<< Background >>As time goes on it is becoming increasingly clear that the emergence of an inverted population pyramid will create serious problems. In particular, it will be difficult to ensure the sustainability of health and pension systems in countries where the proportion of elderly people may even double. Population ageing is a challenge. However, it is also an opportunity. Elderly people will need new products and services, which will open up a new market that could contribute to stimulating industry in the region. So, contrary to the common negative perceptions, we can see that old age also has benefits. One of them is its economic potential.The set of products and services that people will consume when they are old is called the silver economy. Needs that emerge with older age require specific solutions. Considering the opportunities offered by new technologies, solutions in the future are likely to be different to those obtained by our parents and grandparents. This rise in internal demand will boost the regional economy, as the creation of new products and services will lead to new jobs and new companies, and increase the European Union’s competitiveness. These are businesses that have had a good return on their investments to date, and have been shown to be profitable. Innovative disciplines such as the nanosciences, biotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence will be able to make money from their ideas by testing formulas to make our last years better years.A report of the European Commission highlights that by 2070, 30.3% of the population is projected to be aged 65 years or older and 13.2% is projected to be aged 80 years or older. The Green Paper on Ageing issued by the European Commission in January 2021 reports that the silver economy is expected to grow by about 5% a year from EUR 3.7 trillion in 2015 to EUR 5.7 trillion in 2025 and therefore it will open up new job opportunities in many sectors. Given this framework, it is clear that we should update the labour market to the elderly’s needs, starting from addressing the lack of skills concerning today’s companies, local authorities and the non-governmental sector.Considering these framework, ARGENTUM project wants to contribute to raising the european public’s awareness in relation to the general topic of active ageing and Silver economy. In a period of deep economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic, the european economy needs to find new sustainable ways to face the challenges ahead. In this respect, targets like seniors cannot be disregarded as they represent a growing part of nowadays and future consumers. ARGENTUM project wants to promote the concept of Silver economy, which, despite the demographic trend mentioned above, is not very well known among private and public entities. The primary mission of ARGENTUM project is to promote innovation and Silver economy and to create bridges between researchers, policy makers, business, education, local governments and civil society. We want to create a favourable environment for development of Silver economy and the institutional, academic, business and civil entities must be prepared to turn the challenge of an ageing population into an opportunity.<< Objectives >>ARGENTUM project will create an Innovative Cluster for Silver economy with the aim to enhance collaboration and give visibility to all the relevant actors for the sector.In the cluster will participate companies and service providers, which operate in Information technology, Welfare, Health&Care, Tourism, Leisure/Sport and Education (the 7 markets of Silver Economy). These actors will take part in the same training course (R2) which will respond to the different interests, priorities and profiles of the subjects. The training courses will help companies to align their production to the new technologies and, together with the Cluster, they will promote the spread of Best Practices in the field of silver economy.Furthermore, the project will provide integrated innovative training courses (R3) also to Local governments with the aim of driving them to adopt a new approach regarding innovative social services and supportive measures for healthy and well aging.Thanks to this Project we will create an innovative e-learning platform that will support the definition of the training courses’ contents (R2-R3) and their transferability.Participants from the 7 markets of Silver economy will be involved in an international hackathon.In general, this Project is line with general objective of Erasmus + programme and, wants to achieve two of the three priorities of Erasmus+ 2021-2027 Programme: the digital transition and the promotion of inclusion. By further engaging, the elderly in society ARGENTUM wants to contribute to the spreading of digital knowledge and participation among seniors.Through the activation and involvement of stakeholders at local, regional, national or transnational level, we will improve the autonomy, participation in social life, skills, and employability of older adults.