Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is one of the most devastating diseases in neurology affecting some 50,000 individuals at any time in Europe, and causing around 10,000 deaths each year. The main clinical features are weakness and wasting of muscles, but dementia may also occur. ALS represents a good model for study of all neurodegenerative conditions, as it has a characteristic phenotype, rapid progression and the correlation between diagnosis during life and autopsy diagnosis is close to 100%. However, validated neurochemical biomarkers for monitoring disease activity, for generating earlier diagnoses and for defining prognosis are lacking. Active European collaborations are in place for harmonizing clinical datasets, neuroimaging and neuropathology protocols. A preliminary strategy for harmonization of biological and tissue samples has been established. Standardized protocols for clinical data and sample collection are now urgently required for optimization and harmonization of biomarker development. The overall aim of this proposal is to provide a common European strategy for the prioritization and selection of candidate biomarker domains for optimization and harmonization. This will in turn provide a long-term platform by which existing collaborative structures that are relevant to neurodegenerative disease biomarkers (including academic initiatives, co-funding strategies, biobanks, industrial efforts, private-public alliances) are integrated within an inclusive web-based virtual biobank. Samples and clinical/imaging/neurophysiologic and neuropathological datasets provided by participating members can then be optimally utilized to enable state of the art collaborative analyses. The established platform will also act as an important communication channel between this consortium and the rest of the ALS/Neurodegeneration field to ensure that the optimization efforts are in line with the whole ALS/ND field, to avoid duplication of work, and to ensure better acceptance and utilization of the project results by all stakeholders. Ultimately, the platform will be used to disseminate the results to the whole ALS/Neurodegeneration field, and will act as a permanent Interactive European ALS biomarker platform for researchers to optimize/harmonize novel biomarkers using an established pan-European ALS methodology. The platform will also allow interaction with those of other cognate groups (e.g the NEALS group within the US) and with patient groups and other relevant stakeholders.

The unique chance of DIGICRIMJUS is to conduct very important interexchange between the best young law students, from undergraduate to doctoral, coming from three very different criminal legal systems: the Hungarian criminal law with a socialistic history, the Turkish criminal law with an Ottoman tradition and many influences from Italian, French, Swiss, German, and even other influences within the past century, and the very traditional German criminal law with a tradition in philosophical and dogmatical development. While the three different legal systems also share some similarities through their past, differences, especially within the culturally dependent criminal law, prevail. However, they all are challenged by digitalization in similar ways. Artificial intelligence is used anywhere to apply autonomic systems. Likewise, people are using different online systems and applications within the clear, the deep, and as well within its darknet. Some of the users are using the internet to their advantage in illegal ways. Yet criminal laws are not prepared for digital fraud, theft trespassing, and different kinds of digitally trafficking with illegal goods, be it drugs, guns, or child pornography. Last but not least, investigators need to investigate within the internet as well as using digital means. Hereto we need to develop new rules of evidence taking and presenting in court. It is our plan to also use that chance by developing the methods of comparative work and research when challenged by digitalization for future law professionals. We want to discuss these current challenges within three transnational training seminars together with students of our universities. We will by teaching and learning make those challenges transparent to the public and discuss the need for further research and adoptions of criminal laws in our countries. By comparing our legal systems, we will look out for best practices and the need for change. Secondly, we will develop different kinds of national, comparative, and transnational lectures from the core subjects of the three seminars, a full one-semester specified class on digital criminal law, including online teaching materials; concentrated short and informative video-lectures of different research subjects of the research and including specific challenges to all criminal laws, which are subject of our research; podcasts formats, which will base on deepened case studies and also attract next-generation students. The result will be a very unique, entirely new form of teaching and learning in a multilingual, international and professionally high-quality environment. We plan to set up a knowledge hub for related issues in collaboration with law students. With the three transnational seminars, we will reach out to at least 90 students (30 from each university within three years). However, with the different class formats developed through the research, in our universities directly and internationally “online” indirectly a large number of students will have the chance to participate in the future (outreach to high school students and students within all years of their law study; to students of other subjects, especially to those of computational science). By including the investigation teams within our states into the program, we will also reach out to different stakeholders, amongst those the International Police Agency INTERPOL. The program, all in all, functions as a start-up to deepen the relationship between our three universities. It is built on the yearlong relationship of its three leading partners, who since 2006 regularly teach, research, and train at each other’s university. In order to foster the interexchange, we plan to install a very unique Master program between our three universities on digital criminal law, and which will attract many students from all three states within the future.In total, that will include unique benefits in the long term for we will trigger the modernization of the criminal law curriculum: as part of studies through seminars and lectures and as part of masters with a digital criminal law master of law curriculum. Since our research will base on comparative approaches, it will help to develop a more positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values. Moreover, a comparative approach to digital challenges to criminal law allows facing the biggest challenge of different and conflicting criminal laws as such (mutual trust). Finally, intellectual outputs of the program address students of law, computational science, and other subjects, as well as the future generation and the interested public. The project will develop skills protecting from crimes like digital theft, computer fraud, or from being involved in illegally trafficking with goods in clear-, deep-, or darknet. In the very long run, this will strengthen (individual) digital human rights in the states, the European Union, and beyond.

