The ERC is a great success scientifically, and now wants to broaden its popular and political support. But it has a problem: Most EU citizens don’t care about some Brussels agency they never heard of. The solution is in the ERC’s mandate: frontier research. It has science – the cutting edge variety, that can capture the imagination, change the world and stimulate curiosity. We have seen the power of a fundamental science story elsewhere, and how it can focus attention on the institution behind it: the Higgs boson and CERN. It takes high scientific achievement, great story-telling, a tight focus, creative communications and a sustained effort to build a mass following in science. We believe the ERC can achieve this – to matter as the source of cool science, to students, investors, policy makers, researchers, and all citizens generally, in all 28 EU member-states and beyond. The ERC can invent science and mirror it back to society. In short, ERC = ScienceSquared. To convey this message, the ERC = ScienceSquared campaign will promote ERC projects and grantees through a cluster of innovative, popular and high quality content packages – punchy videos, long-form ‘snowfall’ articles, tiny Tweets, augmented reality, ‘pop-up’ displays – which will be adapted to a new research theme every six months. The content packages will be used in ten science museums, 34 universities, hundreds of online media channels and many other outlets covering 37 countries. These will be sustainable communication channels, which the ERC can continue using when the contract is over, targeting key audience segments: more than 40 million people. This campaign – as ‘cool’ as the ERC itself - will stir interest in science, raise awareness of the ERC as a science power, build broader political and societal support for the ERC – and encourage grant applications from a new generation of researchers, especially in countries under-represented among ERC grantees.

Plastics bring unprecedented value in terms of convenience, versatility of design and lightweight to European consumers as well as increasingly advanced performances even in high end applications. But only 31% of plastic packaging are currently recycled due to infra-developed technologies or to their unsatisfactory economic viability. This is in fact aggravated by considering plastics as commodity where their economic value is linked to a single use, often not taking into account the potentially generated end of life hurdles. In line with the just released Plastic Strategy for Europe, the time has come to stop the depletion, landfilling and incineration and shift to a Circular Model in the plastic sector improving the recycling rate but also the value of secondary raw materials from plastic recycling. As such, with an overarching mission to maximise the valorisation of our finite plastic resources, based on the CreaSolv® process (CreaSolv® is a registered trademark of CreaCycle GmbH) patented by the partner FRAUNHOFER, which will be upscaled and digitased, MultiCycle will deliver an industrial recycling pilot plant for thermoplastic-based multi-materials. This is a solvent based selective extraction process which allows recovering pure plastics in mixed wastes but also fibres without downgrading. The later compounding of recovered materials will also be optimised in terms of process and formulation. Our economically and environmentally sustainable MultiCycle process will be demonstrated in 2 main large volume sectors (as providers of waste to recycle and end users of the recycled materials): -Multilayer packaging but also flexible films that cannot be recycled cost effectively to date and altogether account for around 50% of plastic packaging, i.e. ca. 10 millions tons/year in EU. -Fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites for the automotive sector from which plastics constitute around 16% of End-of-Life Vehicles weigth, i.e. ca. 1 million tons/year in EU.

PRESERVE aims at boosting the circular use of bio-based packaging. To shift from the current situation (fossil-based, limited recycling), we build on award-winning upcycling strategies from past and on-going projects. We will enhance the performance of primary food packaging via bio-based barrier coatings for bioplastic and paper/board substrates, as well as via eBeam irradiation and microfibrillar-reinforcement. From the biotechnological side, we will leverage the compounding of enzymes in bioplastics to stimulate biodegradation, the enzymatic recovery of functional oligomers and the delamination of multilayer packaging via enzymatic detergents to enable their layer separation and recycling. The processes required to produce at least 10 packaging demonstrators will be upscaled. The enhanced bio-packaging will be validated with different types of food and drinks. Recovered biopolymers will be upcycled in added value applications such as packaging for personal care products and reusable carrier packaging (using textiles and composites). The versatility of our end of life options, materials, flexible and rigid packaging types and compatibility with different processes, ensure that PRESERVE results are relevant to more than 60% of the plastic packaging on the market, which long term substitution potential will be maximised thanks to the participation of several leading companies in the consortium. Our 2030 roadmap will outline the pathways to significantly influence the emergence of bio-based packaging and create jobs and growth in the sector. To widen PRESERVE impact, we will also perform life cycle and safety assessments, user acceptance studies and contribute to standardisation and certification. All in all, by contributing to the EU Plastics Strategy in a circular economy, our PRESERVE circular renewably sourced packaging solutions and derived upcycled applications will not only optimally preserve the food and drink but also our environment and its finite resources

The Talent Pass initiative is designed to: - strengthen the innovation ecosystem towards a borderless research, innovation (R&I) and technology market by addressing the critical need for geographically balanced talent circulation and increased cross-sectorial interoperability, as outlined in Action 4 of the ERA Policy Agenda (2022-2024); - cultivate and support cross-sectorial partnerships between academic and non-academic organizations that operate in areas of proven scientific excellence, particularly within the realm of the circular economy. The Talent Pass project aims to: - significantly enhance talent mobility and expertise development within circular economy, particularly focusing on researchers, innovators, and other R&I academic/non-academic talents from widening countries; - build a critical mass of competent researchers having the necessary high-quality knowledge, skills, and tools to drive forward innovation and sustainability in the circular economy; - improving access to excellence by consolidating an interdisciplinary network of highly skilled human resources and enhance the efficient utilization and valorization of complementary research capacities, infrastructure and results, aligning with the Horizon Europe Work Program (2023-24) - WIDERA and the Circular Economy Action Plan for a Cleaner and More Competitive Europe (2020); - bridge the gap between research and application and effectively translate advancements in circular economy into real-world solutions, by fostering collaboration between academia and industry. Talent Pass will subsequently focus on strengthening the research capabilities of WC institutions, ensuring they are on par with leading European entities. This will be achieved through strategic use of research resources (human, know-how and infrastructure) to foster capacity-building initiatives and targeted training and secondment programs addressing current and future challenges in circular economy.