The BioMedical Research and Innovation (R&I) sector is characterised by specific challenges, emphasising the need for intersectional gender equality interventions with the potential to benefit health and wellbeing in society. The INCLUDE project drives institutional change towards gender equality and inclusiveness by co-designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative measures to advance Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) within seven public BioMedical Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and one private Research and Technology Organization (RTO) using intersectional and intersectoral approaches. A geographically inclusive consortium covers 2 EU Member States and 6 Widening countries, in Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western Europe, with more and less advanced policy frameworks. INCLUDE conducts a comprehensive analysis of GEPs and data collection practices already in place, identifying areas for improvement and potential challenges. The analysis, alongside a mapping of good practices and tools, and the identification of the competencies and learning needs of implementing partners, will inform the co-design of inclusive GEP pilot actions to improve intersectional gender equality. Substantial operationalization of intersectionality is enshrined in the consortium composition comprising scholars and activists who possess significant knowledge, expertise, and specialised tools for implementing an intersectional approach. Tailored training programs and collaborative learning initiatives, the establishment of thematic hubs, a mentoring scheme, and study visits will ensure that internal capacities are fostered, and knowledge sharing is promoted. INCLUDE places emphasis on the long-term sustainability of an intersectional approach to GEPs through the elaboration of detailed sustainability plans and the strengthening of partnerships with the local innovation ecosystems, while promoting and multiplying networking efforts through the INCLUDE toolkit, CoP and Manifesto.

The main objective of the iART project is to bring visual art into bespoke clothing so as to make apparel products more valuable compared to other garments in the market and to support artists to exploit their work. To reach this objective a set of innovative ICT solutions has to be developed first. This new approach will also change the business relationship along the conception and design phase in the clothing sector from B2B to B2C, where the artist and the consumer will connect through enabling platforms like iArt. iArt will be built upon an existing B2C webshop for bespoke shirts Bivolino.com. In particular, the specific ICT developments of the project are: 1. Upgrade the configuration toolkit from 2.5D to 2.5D/3D by including shadowing and rotating features without the need of plug-ins and ease the extension of the catalog to clothing accessories and nightwear fitting with the shirts. 2. Move to real-time online rendering (fabric draping), so as to speed up and increase the flexibility of the whole process from artist design over fabric creation to customized bespoke shirts and other garments (fabric rendering on 2.5D/3D clothing configurator). 3. Build a B2C platform enabling co-creation and user generated art content. Develop an Advanced Artist Interface (AAI) with artist cockpit. Implement an advanced user interface to allow easy 2.5D/3D viewing in many other platforms through open API. iART is expected to create extra revenues for Artist’s micro SMEs. The European Fashion and Clothing industry SMEs take up ICT enabling innovative supply-chains to generate more revenues through high-margin made-to-order collections which cannot be imported from mass production countries. Finally ICT providers are stimulated to offer innovative tools generating business and turnover. As this sustainable business model is supported by easily accessible advanced ICT tools (through open API’s) it will be replicable and so has the potential to create a wide impact.