ODYSSEA will develop, operate and demonstrate an interoperable and cost-effective platform that fully integrates networks of observing and forecasting systems across the Mediterranean basin, addressing both the open sea and the coastal zone. The platform will collect its data from the many databases maintained by agencies, public authorities, and institutions of Mediterranean EU and non-EU countries, integrating existing earth observation facilities and networks in the Mediterranean Sea building on key initiatives such as Copernicus, GEOSS, GOOS, EMODNet, ESFRI, Lifewatch, Med-OBIS, GBIF, AquaMaps, Marine IBA e-atlas, MAPAMED and others with marine and maritime links. Through ODYSSEA’s end-user centred approach, in which the various groups of end-users and stakeholders, within and external to the Consortium, will be involved from Day 1 of the project in the design, development and operation of the platform, including identification of gaps in data collection and accessibility. High priority gaps will be filled through multiple approaches that include developing a network of coastal observatories, deploying novel in-situ sensors at sea (a.o. microplastic sensors), oceanographic modelling and integrating existing mobile apps for citizen scientist networks. Applying advanced algorithms to organise, homogenise and fuse the large quantities of data in common standard type and format as well as other types of formats, the ODYSSEA platform will provide both primary data and on-demand derived data services, including forecasts, from ALL Mediterranean countries through a SINGLE PUBLIC PORTAL to various end-user groups and stakeholders. End-user requirements will drive the creation of secondary data sets which the platform will provide as new and packaged services matching the specialised information needs of users. ODYSSEA will improve accessibility to existing data as well as increase the temporal and geographic coverage of observational data in the Mediterranean.

Sustainability reporting is a critical component of corporate responsibility and accountability in today's business landscape. It involves the disclosure of an organization's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance to various stakeholders, including investors, customers, employees, and the public. To increase scrutiny of businesses’ sustainability performance and strategy, current legislative changes endorsed by the EC emphasize the shift from voluntary to mandatory ESG disclosure as a world effort to address climate change and social inequalities by having the same referential framework for sustainability information. Thus, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners should collaborate to drive progress in this critical area. Our proposal aims to create a transnational, cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary research network aiming to design and provide a comprehensive understanding of how cultural and contextual factors shape sustainability reporting practices i.e. corporate disclosure on ESG risks and opportunities. The research objectives are: O1. Investigate the cultural barriers and identify cultural enablers that facilitate high-quality non-financial disclosures of ESG–related matters. O2. Systematically collect and analyze the quality of information toward a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between cultural, regional, and industrial factors in sustainability reporting practices. O3. Define cutting-edge interdisciplinary models with culturally sensitive information and promote effective disclosure strategies for better sustainability reporting practices. The STAR project will move beyond the current debate over the quality of sustainability data and information and put forward robust research combining international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration to develop more effective and culturally sensitive reporting strategies as key means for greater transparency, accountability, and business resilience.