<< Background >>Over the past few years, civil applications of Drones or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) technologies have been transitioning from purely industrial applications to commercial ones and their impact on transport operations can no longer be ignored. The concept of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) has been coined to describe a new type of air traffic at very low altitude over populated areas. Despite the readiness of the technology, the multidisciplinary employee teams of Local Authorities are not prepared for its integration in transport plans. There are no Training Programs for employees of Local Authorities to cultivate the required knowledge and skills to manage UAM, especially from the position of authorising, implementing and controlling UAM operations. Previous experience of Local Authorities with innovative transport services has indicated that early engagement and training of employees constitutes a key factor for the efficient integration of new technologies in transport systems.<< Objectives >>UAMschool4cities addresses in a timely manner this need and opportunity, aiming at the creation of a Training Programme for Local Authority employees to get familiar with the UAM concept and acquire necessary skills to deal with the uptake of UAM services following the recent approval of the U-Space (urban airspace) by the European Commission (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/664; effective from 26 January 2023) that allows the provision of drone services in urban environments. In order to foster employability, socio-educational and personal development, our curriculum will also be suitable for young Professionals not yet familiar with UAM. In particular, UAMschool4cities aims to create a MOOC program for building the capacity of future employees of any background interested in entering the Public Administration sector to enable them to (1) familiarize with UAM concepts and key technologies, (2) keep up with relevant UAM regulatory frameworks while determining the challenges and for Local Authorities (3) include UAM in their urban development agendas and (4) start developing responsible and socially acceptable UAM services for the benefit of their citizens.<< Implementation >>Our project will develop partnerships between Cities, Training Institutions, ICT, Drone companies and VET providers aiming at promoting and providing initial and/or continuing training to their staff in order to help people gain skills and effectively integrate these career pursuits into their work setting which is in line with the VET priority: Enhancing access to training and qualifications for all. To achieve this objective, a concrete methodology including the following activities will be applied:a) Conduction of a current needs’ analysis in skills mismatches in UAMb) Preparation of a Training Course for “UAM for Cities Certificate”.c) Development of a Training programme for ‘’UAM for Cities Certificate”.d) Implementation of the curricula to relevant personnel and certification.<< Results >>Through these activities, it is envisaged that, by the end of the project, people in a minimum of 10 cities will be trained and awarded an “UAM for Cities Certificate” By developing a new learning framework for “UAM experts”, the project´s impact will be achieved through:a) Enhanced employability through skills and competences strengthening and access to training and qualification on equal termsb) The establishment of a coherent methodology with specific tools that will enhance the provision of transport services covering emerging needsc) the establishment of a mechanism that will provide cities with skilled and qualified UAM experts, increasing standardization of servicesd) the design and delivery of a comprehensive framework for UAM experts to national and EU administrationse) A coherent multi-level dissemination strategy to reach target groups, ensure that project results´dissemination and sustainable, specific and measurable exploitation specific, while maximizing its reach and impact to relevant stakeholders and beneficiaries.

