. To achieve these targets an inter- and transdisciplinary approach is required to integrate the expertise and knowledge of all relevant stakeholders and a place-based perspective and design needs-based carbon farming solutions (practices and technologies) as well as strict policies to foster shifts towards a Climate-resilient Agriculture. The main objective of this project is to establish CARBONICA Excellence Hub by connecting the innovation ecosystems of Cyprus, Greece and North Macedonia, while enhancing their TRL as service providers, based on cutting-edge technologies (Earth Observation – EO; in situ data; digital agriculture etc.) in carbon farming. The main scope is to establish access to excellence to all relevant stakeholders in the QH of the WC, as well as strengthen regional innovation capacity guided by long-term joint R&I strategy in the carbon farming field.

The mission of EARTHONE is to address the pressing issue of preserving and enhancing Earth's natural terrestrial GHG sinks by understanding how different drivers, including socio-economic, demographic, and physical constraints affect GHG fluxes. The project adopts a unique and interdisciplinary approach, integrating state-of-the-art data-driven technology with regional context (with a special focus on the most vulnerable areas in south and Mediterranean Europe including Spain, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and North Macedonia) through living labs to offer effective multi-target solutions and guideline to all stakeholders in LULUCF topics.

B-FERST’s main objective is to integrate the valorisation of bio-wastes in agriculture management plans creating anew circular and bio-based value chains considering a bilateral interaction between farming and fertiliser sectors focused on a paradigm shift in the fertiliser value chain with 8 specialised fertilisers. Specialised nutrient mixes are required to achieve a more sustainable management of resources by tailor-made nutrient dosing adapted to farmer systems. The SUSTAINABILITY of B-FERST is based on the reuse of bio-waste to replace non-renewable, non-domestic and energy intensive raw materials: 1) Bio-based solid fertilisers including renewable sources of macronutrients (N,P,K) obtained from 3 by-products streams: i) ashes, as source of P & K from: Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP) (sewage sludges), & agri-food such as: slaughterhouse waste, olive & livestock wastes; ii) struvite as source of P & N from WWTP & agro waste (pig slurries), and; iii) compost as source of organic carbon compound, N, P & K from Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste) OFMSW, WWTP & agro waste (manure -livestock-). 2) Biostimulants for soil nutrient improvement from two approaches: selected microbiological strains as Microbial Plant Biostimulant (MPB) or Non-Microbial Plant Biostimulant (NMPB) from cardoon oil meal processing (agricultural by-products) and compost extracts. Bio-degradable coatings based on biopolymers will be used when MPB is added to the fertiliser products to protect the beneficial microorganisms and guaranty their performance. The VIABILITY is based on previous R&D from other RIA projects. The manufacturing process will be demonstrated at a demonstrative industrial scale. Then specialised fertilisers will be performed and validated in 5 crops tests (Spain, Italy, France, Poland and Ukraine) comparing their functionality to that of traditional fertilisers in terms of: sustainable sourcing, logistics, soil and growing conditions, reaching a TRL6

BACKGROUNDThe rapid evolution of technology brings a new challenge to the education system, and problems for the future, as agriculture not only requires agrarian engineers and IT professionals, but also the intersection of the two.Today, employers require workers-to-be to have the key competences that are necessary for employment, economic changes are happening very quickly, so students need to be prepared to be able to adjust to new areas, roles and even new jobs at any time. In response to this, lifelong learning is an essential for tomorrow’s workforce. Agriteach 4.0 project is intended to help with exactly this. AIMSWithin the Agriteach 4.0 project, a free online curriculum was developed in cooperation with Czech, English, Macedonian and Hungarian partners in 3 modules: Teaching agricultural informatics in agricultural vocational training for VET teachers and agricultural advisers and was tested in a pilot course.OUTPUTSO1 e-Competence Map of Agricultural workers for Agriculture 4.0O1 aimed to build a general state-of-art overview about the ICT uptake of agricultural companies in the target countries, the present level of Agriculture 4.0 relative to the EU trend, and about the offer and demand in the agricultural workforce with special focus on the digital competences of the workers. A survey was conducted among farmers. The main goal was to ascertain the level of knowledge about ICT tools and precision farming methods among the farmers and its level of utilization. In Hungary 64 and in Macedonia 11 representatives of agricultural enterprises took part in the survey.O2 Training needs of Teachers preparing students for Agriculture 4.0O2 provided detailed information about the supply side, i.e. how vocational education must meet the needs of demands for existing and future Agriculture 4.0 skills. In the survey 114 Hungarian and 44 Macedonian vocational teachers participated. The survey result shows that the vast majority of teachers have already heard of, but do not use, agricultural ICT tools and agriculture 4.0 and confirmed that the current curriculum does not include advanced knowledge of e-agriculture and related technologies, though that would be very important.O3 Syllabus and learning content for AgriTeach 4.0Based on the results of the survey a syllabus and learning content was elaborated. The authoring and review of all content was established a strong collaboration of the partnership. The contents was authored and reviewed in English, and translated into the national languages (HU, MK)• Module 1: Teaching in the 21th century • Module 2: European Strategies and Initiatives for E-Agriculture • Module 3: Digital Systems within Agriculture 4.0O4 AgriTeach 4.0 Learning Management SystemThe project implemented an e-learning system, based on the open source Moodle, where the curriculum is available in 3 languages (HU, MK, EN). This incorporates the functionalities of learning and content management. The completion of the modules is progressing at the pace of the pilot training, and the learning process is facilitated by tutors. The course contains the following elements:• course introduction• the aims of the modules• learning guide• curriculum• practice exercises• module assessment• forum• final assessmentWEB: http://moodle.agriteach.hu/O5 AgriTeach 4.0 further training program for VET teachersPilot training was launched with the participation of agricultural VET teachers in the two target countries. The training started with an information day, which introduces the planned training modules, scheduling and the online learning interface. The goal was to create an effective learning community. 51 Hungarian and 16 Macedonian teachers successfully completed the training.O6 Planning for valorization and sustainabilityThe aim of this IO is to ensure sustainability of the project in every partner country. i)Project produced a digital textbook based on the content developed during the project in three languages - EN, HU and MK. ii)The partnership elaborated a copyright agreement.iii) Every partner summarized experiences and benefits gained during the project and planed for the sustainability beyond the project lifetime.IMPACTIn Hungary, 63 participants took part in pilot training out of 22 VET schools and 20 teachers form 7 VET schools in Macedonia.The completed learning content is available on the Moodle interface and in the form of an electronic book. A survey was carried out for potential transferring of the project results which shows that the curriculum can be used in the VET, higher and adult education of the participating countries after the project duration. Galamb József Agricultural Vocational Secondary School starting from the school year 2020/2021, launches the specialization related to precision farming from the new OKJ, which is based on the curriculum prepared in the framework of the Agriteach 4.0 project.