Considering the diversity of the waterborne transport sector, its geographical scope, the international dimension and the challenges and opportunities upfront, LASTING will broaden engagement of the broader waterborne transport sector in European RD&I activities, by developing a communication strategy, and implementing a long-lasting communication campaign beyond the lifetime of this project, ultimately increasing, stakeholder engagement in the sector and thereby increasing impact of European waterborne transport RD&I. The communication strategy, and thereby the campaign will be based on clear KPI’s set at the starting point of LASTING, jointly developed with the relevant European Commission Services and the broader waterborne transport sector. The achievement of the KPI’s will be measured at fixed intervals, to ensure that the final communication strategy and the campaign will be fit-for-purpose and ready for roll-out. An essential element of the communication strategy will be the development of a plug-and-play system for participation in European, national or regional strategic maritime and/or inland waterway transport events. In the framework of LASTING, the plug-and-play system will be tested at a number of occasions, to ensure the system is fit-for-purpose. In addition, high quality dissemination materials (such as flyers and banners) and templates will be delivered. There will be a main focus on the use of digital tools for dissemination purposes, to ensure that the communication efforts of the waterborne transport community will easily follow the concept launched in the framework of LASTING. Finally, yet importantly, the Waterborne TP will take over the communication strategy and campaign after the lifetime of LASTING and will ensure a durable implementation of the concepts and materials developed in the framework of the project.

The Sentinel missions and Copernicus Services provide a global view of environmental parameters of prime importance for climate and environmental research. The accuracy and high spatial resolution of the data play a crucial role in representing physical, chemical and biological processes. Models can develop precise parametrisations of these processes and of their complex interactions. HiSea, combing measurements and models, has an enormous potential to improve the understanding of the coastal environment. HiSea services will deliver information, readily available and with high resolution to fit seamlessly user‘s operation and management requirements. HiSea will provide a co-designed service that offers high resolution water quality data at sea answering to specific questions from the targeted port and the aquaculture sectors. HiSea will develop, in operational mode, novel Copernicus-based downstream services that will incorporate Copernicus Marine, Land and Climate Services Products, local monitoring data, and advanced modelling in the service integrated representing an added value for the potential Copernicus data users. The downstream service includes among others early warning alerts, alarms to potential risks for the daily activities; real time crisis management to simulate mitigation actions to adverse effects; automatic reporting on the key performance indicators; standard datasets; and building knowledge data base of cause-effect relations (business intelligence). From the data storage to the processing using Docker containers, the HiSea platform will be fully compliant to cloud deployment, prepared to DIAS infrastructure. The immediate market uptake of the HiSea services by the targeted ports and aquaculture users is guaranteed. Linking to the market and experience of the partners to deliver similar services, HiSea has the capability to demonstrate the proposed services at regional or even global scale.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier with great potential for clean, efficient power in transport applications. Hydrogen can be obtained from different sources, which in combination with fuel cells it can improve energy efficiency especially when hydrogen is produced by renewable energy sources. The action proposed tries to introduce hydrogen as an alternative fuel in the port industry. The H2Ports project is an Action aligned with the needs and objectives of the European Commission and the port industry. The aim is to provide efficient solutions to facilitate a fast evolution from a fossil fuel based industry towards a low carbon and zero-emission sector. Hydrogen has been proved in other logistics and transportation sectors as a solution to power machinery and vehicles, therefore the action proposes different pilots to bridge the gap between prototypes and pre-commercial products: • The first prototype will comprise a reach stacker powered with hydrogen and tested under a real life trial, in a Port Container Terminal. • The second prototype will comprise a yard tractor equipped with a set of fuel cells. The design will enable the tractor to perform different operations like container horizontal transport or ro-ro loading/unloading operations. • The third prototype will comprise a mobile Hydrogen supply station, which will provide the needed fuel under the appropriate thermodynamic conditions for guaranteeing the continuous working cycles of the abovementioned equipment. The H2Ports project would also have a transversal objective that consists on developing a sustainable hydrogen supply chain at the port, coordinating all actors involved: customers, hydrogen producers, suppliers, etc. The expected results of the project are to test and validate hydrogen-powered solutions in the port-maritime industry, with the aim of having applicable and real solutions without affecting to port operations while producing zero local emissions.