<< Background >>The present market needs, and those that are envisioned for the coming future, of the nuclear sector for qualified nuclear engineers, technologists, radiation protection officers (RPO) and radiation protection experts (RPE) are enormous. Just think, e.g., of the number of nuclear reactors that are or will soon be in shutdown in Europe. Large decommissioning projects and waste management plans demand an interdisciplinary team of workers to prove successful, keeping into consideration financial, technological, management and human aspects. Many current workers will have to be retrained on the work floorRecently the corona pandemic enhanced and forced the digitalization of education. The learning activities need to be more advanced and diverse. Therefore, the proposed ones - online collaborative learning, virtual reality, serious gaming, remote teaching, online organisation of group activities and evaluations, training digital skills for all educators (lifelong learning) - meet this education need. All students and professors are longing for going back to ‘normal’ and our partnership believes that the ‘new normal’ could integrate the best of in-person and e-learning approach by blending and optimizing E-activities with the interactive ‘classroom’ activities. However, this needs to be built on good and relevant scenarios tuned for each new kind of E-activity. In fact, special non-common knowledge cannot efficiently be shared or transferred outside of an interactive ‘classroom’ environment. Moreover, the development of most soft skills as well as specialized technical skills needs interaction and a role-playing environment. Combining all these skills in a blended approach integrating interactive digital learning activities and dedicated face2face training is challenging. Making proper decisions in difficult situations like in complex surrounding of a nuclear decommissioning site, contaminated legacy site or a nuclear medical center cannot be learned just by the usual remote teaching: streaming and recording of classes; a blend of expert advice, virtual reality and real experience is important to gain these competences and to prepare the students for their professional challenges.<< Objectives >>The goal of the strategic partnership is to increase the knowledge sharing in radiation protection and safe use of radiation sources across the European countries. To achieve this, the project aims at improving the blended learning activities with new innovative educational approaches that enable and stimulate collaboration and can adapt quickly to current difficult circumstances using E- and M-learning combined with a safe offering of practices. However, special attention is needed for the development of the soft skills using digital education not only from the point of view of competences but also for the wellbeing of the students. Bearing in mind this aspect, the current project aims to develop blended and remote teaching approaches in the form of educational collaborative games that are embedded in a strong learning environment.<< Implementation >>The project is divided in three different phases:(1) The first phase is dedicated to the training and exchange of good practices related to digital, virtual training tools between the educational staff. The result of this phase is the acquisition of the needed knowledge to reach the expected project results. A first meeting will bring together teaching staff members who will coach the student in the establishing of collaboration oriented VR tools. The result will be written in the R1 final report (toolkit).(2) The second phase will be dedicated to the writing of the VR and Escape game scenarios and the initial testing of their applicability. This will include virtual and real mobilities to bring students together to evaluate the different actions involved in each process related to the scenario. . The VR-tool is connected to real live actions (sampling, measurements,etc.) since practical skills can only be properly acquired in this way. The real mobility will be organized by one of the partners allowing the possibility to use specific devices and test partly or entirely the application of the newly developed VR-tool. This phase will end with the mid-term transnational meeting and the final choice of the scenario that will be implemented. In the case of measurement of radioactivity within the environment, an online collaborative course will also be created.(3) The third phase will be the implementation of the scenarios in virtual tools based on the experiences gathered in the test phase. This will lead to the results R2, R3 and R4. This phase will end by the test of the online tools VR or Escape game) by a cohort of students and professionals (mainly linked to the associated partners).Different activities will be performed to fulfil the project:- Workshop for staff (teacher and IT manager) to write the tool kit- Remote meeting of students coached by a teacher to evaluate the need for VR and Collaborative online course (year 1) and to begin writing the scenarios - Two face to face training weeks (one for VR tool and the other for the Escape room) in one partner institution to finalize the writing of the scenario (end of year I)- Virtual training school to settle the collaborative online course- One transnational meeting to accept scenarios- Collaborative work to create the VR software, Escape room and collaborative online course (during year 2).- One face to face training course to finalize the collaborative online course- A test of the different tools by a cohort of student<< Results >>The result expected from the project are :- R1 : Methodology and toolkit. Leader:HE2B-ISIB; co-leader: UHasselt. The result will consist on a report upload on a folder dedicated to staff member in the TEAMS- R2 : VR on medical application. Leader: UBologna Co-leaders: HMannheim, UPValencia. The aim is to set up a simulation scenario to be used to train the participants to react appropriately to incidents in Nuclear medicine. This being the case, the most educational incidents will have to be selected for simulation. This first task will be in charge of Bologna University in collaboration with the Nuclear medicine department of the University hospital.- R3 : Virtual escape room for mapping and treatment of radiological contaminated sites (Blended learning on environmental radioactivity, collaborative learning, serious gaming) Leader: CTU in Prague Co-leader: SURO, UHasselt. An escape room is a type of game where a group of people are set in a themed room with a series of puzzles or challenges to solve. For the development of an online escape-room commercially available tools combined with video conferencing apps will be selected in such a way to enable access for participants of external countries. The tools that will be evaluated for this purpose are: Microsoft or google forms, blackboard/toledo related tools and quizzes, Microsoft office related applications, OneNote, ThingLink, Canva interactive, Jigsaw element, etc. Via the selection of tools freely available or available via the licenses (allowing guest access) of partner institutions we can achieve the involvement of a broad range of participants. A range of digital tools will be discussed and evaluated via the workshop (‘result R1’), for the educational teams involved, aimed to share good practices on E-collaboration, digital learning and the integration of educational technology, and to reflect on strategic approaches to digitalization.- R4 : Online collaborative course in environmental radioactivity. Leader: UHasselt Co-leader: Covilha, HE2B-ISIB. This will consist on the creation of a script for online collaborative learning on radon (a universal environmental problem) in an internationalization at home set-up with support of all stakeholders (research, trainers, regulatory bodies and industry) which can be transferred to other topics of environmental measurements. The resulting educational materials and approach can be used in the further design of escape rooms like the one build in R3 (transferability). The impact is not only an innovative way of learning a specialised nuclear measurement technique but also to encourage other employability skills and soft skills necessary for their future carreer.