The main objective of NEWSREEL project is to improve such skills of a new generation of European journalists that are required in the present media fields to be a credible and stable factor of the European democratic public debate who can benefit from the digital information ecosystem in order to make complex public issues understandable. To achieve this objective, NEWSREEL will make innovative learning materials and teaching programs Europe-wide available. Furthermore the project aims to facilitate the efficient international cooperation between university-based journalists ecosystems to: a) develop critical understanding of the breadth, depth and scope of credible journalism; b) help journalists reporting more credible stories, based on the more precise information with the help of computer-assisted reporting or data journalism . Putting data in a visual form may reveal patterns and insights that weren’t identifiable otherwise. In this way, the audience can understand better complex issues; c) develop new business strategies and models of journalism.The technical and economic development brought significant risks for journalism as well. By the weakening of the traditional forms of the exploitation of media products and services, the stable financial fundamentals of high-quality journalism have more or less disappeared; the weaker the media market of a country is, the higher the risk for financial problems of quality journalism.; d) establish collaborative journalism. Transnational team-working is a key element in the field of collaborative journalism. European cross-border investigations can improve the transparency of the European political and economic decision making and the expenses of the European public money. Moreover, the increasing complexity of journalism projects makes necessary the cooperation between experts of several fields, such as journalists, data journalists, IT experts and designers; e) be able to handle ethical challenges of the digital public sphere. Journalists still should provide credible information on the public issues, but they have to compete with a mass of non-professional, often inaccurate information, and fight against aggressive communication against particular social groups or their own performance. To handle these challenges, journalists should embed robust ethical norms into their work. The methodology used in the project's implementation phase is based on the following 7 steps process: 1. Mapping the journalism education and the needs of the stakeholders, 2. Developing syllabuses in order to embed the skills and tools concerned into the programs of journalism studies, 3. Developing electronic learning materials and teaching methods to increase the necessary new journalism skills, 4. Having courses at the participating universities as a pilot teaching activity, 5. Publishing a teacher’s guide that summarizes the professional and methodological content of the project, 6. Developing student career profiles, 7. Organizing an international student competition that aims implementing cross-border investigative journalism projects with visualized. NEWSREEL will be implemented by - the Department for Communication and Media Studies of the University of Pécs which has a strong focus on the social impact of the journalism in the research and education activity; - the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Bucharest which has an academic offer, does research and develops activities in all the areas of the project; - ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon which has several post-graduation offers in the communication/journalism areas, and a specific one in Executive Media Management; - the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism, an affiliated institute of TU Dortmund which has participated in several transnational research projects. In the long run, NEWSREEL will contribute to - the extending the journalism education to the new fields of the digital public discussion, - the improving of high-quality journalism, - the strengthening of the common European democratic public sphere by improving the collaborative and cross-border journalism that is able to elaborate and make tangible the big amount of available data, and that is based on a predictable business strategy and a firm ethical foundation.

Many countries worldwide have ratified the Access to Benefit Sharing (ABS) of the Nagoya Protocol under the convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The ABS ultimately seeks to fulfil the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. The ABS encourages opportunities to exploit genetic resources, so that benefits can be shared equally and fairly between knowledge holders and industrial companies. India has since the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 granted over 1500 ABS applications; however the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has signed only 100 ABS agreements. While the ABS seem to pave the way forward to a win-win situation between the local communities and industrial companies, little is known of the impacts on local communities. The study will explore the ABS at a micro level for medicinal and aromatic plants exploited by corporations and their impact on the farmers, growers, and rural women. It will analyse 1) the factors that determine the attribution of benefits, 2) the short, long term impact of ABS on local communities, socio-economic conditions, social status, the retention of traditional knowledge, and resource sustainability, 3) and whether women access the ABS in a context mostly controlled by male panchayat. The results will influence other entrepreneurial models beyond the Indian case study, such as the cooperative model in Morocco which still struggles to implement the ABS and other European contexts where the ABS application remains unclear. The research will contribute to the current debate of the Access of Benefit Sharing, and its impacts at a local level. The Fellowship will deliver three publications, public outreach materials to avail this new field of enquiry to a wider academic and non-academic audience to resolve issues of social exclusion. It will open up perspectives of employment for the researcher in a European academic institution or a policy research institute.

Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, Europe continues to be a major destination for transnational migrants, notably from Asia and Africa. The way in which this phenomenon has been unfolding underlines the urgent need to further conceptualise transnational migration by analysing the decision-making of aspiring (re)migrants. This scholarly enterprise is critically important as mainstream migration theories put more of a focus on broader social processes and dynamics, thereby overlooking the human aspects of migration. Basing itself on several migration theories in various disciplines, this proposal adopts a framework that humanises research on (non-)migration decision-making, i.e. highlighting its human aspects in three ways: engendering, decolonising and situating the analysis in temporal, psychological, relational and social contexts. As a case study, this research project will examine the decision-making of aspiring (re)migrants from selected Southeast and East Asian countries (China, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam) to and within selected EU member countries (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Finland). These migrants are oriented towards the EU labour markets where they are concentrated in ethnic niches. Employing qualitative and participatory research methodologies, the study will map the extent to which spatial mobility policies at the EU and national levels take into account aspiring (re)migrants’ behaviour, identify the micro- and meso-level drivers of (re)migration aspiration and/or intention and determine the temporality of aspiring (re)migrants’ decision-making. The results of this project will provide concrete information as to how individuals’ migration decisions change over time and on the specific stage at which mobility policies are more likely to play a role in shaping migration outcomes, which will enhance EU migration policies.