„ScaleUp4Sustainability (S4S)“ combines two important demands called by European policy: 1) To address green entrepreneurship in higher education, this will contribute to the modernization of Europe’s higher education systems, and 2) to strengthen Europe’s capacity to innovate. S4S will increase innovation capacity by introducing new forms of student-business collaboration in developing, implementing and scaling-up eco-innovations and starting new green businesses. We refer to this activity as „green venturing“. With “green” we refer to the concept of a Green Economy and the notion of a triple bottom line.The project will focus on the collaboration of student teams and business partners in green venturing. This form of collaborative green venturing is embedded in Bachelor and Master programmes of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and is organized and coached by professors and teaching staff. Collaborative green venturing constitutes an innovative form of multidisciplinary, real problem-based interactive learning and entrepreneurship education. S4S will make use of existing initiatives and schemes for collaborative green venturing of involved universities from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.The objectives of the proposed project are: 1) To evaluate the outputs and outcomes of collaborative green venturing,2) to develop new, innovative approaches and tools to teaching and learning sustainable entrepreneurship and collaborative green venturing,3) to stimulate sustainable entrepreneurship and green venturing skills of students, teaching staff as well as company staff,4) to scale up and diffuse innovative approaches in collaborative green venturing at the involved HEIs and regions as well as across Europe, 5) to facilitate and boost the transnational exchange of knowledge with university-business collaboration in green venturing, and, 6) to disseminate good practices and knowledge in collaborative green venturing to provide a European added value.

AQUACOSM-plus advances European mesocosm-based aquatic RI by integrating the leading mesocosm infrastructures into a coherent, interdisciplinary, and interoperable network covering all ecoregions of Europe. AQUACOSM-plus widens the user base by extending TA provision (> 13000 person-days), and strengthening the offered services, with 10 new partners, including a NGO and doubling of SMEs. We initiate actions to increase competence in mesocosm science in new EU member states (Hungary and Romania), and emphasize training of young scientists through summer schools covering various disciplines including effective science communication. AQUACOSM-plus develops near-real-time Open Data flows and improved metadata, thus promoting Open Mesocosm Science in collaboration with leading EU-supported initiatives in the EOSC and fosters wider sharing of information, knowledge, and technologies across fields and between academia, industry, and policy makers/advisers. AQUACOSM-plus develops new technological capabilities for mesocosm research, to effectively execute scenario-testing for Climate Change -related pressures on aquatic systems from upstream fresh waters to the sea. These developments include mobile large-scale mesocosm approaches, leading-edge imaging technologies, and affordable methods to obtain high-frequency data on community change and greenhouse gas fluxes in mesocosm settings. AQUACOSM-plus will progress beyond current achievements by actively pursuing RI-RI collaboration with European environmental RIs (LTER, ICOS, DANUBIUS, JERICO) at all project activity levels (NA, JRA, TA). Multidisciplinary joint research, combining observational data and modelling approaches with targeted mesocosm experiments, is a key step towards successfully tackling current and future Grand Challenges. This involves shared capacity building via symposia, expert summits, and open workshops, with the aim of co-designing future aquatic research actions and their RI demands.

Controlling light- and matter excitations down to the microscopic scale is one major challenge in modern optics. Applications arising from this field, such as novel coherent- and quantum light sources have the potential to affect our daily life. One particularly appealing material platform in quantum physics consists of monolayer crystals. The most prominent species, graphene, however remains rather unappealing for photonic applications due to the lack of an electronic bandgap in its pristine form. Monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides and group III-VI compounds comprise such a direct bandgap, and additionally feature intriguing spinor properties, making them almost ideal candidates to study optics and excitonic effects in two-dimensional systems. unLiMIt-2D aims to establish these materials as a new platform in solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics. The targeted experiments will be based on thin layers embedded in high quality photonic heterostructures providing optical confinement. Firstly, I will exploit the combination of ultra-large exciton binding energies, giant absorption and unique spin properties of such materials to form microcavity exciton polaritons. These composite bosons provide the unique possibility to study coherent quantum fluids up to room temperature. Due to the possibility of fabricating such structures by relatively simple means, establishing bosonic condensation effects in atomic monolayers can lead to a paradigm shift in polaritonics. Secondly, I will study exciton localization in layered materials, with the perspective to establish a new generation of microcavity-based quantum light sources. Light-matter coupling effects will greatly improve the performance of such sources. I will investigate possibilities of tuning the spectral properties of these localizations via external electric and strain-fields, to gain position control and make use of them as sources of single, indistinguishable photons.

The Atmospheric Physics and Turbulence for Wind Energy (AptWind) Doctoral Network provides training for a new creative, entrepreneurial, innovative and resilient industry-oriented academic generation apt to face current and future challenges at the frontier of research within atmospheric flow physics and turbulence for wind energy applications, where the trained Doctoral Candidates (DCs) will be able to convert knowledge and ideas into new products, and services for economic and social benefit. The needs within this field recently became even more urgent by the launch of RePower EU and the Fit-for-55 package. There, the already ambitious climate goals were revised, and the Commission has committed to increasing its renewable energy target from 32% to 40% by 2030. This measure requires the installation of new wind farms with a power capacity of 30 000 MW every year until 2030, which heavily relies on the realization of taller, and therefore more powerful, wind turbine designs reaching into less well understood atmospheric flow regimes. AptWind will not only provide a new generation of professionals equipped with a portfolio of transferable skills that facilitates the transfer of high-level academic research into practical and useful tools and methods in the industry but also will contribute to breaking some major barriers for the ambitious green energy transition. The barriers are both in the domain of measurement technologies and modelling approaches as well as in the training domain as further described in this proposal.

<< Objectives >>Support children's mental health and wellbeing, build childrens's resilience in school-contextsRaise awareness and train school staff in mental health/mental illness, with a specific focus on young carersEquip school staff with the skills and confidence to address the topic of mental illness with pupilsDevelop a mindful, anti-bullying, and supportive school culture that promotes positive peer-to-peer relationshipsLink up the schools programme with local systems of support<< Implementation >>Deliver training to school staff in 3 EU countries (1 school per country): Berlin, region of Bremen / Rotenburg Germany; Barcelona, Reykjavik, ViennaPilot and roll-out the teaching/curriculum materials with pupils in classes 3-4. To support this, focus groups involving teachers and pupils will be set up in each schoolImplement a programme of culture-changing activities that promotes a safe and supportive environment in schools for all pupils, with built-in support for young carer<< Results >>School staff will have the skills and confidence to address the topic of mental illnessSchools will be better connected with local support networks, so that they can signpost children/families to available supportAll pupils will receive fundamental information about mental health, and will understand how to access additional support if they need itEach school will develop specific support for pupils who are impacted by the topics discussed e.g. young carers of parents with a mental illness