The fuel cells and hydrogen (FCH) industry has made considerable progress toward market deployment. However existing legal framework and administrative processes (LAPs) – covering areas such as planning, safety, installation and operation – only reflect use of incumbent technologies. The limited awareness of FCH technologies in LAPs, the lack of informed national and local administrations and the uncertainty on the legislation applicable to FCH technologies elicit delays and extra-costs, when they do not deter investors or clients. This project aims at tackling this major barrier to deployment as follows: • Systematically identifying and describing the LAPs applicable to FCH technologies in 18 national legal systems as well as in the EU proper legal system. • Assessing and quantifying LAP impacts in time and/or resource terms and identify those LAP constituting a legal barrier to deployment. • Comparing the 18 countries to identify best and bad practices • Raising awareness in the countries where a LAP creates a barrier to deployment. • Advocating targeted improvements in each of 18 countries + EU level • It will make all this work widely available through: (1) A unique online database allowing easy identification, description and assessment of LAPs by country and FCH application. (2) Policy papers by applications and by country with identification of best practice and recommendations for adapting LAP. (3) A series of national (18) and European (1) workshops with public authorities and investors. HyLAW sets up a National Association Alliance not just for the duration of the project, but for the long term consolidation of the sector under a single unified umbrella. By bringing together these national associations and all of Hydrogen Europe’s members, it’s the first time ever that the entire European FCH sector is brought together with a clear and common ambition.

Mental health disorders pose a massive economic and societal burden. Emerging early in development and resulting in long-term disability, neurodevelopmental dysfunctions (NDD) compromise the quality of life of millions of Europeans. The purpose of the Neo-PRISM-C ETN is (1) to train Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in applying the Research Domain Criteria, a novel framework for understanding psychopathology, to the study of the mechanisms and treatments of NDD. It aims (2) to train ESRs from multiple disciplines (psychology, neuroscience, data science) in state-of-the-art and transferable skills for innovating the study of brain-behavior relationships in NDD, in the context of a systems-based, trans-diagnostic theoretical frame. This ETN will also (3) support training in designing evidence-based, individualized treatments of learning, behavioral, and social maladjustment, bridging across diagnostic categories. Towards these goals, we have assembled a trans-sectoral European network with expertise in cognitive, social, educational, clinical, and emotion research and in training ESRs. Six research, training and management work packages (WPs) pursue these goals. WP1 comprises innovative projects, investigating risk and protective factors that span across NDD diagnostic categories (autism, learning, emotional difficulties) and linking to healthcare industry and education. WP2 examines systems-level brain development to identify biological substrates of specific dysfunctions. WP3 applies this knowledge to develop new multi-modal interventions to address domains of impairment. The academic, industrial and clinical partners collaborate across themes, offering ESRs project-specific secondments, supervision, workshops, summer school and courses on research, transferable and entrepreneurial skills. Neo-PRISM-C is expected to further understanding of NDD and improve the competitiveness of EU health professions, providing the market with highly-skilled researchers and clinicians.

This project aims at a pivotal advancement towards a long-standing promise of science and technology: a visual prosthesis that restores useful levels of vision to blind people. It combines results from two earlier EU funded projects: In NeuraViPeR, Fernandez et al. implanted a small needle-bed shaped silicon electrode array in the visual cortex of blind volunteers. Electrical microstimulation on this silicon array was able to induce the percept of simple shapes directly to the blind person, and also enabling her to find boundaries of objects. However, as most of the visual cortex does not lie on the surface of the brain, this cannot be readily upscaled to practical levels. In HyperStim, we developed a technology to build flexible, polymer-based electrode arrays that can be shaped to address the entire primary visual cortex. In tests on rhesus monkeys, we have proven durability of the electrode arrays over several years, vastly improved tissue integration and reduced scar tissue formation compared to the earlier silicon probe technology, and to current clinically used electrode arrays. Furthermore, we have proven the ability to increase the resolution beyond the number of electrodes that are physically present by using advanced stimulation patterns. In the current proposal, we will combine the two previous projects and prove in a first-in-human experiment in a blind patient that this is indeed the way forward to restore a level of vision that is useful in daily life. In terms of business development, we have already founded a start-up company around this concept and raised seed funding. We have 3 pending patents. The project's business objectives revolve around further advancing the company in terms of business plan, quality systems, documentation and IP. Combining these business objectives with success in the aforementioned research goals will help us reach our ambitious final goal: to successfully raise series A funding by the end of the project.

Our vision for a new type of cancer treatment is based on an implantable therapeutic system capable of ‘programmable’ on-demand delivery of drugs directly to the tumor. We conceive an implantable iontronic switch (bioSWITCH) to enable a spatiotemporally controlled administration of highly potent chemotherapeutics, without the need for systemic administration of (pro)drugs or drug conjugates. This radically new technology will be realized by a combination of next-level tools. As a result, bioSWITCH can generate previously unobtainable discrete as well as continuous drug concentration profiles at the tumor site, and thus allows for the use of highly potent drugs that are otherwise not applicable due to high cytotoxicity. The goal is to demonstrate the technology’s potential to effectively interfere with tumor progression using a xenograft pancreas cancer mouse model. Efficiently shrinking tumors in size allows for surgical resection of previously non-operable tumors and dramatically increases survival rates. Our consortium of world leading academics and pioneering SMEs will ensure the translation of this disruptive technology into the market to maximize the socioeconomic impact.

EVADERE (Enhanced VAccines DEsign against antimicrobial REsistance) is a multidisciplinary consortium of 14 interna-tionally recognised experts (12 from academia and 2 from industry) from 9 European countries who will provide 15 doctor-al candidates (DCs) with high-quality inter-sectoral training in discovery and development of vaccines targeting antimicro-bial resistance (AMR) based on innovative antigens, adjuvants, and delivery methods. Trainees will acquire a broad range of transferable skills to underpin their resilience for future careers in vaccine research within academia and industry respecting gender and equality.