Context: Material science is being developed, and major industries such as aerospace and automotive take advantage of cutting-edge technologies in their applications. As light-weight materials along with superior strength are demanded by the market, composite materials have come to the fore as the substituent of metal alloys. Although the technical side of industrial applications is compensated by the rise of composites, sustainability and eco-friendly properties of materials, which have important places within the EU policy areas, still require efforts by institutes and companies. At this juncture, composites produced from natural materials such as cork become more of an issue due to their environmentally friendly properties. There are about 2,200,000 hectares of cork forest; 34% in Portugal and 27% in Spain. Cork production is sustainable because the cork tree is not cut down to obtain cork; only the bark is stripped to harvest the cork. The tree continues to live and grow. The sustainability of production and the easy recycling of cork products and by-products are two of its most distinctive aspects. Cork oak forests also prevent desertification and the refuge of various endangered species. Leading companies especially in aerospace sector make investments on cork. However, there is a lack of human resources in the field since syllabuses in engineering programs focus on technical sides rather than including environmental effects of engineering materials. Objective:ECOCORK aims to develop educational tools for gaining environmental awareness in the manufacturing of cork composites as well as understanding the importance of eco-friendly natural composites in sustainability. Within this scope, partners will develop an educational scheme and project will be concentrated on individuals at the college level. The institutions will develop curricula, course materials, learning platforms, as well as organizing summer schools for the students. Moreover, staff skills will be enhanced in a particular and promising field by the interactions between the pacemaker partners. The industrial partner, ACC will contribute to the preparation of training programs on sustainability and carbon footprint of cork products since this company is a leader cork producer in the world. Within this scope of strategic partnership, there will be an established bridge from the homeland of cork (Portugal and Spain) to Eastern Europe, where vast amounts of investments have been paid for aerospace applications. Hence, there will be a chance to have a good educational partnership in the development of sustainable cork composites for the aerospace industry. Number and profile of participants:ESOGU has a background in aerospace industry since there are several projects conducted in collaboration with major aerospace companies. Moreover, National Aviation Cluster has members from ESOGU staff who take active roles in this sector. In 2019, TAI demanded a prospective human source from ESOGU and thus, ESOGU applied for the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and a new engineering department, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, was founded in 2019.UA is one of the biggest universities in cork science. It makes broad researches on cork related applications. It has strong relationships with ACC and the other cork focused institutes from all over the world. ACC is one of the largest and dynamic multinationals of Portuguese origin. Its origins were back in 1870 and today it is the world leader in the sector. It is also willing to serve for aerospace industry since cork products have been recognized in aerospace due to their properties. ICSURO is dedicated to cork science researches. The explicit name of ICSURO is Catalan Institute of Cork, which proves that this institutes has strong experience on cork for many years. The Cork Center, the laboratory of the Catalan Cork Institute was created in 2001 to provide services to the different components of the value chain in the cork sector.WUST is notable for cork composites and has joint studied with UA in a long-term collaboration. WUST and UA have applied for several grants and so far, this partnership brought approx. 325,000 Euro to the organizations in grants. VGTU has experience in projects under the Erasmus+, Horizon2020, Marie-Curie and other EU funded programs. It has strong experience that the Dean of Aviation Institute has been awarded Quality of the Year award by National Agency of Lithuania. VGTU has also Erasmus+ projects in contribution with Turkish universities such as Ege University.

SALTO will perform, for the first time in Europe, fly / recover / refly cycles of a reusable rocket first stage demonstrator. Operating a large-scale vehicle at low altitude, consistent with future European strategic needs, and embedding a set of critical technologies, the project will significantly boost the strategic launchers roadmap, enabling the vision of a future launch fleet improving by 50% space access costs and reducing environmental impacts. SALTO will hence act as a “stepping stone” towards reusability of strategic launchers in Europe which is one of the key leverages to reach such vision. Fully aligned with previous ESA-funded activities (e.g. Themis initial phase Program), SALTO focuses on - Technologies and building blocks maturation up to TRL5/6 for the first stage of a strategic launcher; - Subsystem/system tests with two low altitude system tests (“hop test”) campaigns. SALTO's methodology will combine robust system engineering with technology maturation activities and a stepped demonstration strategy to accelerate experimental learning through the implementation of the Agile methodology. The SALTO project will culminate in flight test campaigns to demonstrate and validate the technologies necessary for a reusable launch vehicle. SALTO will contribute to the cost reduction target for strategic launcher in Europe by addressing ~3/4 (in cost) of all technologies / operations involved in a future European reusable rocket stage. While Europe is currently lagging behind other global players when it comes to reusable launchers, SALTO will reinforce EU’s independent capacity to access space, secure autonomy of supply for critical technologies and equipment, and foster EU's space sector competitiveness. At the end of the project, lessons will be drawn regarding the maturity of the different technological bricks, TRL and readiness for flight tests. A roadmap to increase their maturity will be prepared in view of suborbital tests by 2025.