The 2LIPP project will partially retrofit the Bornholm CHP plant with a scalable hybrid energy storage system consisting of three low-cost, storage technologies (novel molten hydroxide salt storage, lithium battery which is based on reused car batteries, and a flywheel, based on non-rare metals and with unprecedented lifetime), which all improve state-of-the art in their own way – also within sustainability. The technologies will be operated through an innovative management system (EMS) to charge and dispatch the hybrid storage system in the best way possible. The 2LIPP demonstration will serve as a proof-of-concept for a disruptive approach to transitioning traditional power and combined heat and power plants away from fossil fuels, while maintaining a secure supply of energy and stability of the electrical grid. The 2LIPP concept greatly reduces the costs of energy storage by reusing existing facilities at power plant sites. Also, the innovative combined operation of several technologies through the EMS allows for deployment of storage technologies in their relative ‘sweet-spots’ leading to optimal efficiencies and improves lifetimes. The low cost and high efficiency that stems from the 2LIPP approach will accelerate the availability of storage technologies and systems to bring about net zero in the electrical and heating sectors. Deploying hybrid storage with the 2LIPP concept can maintain the role of power plants as critical nodes in the grid, and enable these sites to provide grid stability at both short and long timescales, thus ensuring that Europe can integrate renewable energy without a rising risk of blackouts. The project also develops feasibility case studies for utility companies to serve possible road maps for utility companies to decide on the most viable investment for retrofitting their plants.

"Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! ""Have courage to use your own reason!"" -- that is the motto of enlightenment. (Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?, 1784)Training in Embodied Critical Thinking (TECT) is an interdisciplinary project initiated by philosophers, computer scientists, cognitive scientists and environmental designers in a response to challenges such as: (1) a lack of ability to think for oneself in the face of digitalized networks and an overflow of information, (2) a sense of being overwhelmed by complex globalized systems and a feeling of not being able to make any difference in civic engagement,(3) a lack of cultivation of what it means to be human today, as embedded in environments and relations, deeply local as well as globally interdependent.In a time of breathtaking progress in artificial intelligence, big data and social media, it is urgent for educators to find new ways to encourage and empower students and researchers to think for themselves and to thoroughly engage with subject matters in order to form their own judgements. TECT offers a fresh take and novel methodologies of learning to think critically, contributing to the transformation and enrichment of the European tradition and skill of critical thinking in the 21. century. TECT is a training program for students and researchers, adding a missing link to the teaching and training of critical thinking on the level of higher education. The conventional methods of training critical thinking are not sufficient to address the challenges that students and researchers face today. The missing link is the methodological integration of the turn to embodiment in the cognitive sciences that proves mind, body and lived experience to work together in thinking, in the development of ideas and in the pursuit of knowledge. TECT brings together an interdisciplinary and transnational team to develop the pedagogical and practical implications of the results of these findings to transform the teaching and training of critical thinking. Counter to a profoundly disembodied tradition and concept of intellect and the practice of thinking, TECT unites pioneers from different fields to introduce empowering ways to practice thinking in order to account for the complexity of the students' and researchers' embodied and lived experience of today’s reality. TECT will offer three separate year long courses, consisting of online webinars/seminars, individual supervision and three summer schools (each year offers a total of 15 ECTS), providing foundations and training in novel ways of embodied critical thinking, including methods of mindfulness, focusing of attention, accessing first-person experience, slow and fast thinking, presencing, thinking-at-the-edge etc. The TECT program brings these methods of embodied critical thinking into three major challenges and chances facing human thinking today: a rapidly changing world due to environmental crisis, advancements in artificial intelligence and computational technology. The target group for TECT are students and researchers from the human, social, natural sciences and environmental design, with a special emphasis on students and researchers of informatics, artificial intelligence and computer science. The consortium of TECT includes philosophers, cognitive scientists, researchers in the field of artificial intelligence, cognitive modeling, computer science and environmental design from the following organizations: the Network of Mindful Universities in the Digital Age in Germany lead by the University of Applied Sciences in Jena, the research-group Embodied Critical Thinking at the University of Iceland, the Center of Cognitive Science at the University of Ljubljana, the Institute for Brain Modeling and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen, the Department of Environmental Design at the Technion in Haifa, and the Department of Computer Science at the ETH in Zurich. Associated partner of the project is the Microphenomenology Laboratory in Paris. The intellectual output of TECT is fourfold: a TECT-handbook, online courses, a documentary and scientific publications. The TECT website will provide online resources. TECT is intent to distribute and disseminate the results of this pilot project widely. The project strives to become sustainable beyond the grant period with further courses (MOOC/EdX) that build on the intellectual output of this pilot project."

The NB-LAB project addresses the need of the partner universities in Peru and Ecuador for more applied research and research oriented programs, relevant to the current societal and environmental challenges in the region. With this respect, the project will contribute to the modernisation and internationalisation of higher education structures of the partner universities, by setting up capacities for user-driven applied research and innovation that will contribute to sustainable rural community development under preservation and responsible use of the natural resources in the Amazonian Region. For this purpose, the NB-LAB project partners will establish nature-based living labs at the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. Close connection and collaboration with local communities and the indigenous populations will open new avenues for social and economic development in the region.The sustainable operation of the labs will be ensured by their direct integration in both educational and research processes in the partner universities. Community service learning has been selected as most suitable educational approach for the transfer of the research results in the society. It is the most appropriate methodology as it is a powerful experiential tool to improve curricular learning, contribute to solve real societal and environmental problems and develop competencies of engaged citizenship. The NB-Labs will be piloted by the means of an international participatory exchange programme for international students and researchers from multiple disciplines. Two rounds of implementation will test the facilities in the NB-Lab “research village” in Iquitos and the scattered research stations in the rainforest around Tena that will be connected through coordinated research expeditions. By organising staff trainings and exchanges the project will develop the skills and professional performance of the academic to secure the sustainability of the innovation structures.