Resilience is defined by the United Nations as “the ability to resist, absorb and accommodate to the effects of a hazard, in a timely and efficient manner”. Thus, resilient communities are those in which their citizens, environment, businesses, and infrastructures have the capacity to withstand, adapt, and recover in a timely manner from any kind of hazards they face, either planned or unplanned. In recent years efforts have been spent to tackle resilience and there is, still, a long path forward in defining an EU valid and sound approach to the problem. RESILOC aims at studying and implementing a holistic framework of studies, methods and software instruments that combines the physical with the less tangible aspects associated with human behaviour. The study-oriented section of the framework will move from a thorough collection and analysis of literature and stories from the many approaches to resilience adopted all over the World. The results of the studies will lead to the definition of a set of new methods and strategies where the assessment of the resilience indicators of a community will be performed together with simulations on the “what-if” certain measures are taken. These studies and methods will serve for designing and implementing two software instruments: 1. the RESILOC inventory, a comprehensive, live, structure for collecting, classifying and using information on cities and local communities, implemented as a Software as a Service (SaaS). 2. The RESILOC Cloud-based platform for assessing and calculating the resilience indicators of a city or a community, for developing localised strategies and verifying their impacts on the resilience of the community. The Cloud platform, a combination of SaaS and PaaS, includes the inventory as its repository. The project will make use of built solutions in four field trials and includes a high-profile communication plan, heavily based on Social Media platforms.

Water critical infrastructures (CIs) are essential for human society, life and health and they can be endangered by physical/cyber threats with severe societal consequences. To address this, STOP-IT assembles a team of major Water Utilities, industrial technology developers, high tech SMEs and top EU R&D providers. It organizes communities of practice for water systems protection to identify current and future risk landscapes and to co-develop an all-hazards risk management framework for the physical and cyber protection of water CIs. Prevention, Detection, Response and Mitigation of relevant risks at strategic, tactical and operational levels of planning will be taken into account to generate modular solutions (technologies, tools and guidelines) and an integrated software platform. STOP-IT solutions are based on: a) mature technologies improved via their combination and embedment (incl. public warning systems, smart locks) and b) novel technologies whose TRL will be increased (incl. cyber threat incident services, secure wireless sensor communications modules, context-aware anomaly detection technologies; fault-tolerant control strategies for SCADA integrated sensors, high-volume real-time sensor data protection via blockchain schemes; authorization engines; irregular human detection using new computer vision methods and WiFi and efficient water contamination detection algorithms). STOP-IT solutions are demonstrated through a front-runner/follower approach where 4 advanced utilities, Aigües de Barcelona (ES), Berliner Wasserbetriebe (DE), MEKOROT (IL) and Oslo VAV (NO) are twinned with 4 less advanced, but ambitious ones, to stimulate mutual learning, transfer and uptake. Building on this solid basis STOP-IT delivers high impact through the creation of hands-on training, best practice guidelines, support for certification and standardization as well as by fostering market opportunities, also leveraging the EU water technology platform's multi-stakeholder network.

In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of Cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050). Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future City, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe (e.g. from harsh winters in Skelleftea-SE to hot summers in Chania-GR, from deprived areas in Novo mesto-SI to increased pollution in Malta) through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

<< Objectives >>During this project, we will create a booklet of different activities for adult learners with children from 0-6 years old and 7-12 years old. These will focus on inclusion and preventing illiteracy through activities with literature. These will also be social arenas. As the title of the project says: it all starts with a book. Building activities around books that can bring joy and learning for adult learners and their children will be a central part of the project. << Implementation >>For adult learners with children in the age group 0-6 years old, we will create activities based on literature/stories and social meeting points. For adult learners with children from 7-12 years there will be creative activities with literature and digital tools, this is an important part of working in a digital area and illiteracy. We will collaborate with local organizations to reach out to our target group and organize trips to the partner organization. << Results >>We want adult learners to get a new arena where they can practice Norwegian and Dutch and to social interact with other people that have children in the same age group. Through the project the target group will get to know the offers libraries and other organizations have for families and therefore continue to use them after the project ends. The booklet will become a tool to create activities for this group and will be shared after the project end so that it can live on in other organizations.

BackgroundThe Physiotherapy and Refugees Education Project (PREP) addressed the mismatch between the competence of physiotherapists (PTs) and the complex rehabilitation needs of a growing population of refugees and migrants in Europe. Project objectivesPREP aimed to build competencies of PTs working in rehabilitation services for refugees and migrants. This aim was reached by four objectives: 1) establishing core competencies for physiotherapists working with refugees, 2) preparing a curriculum, 3) designing and producing a digital course and 4) pilot, evaluate and revise the digital course. Project participantsThe project involved around 30 key informants (PTs, refugees and decission makers) and 8 spcialists for the identification of core competencie. The digital course was open for 150 participants, and we accepted151 for participation. The course is now open availbale for download at the canvas commons platform, meaning that all educational institutions using this platform can use the coruse in their educational programs. It is also open for participation via signing up (no fee). The course content is also given as a E-book (PREP E-book) that has been spread through our channels and also placed on our webside (https://prosjekt.hvl.no/prep/) and on the Erasmus results platform. Project activities and resultsThe first step in the process was to write a scoping review on published research and experiences, to be able to identify knowledge gaps. This made a basis for interviews with key stakeholders (physiotehrapists, refugees and decisiion makers) in Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands, and for a consensus process involving a global group of specialists within physiotherapy and refugee health. These three activities made the basis for the IO1 main output, the consensus report. The consensus report was used to build a curriculum (IO2), that we used to design the didgital course (IO3). In addition, such a curriculum can be used by other institutuions to build own coruses, or to implement part of this curriculum in their own ongoing courses. In IO3 we designed and produced a digital course correseponding to 5ECTS on master degree level. This production inlcuded a international collaborative project where stakeholders on a global level was invited to share their knowledge and experiences. This was done to ensure relevance in the course and to ensure that we were updated on current discussions and global issues. The final stage of the project (IO4) was to pilot, evaluate and revise the course (IO4). We aimed at 150 participants, and closed the sign up at 151. Some course participants took the entire course and received a certificate, others took parts of it. During the project period we had monthly, digital meetings. During these meetings, we could update each other on the work, discuss issues on the way and keep track of the project. We planned for 6 transnational physical meetings, and managed to have 3 of these before covid-19 restrictions. The last meetings were digital, except for part 2 of the final meeting that was hybrid. We disseminated the project and our results during the entire project period and used social media, own channels, conferences and local and international meetings for this purpose. Impact Our aim was to create a course to give physiotherapists the possibility to build competence in working with refugees. This also included building a network for working with refugee health. The project had a direct impact on the participants in the course, the stakeholders providing information and experiences and on the project group, builidng competence and providing a platform for further collaborations. The network has grown larger than we expected it would, and we ended up having a high number of collaborative organisations, institutions, individuals and other projects. Although the official project ended in 2021, the project is still active. We have bachelor and master students working on the project, we have spin off projects and we used the project and network actively within our educations, This autumn, new organisations joined as collaborative partners with the aim to collaborate on bachelor theses. The PREP project has become an integrated part within our educational institutions. 4 spin-off projects can be mentioned: 1) A course in using interpreters in Norway. This was initiated by other organisations, and PREP was invited to join. The course is now used at several educational institutions in Norway. 2) Project on torture survivors. This started because of the PREP project and is now active with bachelor- and master students and research. 3) PREP IP, this is a direct continuation of PREP, where we aim to develop further for an interprofessional group. 4) HEQED, which is a project where we aim tp understand health equity and how to operationalise this within our educations. All these projects are based on the PREP network and beyond.