In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of Cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050). Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future City, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe (e.g. from harsh winters in Skelleftea-SE to hot summers in Chania-GR, from deprived areas in Novo mesto-SI to increased pollution in Malta) through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

Application of Solar Thermal Energy to Processes (ASTEP) will create a new innovative Solar Heating for Industrial Processes (SHIP) concept focused on overcoming the current limitations of these systems. This solution is based on modular and flexible integration of two innovative designs for the solar collector (SunDial) and the Thermal Energy Storage (TES, based on Phase Change Materials, PCM) integrated via a control system which will allow flexible operation to maintain continuous service against the unpredictable nature of the solar source and partially during night operation. ASTEP will demonstrate its capability to cover a substantial part of the heat demand of the process industry at temperatures above 150 ºC and for latitudes where current designs are not able to supply it. Its modularity and compactness will also enable easy installation and repair with reduced space requirements, while most of components can be sourced locally. The ASTEP`s process integration will allow full compatibility with the existing systems of potential end-users of SHIP. These aspects will provide a very competitive solution to substitute fossil fuel consumption. The developed solar concept will be tested at two industrial sites to prove the objective’s target of TRL5. Life Cycle Analysis will be included to validate and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technologies. The first Industrial Site of the proposal is the world’s leading steel company, ArcelorMittal, with a heating demand above 220 ºC for a factory located at a latitude of 47.1 N (Iasi, Romania). The second site is the dairy company MANDREKAS, located at a latitude of 37.93 N (Corinth, Greece) with a heating demand for steam at 175 ºC and a cooling demand at 5 ºC. These test locations will validate the ASTEP solution for a substantial part of the potential requirements of industrial heating and cooling demand of the European Union (EU28), which is estimated at approximately 72 TWh per year

With the growing global demand for biological medicines to address new therapeutic areas, the BIOPURE project will deliver a step change in monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) purification through the implementation of radically new and disruptive technology to recover mAbs-products in the solid-state directly from cell-free culture fluids. BIOPURE promises to lower manufacturing and purchase of equipment costs with a smaller footprint. It simplifies logistic chains and enhances environmental sustainability by avoiding extensive use of chemicals, compared to the standard chromatography-based platforms. It opens the doors to new possibilities and biomedicines so far too challenging economically or technologically. As end result, the citizens will have access to a more affordable and diverse selection of new generation biomedicines. The proposed membrane-based technology has already been proved at the laboratory scale (TRL4) as a cheaper and easily scalable alternative to protein A chromatography for mAb purification. The next step is to demonstrate the generalized efficiency of the technology and scale it up to TRL6 through the design of a fully automatized prototype that will be operated continuously and capable of compliance with quality and regulations for biopharmaceutical productions. In addition to technological development, the new BIOPURE technology will be validated with real market players, leading to verifying the planned business model, the IPR management plan, and the associated financial planning included in the go-to-market strategy. By achieving the main objectives of BIOPURE, it is expected that the adoption of membrane-assisted method for mAb-products purification will provide a breakthrough advancement in terms of productivity efficiency via continuous manufacturing, and cost reduction via process intensification.

The fact is that the lithium deposits within the EU are associated with different mineralizations in solid host rocks, except from the lithium brines of South America and Australia. These mineralizations require a special approach when processing and purifying happen up to battery grade lithium carbonate. Li4Life proposal creates of an efficient technology for the extraction of lithium from poor or complex ores of underutilised deposits, as well as post-mining tailings, as the basis for the development of future clean energy. Reference objects is potentially viable lithium projects have been identified in Europe from Finland in the North, through Germany, Austria and Czech Republic in Central Europe, to Spain and Portugal in the South-West. To cover the needs of the EU Battery Industry, Li4Life is aim to contribute an ambitious objective to increase the EU domestic supply of local raw materials by at least 5% to upcoming 2030. This is possible by creating an innovative value chain for domestic lithium raw materials. Li4Life's pathway to this ambition - novel processing methods, and purification up to battery-grade lithium carbonate to overcome existing barriers, namely the lack of a sustainable social licence to operate (SLO) and compliance with strict EU environmental laws.

Virtual Reality (VR) environments have huge potential for those with compromised physical capability in providing a sense of freedom and motivation, but there are significant barriers in access and effective use in this context. To address these user and technological challenges, this project aims to develop an accessible, collaborative VR rehabilitation environment that uses a serious gaming virtual space to provide stimulus, socialisation and friendly competition for users on the path to rehabilitation. By focussing on upper mobility and the reclamation of fine motor skills, the issues of fidelity of movement, ergonomic accessibility, adaptive testing and feedback, and socicalision become paramount in creating a viable user experience. Access to the VR environment will be via customised, adaptive controllers that are tailored for individual users to provide a unique and enhanced level of accessibility and constructed using advanced additive manufacturing techniques. The delivery of the software and hardware elements of this research will require the development of an integrated digital platform that will extend state-of-the-art digital technology in: the configuration of a collaborative VR serious gaming environment for rehabilitation purposes; the rapid acquisition of detailed anatomical and biomechanical user data in relation to the upper body with a focus on the hands and wrists; new principles of mechanical switch actuation and form generation in additive material structures; advanced human-centred design techniques to determine requirements and assess performance; and extended principles of design for manufacture and automation for additive structures and housing design. Three demonstrator controllers will illustrate how arm, hand and finger movements can be remapped for dynamic travel according to specific user conditions and allow for validation of a sustainable competitive ecosystem of European technology in the domain of interactive rehabilitation.