<< Implementation >>First of all, the activities implemented within the three Work Packages (project management, the communication/dissemination of project results and the quality management) will take place throughout the whole life-cycle of the Project.As far as the other activities are concerned, they are divided on the basis of the four Results that the project wants to achieve. The activities related to the mapping and creation of an Innovative Cluster for Silver economy will be: the elaboration of guidelines for mapping the potential economic and business fabric, the elaboration of a potential members list, the definition of the structure, the aims and the activities of the Cluster, the set up of a facilitation strategy for round tables, the organisation of thematic round tables in partners' countries, the involvement/detection of potential members and, finally, the Cluster set up. InnoGrowth will be responsible for the successful implementation of the activities related to R1 which will take place from month 2 to month 12.As for the second and third results, the training course on integrated innovative services design for ageing peoples in Information technology, Welfare, Health& Care, Tourism, Leisure/Sport and Education (the 7 markets of Silver Economy) (R2) and the one on accelerating innovation in local governments (Innovative social services and supportive measures for well aging - R3) will both have the same structure made of the following activities: the elaboration of a preliminary survey on the learning needs of the target groups, the definition of Curriculum, the definition of learning and teaching methodologies, the development of a Curriculum, the gathering and involvement of participants for the pilot courses, the delivery of online pilot courses, their evaluation, the editing of the e - learning course, and the content’s translation. The partner responsible for R2 will be ARIS and the activities will take place between the month 8 and the month 18. The partner responsible for R3 will be Sofia Municipality and the activities will be implemented from month 15 to month 23.The fourth result concerns the set up of an e-learning platform and the production of learning materials. This result will be supervised by the spanish partner INIT (UJI) and its activities, which will take place between month 11 and month 24 will be: the preliminary definition of the e-learning design and structure, the development of material for the R2 training course, the testing for R2 training course and the production and translation for R2, the development of material for the R3 training course, the testing for R3 training course and the production and translation for R3 and, finally, the set up of the e-Learning platform.The Projects also provides the implementation of multiplier events that will take place in each State involved at the same time (month 12) , one final dissemination conference in Bulgaria and 4 transnational meetings taking place in months 1,8,15 and 21, and one Blended Mobility in Italy in month 19.<< Results >>The first relevant result to these outcomes concerns the collaboration of different entities interested in the field of Silver economy and it will be implemented during the first year of the project life-cycle. Through the elaboration of specific guidelines these subjects will be mapped; then, thematic round tables will be set up in order to organise the structure, the aims and the activities of the Cluster. Clusters have the potential to increase the productivity of the entities involved therein, drive innovation and stimulate new businesses in the field. Moreover, clusters boost fresh ideas by stimulating the exchange of know-how and expertise among its units. By doing so, these platforms increase the capacity of the labour market and they contribute to the enhancement of the regional economy. The second and third important results, which will be delivered from the second half of the first year of the project lifecycle to its end, involve the delivery of training courses addressing the target groups of the project: Companies, NGOs (from the 7 markets of Silver economy) and Local Governments. Based on the learning needs of the target groups, methodologies of training will be selected and the participants for the pilot courses will be identified. The content of these pilot courses will vary according to the specific target groups. As far as the businesses are concerned, the provided lectures will be focused on the ways they can improve their performance by exploiting the economic and technological opportunities in response to the present demographic trend. As for the local government, the lessons will aim to promote a new approach regarding innovative social services and supportive measures for ageing people.The main expected project outcomes focus the market opportunities and service improvement for seniors. They are related to the improvement of autonomy, participation in social life, skills and employability of older adults and to the update of the labour market to the silver economy through innovative vocational education and training (VET).

