According to the latest World Migration Report, 12 of the 20 top destinations for international migrants in 2020 were countries not belonging to what are considered traditional (Western) migrant-receiving countries in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. Yet, despite these ever-growing migratory processes in non-Western migration locales, the mainstream literature remains largely focused on the study of migrants’ experiences and immigration policies in the context of traditional Western liberal democracies. As a result, major non-Western migration destinations elsewhere in the world remain underrepresented by existing theories and comparative research within migration studies. The overarching objective of the MARS is to increase our scientific understanding about global, regional and national governance of migration and mobilities and thereby to contribute to the global and national efforts to facilitate safe, regular and orderly migration. This aim will be accomplished by conducting research and a staff exchange programme on non-Western migration regimes. More specifically, MARS is constructed around three interlinked goals, which are to 1) collect original empirical data on the interplay between migration governance processes and migrants’ experiences in non-Western migration locales; 2) engage with and situate our research in relevant theoretical and comparative debates within migration studies and thereby advance scholarly discussion on contemporary migration regimes (comparative migration studies) by developing new conceptual and methodological approaches to understanding migratory processes in non-Western locales; and 3) translate research findings into policy-relevant ways, including presentations and policy papers to provide strategic intelligence and policy insights for international organisations, development agencies, decision-makers, and practitioners inside and outside the EU on possible ways to improve migration governance practices.

The main objective of the storAIge project is the development and industrialization of FDSOI 28nm and next generation embedded Phase Change Memory (ePCM) world-class semiconductor technologies, allowing the prototyping of high performance, Ultra low power and secured & safety System on Chip (SoC) solutions enabling competitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Edge applications. The main challenge addressed by the project is on one hand to handle the complexity of sub-28nm ‘more than moore’ technologies and to bring them up at a high maturity level and on the other hand to handle the design of complex SoCs for more intelligent, secure, flexible, low power consumption and cost effective. The project is targeting chipset and solutions with very efficient memories and high computing power targeting 10 Tops per Watt. The development of the most advanced automotive microcontrollers in FDSOI 28nm ePCM will be the support technology to demonstrate the high performances path as well as the robustness of the ePCM solution. The next generation of FDSOI ePCM will be main path for general purpose advanced microcontrollers usable for large volume Edge AI application in industrial and consumer markets with the best compromise on three requirements: performances, low power and adequate security. On top of the development and industrialization of silicon process lines and SoC design, storAIge will also address new design methodologies and tools to facilitate the exploitation of these advanced technology nodes, particularly for high performance microcontrollers having AI capabilities. Activities will be performed to setup robust and adequate Security and Safety level in the final applications, defining and implementing the good ‘mixture’ and tradeoff between HW and SW solutions to speed up adoption for large volume applications.

Incidence of obesity has been steadily increasing for the last few decades. A corresponding rise in the obesity associated co-morbidities such as cardiovascular diseases and type-2 diabetes makes it an acute priority to understand the mechanisms underlying body weight regulation. It is well established that distributed brain circuits tightly monitor and regulate energy stores. Of particular interest, electrical and pharmacological manipulations to ventromedial portion of the hypothalamus (VMH), results in dramatic alterations in food intake, adiposity and glucose homeostasis in animal models. Furthermore, human genetic screens have shown that, at least for a subset of morbidly obese patients, genes that are heavily expressed in VMH are altered. Collectively these observations point to a central role for VMH in driving negative energy balance, yet relatively little is known how VMH neurons achieve this. To identify novel mechanisms for controlling energy balance, we propose to determine the following: 1) identify signals that regulate VMH neuronal activity, this includes synaptic input as well as circulating signals, 2) dissect out immediate downstream and upstream synaptic targets of VMH neurons mediating food intake and glucose homeostasis. To achieve this, we will use state of the art neuronal circuit mapping techniques involving virus based retrograde tracers and optogenetics. By combining functional electrophysiology and morphological approaches we will determine brain regions that has connections to and from VMH and evaluate behavioral and physiological significance each of these connections in-vivo. Understanding the basics of the functional VMH-wiring diagram will help determine how these neuronal circuits change under the conditions of metabolic and feeding disorders and will provide basis of targeted approaches for treatment.

Transnational challenges are pressing issues in any region. They transcend national borders and defy unilateral remedies. Multilateral efforts and capacity building remain fragmented. Regional efforts rarely bear fruit. As a result, despite two-decades of effort, transnational challenges cannot be understood and responded effectively. There has already been a growing call to rethink the existing approaches arguing for the need to understand the nature and scope of transnational challenges better, why the existing approaches and frameworks for cooperation, collaboration, and coordination do not work, and how they can be responded. Transnational challenges hit the Mediterranean particularly hard. Unilateral, multilateral, and regional responses to them in the region remain fragmented and ineffective. TRACHMED is a research and staff exchange programme intended to contribute to the global, regional, and national efforts of understanding and responding transnational challenges by conducting research in Mediterranean on three such issues: climate change, migration and forced displacement, and energy insecurity. It brings together an international, intersectoral, and interdisciplinary research team to 1) collect, interpret and process original empirical data on selected transnational challenges with a transnational perspective, 2) engage with the existing conceptual and theoretical debates and contribute to the conceptual and methodological approaches for studying, comprehending, and responding to transnational challenges, 3) develop and sustain a transnational network of researchers, practitioners, and institutions in the Mediterranean, thus increase the research capacity and shared knowledge and cooperation, 4) update scientific knowledge on these issues for relevant EU policies, political and economic actors interested or already working in the region, and to inform international organizations and decision-makers in the region.

Over the last two decades, economic relations between the EU and the five post-Soviet Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) have evolved around two parallel and contradictory patterns. On the one hand, due to the efforts of the EU, economic relations and inter-dependence have increased and the presence of EU companies in the region has expanded significantly. On the other hand, inconsistent business ethics standards - and the peculiar way in which rule of law is interpreted and applied in the region, also called “the local way of doing business” have hindered and limited the role of foreign companies in the region. Building on recent political developments leading to the opening up of previously closed and inaccessible countries, CENTRAL ASIAN LAW is a research and training programme that aims to promote greater understanding and explanation of the interconnections between legal cultures, local business environments and governance in Central Asia. This will enable the CENTRAL ASIAN LAW team to: 1) produce new empirical knowledge on legal cultures and business ethics in the region; 2) engage with, and challenge, existing theoretical paradigms within socio-legal studies, law, economic and business sciences, Central Asian studies (post-Soviet studies, more generally) and governance scholarship; 3) provide strategic intelligence for business actors interested or already operating in the region; 4) inform international organizations and decision makers in the EU and Central Asia on possible ways to improve the business and investment climate, the rule of law and governance in the region.