It is the key objective of the project CRISTAL (40 months) to increase the share of freight transport on inland water transport (IWT) by a minimum of 20% and to demonstrate on its three pilot sites (Italy, Poland and France) strategies to improve reliability by 80%. CRISTAL project will assure IWT capacity at 50% even during extreme weather events. Towards that CRISTAL will co-create, test and implement integrated, cooperative and innovative solutions in its three pilot partners’ areas identified in Italy, France and Poland. The project will include the aspects of technological innovation/development and digitalization; further advancement towards the Physical Internet, governance solution and business models, will be proposed while targeting sustainability and infrastructure resilience requirements.

Public services (as all others) are reaching the Digital Single Market (DSM). Secure and respectful electronic identity (eID) management is an important enabler for trust and confidence in the DSM. Emerging technologies can disrupt eID and have strong potential for empowering existing initiatives. In particular, IMPULSE focuses on 2 of the most promising and disruptive technologies nowadays: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain, and their contributions to and impacts on eID. IMPULSE will carry out a user-centric and multidisciplinary impact analysis on the integration of Blockchain and AI on eID in public services, evaluating benefits but also risks, costs and limitations, considering socio-economic, legal, ethical and operational impacts, together with framework conditions (like GDPR and eIDAS regulations, existing eID systems, and standards). IMPULSE will use a demand-driven co-creation process as the guide, including pilot-oriented operational experimentation and involving Digital Innovation Hubs. A set of 6 representative and innovative case studies in Denmark, Spain, Bulgaria, Iceland and Italy, led by public service partner, will provide a variety of cultural, operational, legal, procedural and social contexts for research. Two major outcomes will be produced: 1) Holistic AI and blockchain technology supporting GDPR-compliant eID to complement existing EU identity schemas, ensuring cross-border access and secure and adaptable requirements for actionable integration with other public service providers, and adoption by existing Trust Service Providers (TSP) to ensure marketability. 2) Actionable roadmaps (detailing pathways and good practices) for the adoption, escalation and sustainability of such advanced eID technologies by public services in the EU ecosystem, in different countries and at different levels (local, regional, national and cross-border), as well as recommendations for policy makers supporting political accountability and responsibility.

The twin green and digital transition is expected to bring benefits to all parts of EU society. However, for it to successfully happen, education, VET, and businesses in particular need to join forces. EU citizens are called to upskill and re-skill themselves in the domain of entrepreneurship, together with digital and green skills to be able to contribute with sustainable solutions to a stronger and more resilient Europe. Indeed, entrepreneurship is the key to enable this change. The EntreComp4Transition aims at developing new, innovative, multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning paving the way for the future “Green Transition Facilitator” by fostering an entrepreneurial mindset, facilitating co-creation and ensuring recognition of learning outcomes. It will rely on country clusters forging innovative alliances to support teachers, trainers, businesses and end users in the learning pathway. Activities include an in-depth analysis of skills gaps, the development a dual blended methodology with innovative learning content delivered via a MOOC in line with ECVET and EQAVET frameworks, pilot sessions, a mobility scheme, and the creation of open badges to support HE/VET and enable businesses to verify acquired competences. The project will also produce a sustainable AI-based tool to support companies in identifying skill gaps and raise their competitiveness. More than 30.000 stakeholders across the EU ranging from businesses, HEIs, VET providers, public authorities, civil society, and students will be involved and directly benefit from the project in the short-term and/or long-term. The project will produce 27 outputs, including high-quality insight reports, guidelines, and digital tools. Thanks to its well-defined governance at national level, the EntreComp4Transition project is designed to gather actors together in a strong alliance for innovation, the results of which will bring benefits to each of them, to different contexts and beyond in the long-term.

The “Once-Only” Principle Project (TOOP) explores and demonstrates the “once-only” principle through multiple sustainable pilots, using a federated architecture on a cross-border collaborative pan-European scale in order to identify drivers and barriers and to provide a basis for future implementations and wider use. Three pilots are implemented: (1) Cross-border e-Services for Business Mobility, (2) Updating Connected Company Data and (3) Online Ship and Crew Certificates. TOOP has the ambition to connect 59 information systems from 21 countries. The methodological approach of TOOP is based on an exploratory and agile pilot life-cycle approach to cross-border pilots, the planning and implementation of which is supported by the development of a generic federated architecture and building blocks, the identification and mitigation of barriers, including legal issues, and the evaluation of the results, with pro-active dissemination and sustainable exploitation of the results throughout the project. TOOP’s main technological innovation is a generic federated OOP architecture that supports the interconnection and interoperability of national registries at the EU level. The pilots planned are ambitious as they contain innovations and provide a basis for recommendations for future implementations and the wider use of the OOP. The project is an important learning environment for OOP in particular and European e-Government in general. The pilots are scalable and can be extended to all Member States in subsequent years. TOOP’s consortium of 51 organisations consists of 19 national administrations (or authorized thereby) from 19 different EU Member States and 2 Associated Countries. The public administrations provide effective piloting, research partners make sure that the key preconditions for effective piloting are met, and private entities support exploitation, all complementing each other in the whole range of activities and areas dealt with in TOOP.

EULEP is the European Learning Experience Platform that brings together 20 organisations from 8 countries, working together to make C-VET more attractive for lifelong learning, offer businesses new and tailor-made training modules that correspond to their skills needs in innovation oriented subjects (artificial intelligence, virtual reality and social innovation), establish or reinforce knowledge triangles at regional and national level thanks to the triangulation business - VET provider - European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH), embed VET in regional economic development strategies and reinforce its governance, putting it on a sustainable path.The project activities target directly VET providers, companies, potential VET learners from different horizons, EDIHs, public authorities and other stakeholders involved in the VET governance process or dealing with VET more widely.Some 500 companies take part in the different activities indicating their skills needs, evaluating and testing project outcomes. 24 VET trainers will be trained in 1 European Learning Academy, learning the 3 modules and training paths, and will in a second step train in total 240 VET trainers and 480 company employees/workers in their respective countries. 160 participants will join regional multiplier events, and a much higher number (tbc) will benefit from the information provided during the wide VET promotion campaigns. Regional VET Councils will draft 8 smart VET strategies and 8 action plans to put the project outcomes on a sustainable footing. 2 major project events will gather some 170 stakeholders.In total, 30 mostly electronic deliverables are foreseen. They include project management templates, tools and methodologies for training modules creation and teaching, recommendations for transnational VET modules development, a guidebook for SMEs, EDIH partnership MoUs, regional VET strategies and action plans and most importantly an online learning platform for VET providers.