SHEERenov objective is to develop and test a model for the provision of integrated residential renovation services on the territory of Sofia in Bulgaria. The implementation of this project will support the Bulgarian Government's intended transition from the current multifamily buildings energy efficiency renovation model, financed fully from public resources and administered entirely by public institutions, to a market oriented model. Based on analysis of barriers and identified needs, enabling conditions will be created to attract and facilitate participation of relevant market stakeholders and players in the process of energy efficiency renovation in the residential sector: i.e.: homeowners, business, financial sector. The project will contribute to the achievement of multi-dimensional impacts in terms of creating a new system to provide integrated home renovation services with highly standardized and optimized procedures: (1) A “one stop shop” assistance to homeowners, allocated at the private business and their alliances sustainably ensured for the future through regulations and capacity building activities; (2) A three components sustainable financial mechanism to facilitate loans access, conditional subsidy receipt and targeted support to insolvents; (3) Municipal policies regarding newly assigned roles in the process of residential buildings renovation. The sustainability of SHEERenov results will be ensured through policy recommendations, communication, exploitation and dissemination activities and intended policy change regarding multifamily building renovation in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is facing a serious challenge to radically transform its extremely grant-dependent energy efficiency support schemes, while at the same time preserving the speed and scope of the clean energy transition. This is especially valid for the residential sector, where the existing 100% grant mechanism for building renovation has to be quickly reformed into a sustainable financing scheme, at the same time targeting more ambitious energy targets and taking into account the overspread energy poverty. Similar situation is evidenced in the industry, where investments are usually prompted by operational programmes offering up to 80% grants. Considering the principles of functioning of the EU Green Deal and the possibilities under the Recovery Package, innovative financial instruments have to be quickly designed and adopted in a transparent and inclusive way, significantly improving the leveraging effect of public resources, while at the same taking into account the limited investment capacities and purchasing power of the consumers. To address these policy and market gaps, BeSmart aims to support smart financing implementation by setting up a permanent discussion forum, gathering central and local authorities, energy efficiency experts, the financial sector, ESCOs, homeowners, industry, construction and SME sector representatives. The discussion forum and the 9 roundtables planned under the project are specifically designed to support new business models and utilize investment opportunities derived from the increased financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy at EU level. They will gather and upscale existing best practices, support the development of national and local-level strategies, propose improvements in the national policy framework and implementation programmes, develop the institutional and legal framework, and increase the transparency in the policy-making process, leading to increased trust of the investors and better functioning of the market.

The EVOSST project aims to improve the efficiency and understanding of social services within the European Union, aligning with the European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU's long-term budget for social inclusion and cohesion. The project focuses on developing advanced models for a comprehensive life-course impact assessment, providing insights into the long-term effects of social services, and covering healthcare, childcare, long-term care, education, and inclusion. This aligns with the EU's ambition for sustainable development and inclusive growth, moving towards a 'beyond GDP perspective'. The integration of well-being metrics reflects the EU's emphasis on improving the quality of life, including health and education, and enhancing societal well-being and social cohesion, along with the development of an integrated policy framework for social services echoes the EU's strategic direction for streamlined and effective social service delivery. EVOSST's integration of technological impact and digital technology in social services is an applied vision aligning with the European Commission's Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027). The project applies this directive to the broader realm of social services, utilizing technologies to enhance service delivery, assessment, and user experience. The project's ambition is not only to enhance the effectiveness of social services but also to revolutionize the way their impacts are measured and understood, informing more effective policies and practices.

PolicyCLOUD delivers a unique integrated environment addressing the full lifecycle of policy management: modelling, monitoring, enforcing, simulation, analysis and compliance. The environment will utilize the capabilities offered by the European Cloud Initiative, with an emphasis on data analysis to facilitate evidence-based policy making. PolicyCLOUD introduces a pioneering approach for the development of policies “collections” to exploit collective knowledge towards policy co-creation and cross-sector optimization. The co-creation of multi-modal policies will follow an innovative modelling process for structural representation of schema-based policies. PolicyCLOUD environment seamlessly integrates a methodology for utilizing cloud environments and data in policy making structures considering sociological, cultural, political, legal and economic properties. PolicyCLOUD environment will integrate a set of reusable models and tools, ranging from social dynamics and behaviour analysis, to situational knowledge acquisition, opinion mining and sentiment analysis, complemented with tools for data aggregation, linking and cleaning. Citizen participation will be ensured exploiting techniques for incentives management and a Living Lab approach put forward by PolicyCLOUD. A toolkit which allows the specification of transferable and re-usable analytics tasks in a declarative way, their integration in the policies management path, as well as an adaptive visualization environment, will realize PolicyCLOUD’s vision of openness and extensibility. Targeting high impact, PolicyCLOUD delivers a data marketplace enabling the creation of an entire ecosystem of stakeholders contributing, producing, processing and using policy-related data assets. The reusable models and tools and this marketplace provide the ground for the proposed dual-business plan, which has been compiled by the consortium to ensure the long-term sustainability and take-up of the PolicyCLOUD results.