Over the past two years, the project consortium of the Qualipaed project has been able to successfully implement all planned goals and to establish long-term cooperations and networks through very intensive and good cooperation. In a first step, a list of criteria could be drawn up based on a very extensive validation study, which includes all applicable instruments of the quality label. The label handbook provides a very detailed overview of the certification process and all the necessary detail steps within that process. For the creation of the handbook, the developed seal of quality was piloted in the partner countries in at least 10 different elementary education and support institutions, so that this experience could also be incorporated into the handbook and the policy paper. For the successful piloting of the quality seal, two female and male auditors were trained and prepared for the successful implementation in the partner country within a five-day teaching, learning and training activity from all partner countries. The project partner PädQUIS from Germany acted both during the teaching-learning. and training activity as well as the developments of the manual and the validation study as an expert in the project with a lot of know-how in the field of quality assessment and assurance.The start-up validation study, in which we asked for the quality perspective of parents, professionals and agency representatives in all partner countries, reached at least 3,600 people who were thinking about quality issues and their implementation.During the school week of the auditors, as well as in the course of the pilotaudits, at least 45 kindergartens were able to benefit from the pilotaudits and received detailed feedback on specific quality areas directly or after successful evaluation of the piloting. This allowed the professionals an external view of the structures and their practical work with the children as well as a first opportunity to feed the feedback long-term in the quality assurance.Throughout the course of the project, many possibilities of working on the project and the results as well as the networking with stakeholders were used. As early as November 2018, initial project results were presented to an interested public sector. In addition to reports on the course of the project and articles in specialist journals, insights into the project and its results were also made possible during further education of kindergarten teachers in Austria. The project was repeatedly announced in many newsletters. Above all, the multiplier event also contributed greatly to the dissemination of the project towards the end of the project, where the main results were presented and the starting signal for the use of the quality seal and the developed materials was laid. Together with about 80 participants of the final conference, a panel discussion with representatives of different stakeholders from the partner countries discussed the quality and applicability of the quality label. At this very successful multiplier event, therefore, the very positive project conclusion could be celebrated.All project reports are available on the project partner homepages in all partner languages plus English and are intended to contribute to long-term quality assurance and quality assessment in elementary education and care.

CircularPSP brings together 7 procurers from 7 countries, representing 45 million citizens, to invest €5.64 million in R&D to tackle the common challenge of accelerating digital transition towards a Circular Economy (CE). The Buyers Group represents highly attractive national markets (DE, FI, TR, SE, IE, PT, SI) supported by a Preferred Partner in UK, including capitals with global influence (Berlin, Helsinki, London, Istanbul). The consortium represents European CE-transition and PCP leaders in science and practice. Suppliers are expected to deliver a new green digital public service and data platform enabling entire municipal operations (city) and the local economy (market) to choose, open up, and consume existing and new data. The solution is to support business processes and workflows to plan, procure and implement innovative CE-solutions across Europe more quickly and at larger volume. The unmet procurement needs are: tools to improve organisational and operational performance; data analytics using taxonomies to exploit and exchange CE information and data; removal of language barrier to unlock EU-wide knowledge and learnings. To enable the transition suppliers will answer with ICT innovation in the cross-cutting combination and leveraging of existing and new strategic digital technologies: 1) scalable platforms for city and SMEs users, 2) CE data analytics using EU taxonomy, open linked data, injected by AI, and 3) natural language processing (NLP) to break language barriers across the EU and beyond. The envisaged solution is relevant for all European authorities including cities, ministries, agencies, and housing. Activity triggered by the solution will increase the volume of circular procurement and widen commercialisation opportunities for green digital companies and result in EU leadership in Circular Economy. With interoperability at the core and innovative tools for data sharing and open standards, the solution will provide a use case for the upcoming Common Industrial and Green Deal European Data.

The main goal is to strengthen capacity of public authorities to successfully apply GPP with priority, enhancing their ability and capacity to save energy, reduce CO2 emissions and costs by applying innovative solutions on GPP. By the establishment of “supporting permanent structures”, called G.PP.S. – Green Public Procurement Supporters (Supporting Units) within the participating Energy Agencies, the project implementation provides long-term support and technical assistance on GPP to the public authorities, and multi-level cooperation among different actors at national, regional and local level on GPP. The project objectives are to address the obstacles to the uptake of GPP that have been identified by the partners in their own country (context analysis) and which come from the WP2 – Institutional needs on GPP and Good and bad practices analysis in each participating country. The implementation of pilot projects, by aiming to intensively consult public administrations in the implementation of pilot green procurement process, have the scope to test on the field that are the most efficient and effective actions to provide GPP implementation and up-take. More concretely, the project aims at achieving the specific objectives, by implementing the following actions: • analysing in each participating country the existing bad and good practices on GPP; • analyzing the SEAPs in each participant country. By the SEAPs’ analysis, the consortium will find where local authorities need support for “Green” products and services (energy related); • establishing so-called G.PP.S. in Energy Agencies in 7 EU participating countries. • giving support on GPP instruments and tools • setting up and supporting sustainable training programmes (including how to finance them) and finding long-term solutions by the institutionalisation of GPP training • testing GPP application and innovation • at least 21 PA will be invited to experiment the technical support by the G.PP.S

INTENSSS-PA will support public authorities to integrate the energy theme into spatial planning and regional physical and socioeconomic landscapes. To achieve this objective INTENSS-PA will provide human and institutional capacity building to public authorities and to the wider network of private and public actors related to energy and regional planning by implementing the Living Lab concept, i.e. an innovative environment of co-creation. Specifically, a network of seven Regional Living Labs (RLL) within the seven different Countries/Regions that participate in the consortium (Thessaly-Greece, Calabria-Italy, Castilla y Leon- Spain, Association of Municipalities-Slovenia, Groningen-Netherlands, Triangle-Denmark and Zemgale-Latvia), will be created. Involving public authorities, private and civil society actors, the RLLs are focused on improving and designing a shared and integrated sustainable energy planning concept and on applying it in order to develop seven sustainable energy plans, i.e. one for each Region. The overall approach will involve learning sessions and experiential projects alongside intense networking. Communication and exploitation activities are envisaged including national Roadshows and a survey with policy makers. It is expected that over 200 people participate in the capacity-building activities performed within the RLLs network, while the stakeholders and policy makers informed on the project results and activities will exceed the 1000 individuals. The project objectives are completely inline with topic EE07’s scope, since it considers innovative capacity building activities to public authorities for integrated energy planning through the establishment of a network of RLLs, i.e. of an ecosystem that stakeholders bring their own specific wealth of knowledge and expertise to the collective, helping to achieve boundary spanning knowledge transfer. Special consideration will be provided on planning requirements deriving from 27/2012/EU Directive.