Europe urgently needs to find pathways towards agroecological transition of agroecosystems in support to food security, climate change resilience, biodiversity and soil carbon stocks restoration. In PHENET, the European Research Infrastructures (RI) on plant phenotyping (EMPHASIS), ecosystems experimentation (AnaEE), long-term observation (eLTER) and data management and bioinformatics (ELIXIR) will join their forces to co-develop, with a diversity of innovative companies, new tools and methods - meant to contribute to new RI services - for the identification of future-proofed combinations of species, genotypes and management practices in front of the most likely climatic scenarios across Europe. Ambitioning to go beyond current highly instrumented but often spatially and temporally limited RI installations, PHENET derived services will allow wide access to enlarged sources of in-situ phenotypic and environmental data thanks to (i) new AI-based multi (agroecology-related) traits multi-sensors devices (ii) to unleashed access to high resolution Earth Observation data connected to ground based data, (iii) FAIR data support for connection with (iv) new generation of predictive modeling solutions encompassing AI and digital twins. Developments will be challenged by and implemented in a series of eight Use Cases covering a large range of agroecosystems but also of ecosystems to demonstrate portability of solutions. Several of these Use Cases will mobilize on-farm data. A large effort will be devoted to training RI staff and beyond through a sustained collection of training material fed by experts. Outreaching activities will aim at enlarging the range of RI users. PHENET will not only strengthen RI but will also have major impact on the development of innovative companies on phenotyping, envirotyping and precision agriculture as well as on the emergence of climate smart crop varieties and innovative practices fitted to climate change and agroecological transition.

"The CORETEV project aims to modernize education systems by using the leverage of evaluation to improve the quality of training. It is part of an innovative approach of co-construction and empowerment of HEIs in a North-South configuration.The project responds to the most urgent needs in the field of evaluation expressed by Moroccan universities which increasingly require the use of new technologies. It aims to create 4 Support Centres for Evaluation (CEDAPE) in 4 Moroccan universities. The CEDAPE will interact within the iCEDAPE network, which will promote the sharing and contextualisation of common tools as well as a dynamic transfer of North-South-South expertise in the areas of evaluation engineering and docimology.The consortium includes 6 institutions including 4 from Morocco and 2 from the EU. With the support of European institutions and evaluation experts from the South (Bolivia, Mexico), the HEIs in the South will be the actors in the modernization of their education systems through: 1) the transfer of North-South-South experience; 2) the creation of 4 CEDAPE in Morocco; 3) collaboration within the iCEDAPE network and 4) support of 4 spin-offs (to be created) which will deploy their activities there.CEDAPE teams will be autonomous in the use of their automatic data acquisition chain. They will have been trained in the construction and evaluation quality management platform (DOCIMO) which will facilitate collaboration within iCEDAPE.In terms of dissemination, a ""Create a CEDAPE"" manual and a website that can be transposed to each CEDAPE will be developed. The acquired expertise, the creation of 4 spin-offs, the support of the iCEDAPE network, the empowerment of the teams, the support of the Ministry and the National Agency for Evaluation and Quality Assurance, the quality of the contextualized services that meet the needs of Moroccan HEIs will ensure the sustainability of the project."