Mixed bio-waste generated along the agri-food value chain is an abundant resource, rich in valuable compounds e.g., polysaccharides or polyphenolic constituents. Yet, its potential as a source of recycled components is untapped - 75% of the generated bio-waste (approx. 85 M/y) is landfilled or incinerated, constituting 3% of total EU GHG emissions. Valorisation of mixed bio-waste from the agri-food sector is hindered by (1) technological challenges of removing impurities (e.g., plastics, cardboard, or metals) that would otherwise decrease the process quality, (2) logistics challenges of collecting seasonal, geographically dispersed feedstock that lower valorisation cost-benefit. MixMatters proposes an innovative system that efficiently separates and valorises three types of mixed bio-waste streams containing impurities from the agri-food industry (wholesale markets, greenhouses, food and drink industry) and obtains six high value-added outputs (powder ingredients, sugar concentrates, recombinant proteins, green fibres, bioactive compounds, plastic monomers). The MixMatters system is modular and multi-purpose - able to treat a range of mixed bio-waste streams (ensuring feedstock supply). The separation stage is automated, integrating advanced robotics and AI. It is also containerised – separating the bio-waste at waste generation sites to avoid inefficient transportation of water and stream spoilage. The system functioning is optimised via a Decision Support while transparency + traceability are ensured via a Digital Product Passport. In the project, the system will be demonstrated during 15 months at three waste generation sites, along with output validation with 6 bio-based industries and active involvement of value chain actors (partner networks outreach + 2,280 members) – to ensure result deployment. MixMatters will contribute to meeting the separation targets of the Waste Framework Directive (separated 6,240 t/y by one system at industrial scale).

Increasingly challenging global and environmental requirements have resulted in agricultural systems coming under increasing pressure to enhance their resilience capabilities in order to respond to the abrupt changes in resource quality, quantity and availability, especially during unexpected environmental circumstances, such as uncertain weather, pests and diseases, volatile market conditions and commodity prices. Therefore, integrated solutions are necessary to support the whole food agricultural life-cycle value chain. Solutions necessarily must consider the products’ cycle, as well as each of the value chain stages. Thus, managing risks and the uncertain availability of information will lead farmers to take advantage of these managerial, technical and social based-solutions. This implies the need for innovative technology-based knowledge management system to capture the agricultural information, at a variety of regional locations, in terms of collecting, storing, processing, and disseminating information about uncertain environmental conditions that affect agricultural decision-making production systems. Hence, from the genetic design of the seed, till their planting and harvest processes, RUCAPS provides knowledge of the full agricultural life-cycle based-decision making process to realise the key impacts of every stage of the agriculture-related processes. Therefore, RUCAPS implies the development of a high impact research project in order to integrate real-life based agriculture requirements, alternative land management scenarios, unexpected weather and environmental conditions as well as supporting innovation in the development of agriculture production systems, operations, logistics and supply chain management and the impact of these systems and processes over the end-users and customers. This is to be conceived through the integration of standard and customised solutions for facilitating the collaborative engagement within the agriculture value chain.

For the EU economy to grow sustainably it needs to re-industrialise, leveraging innovation and digital intelligence. Blockchain Innovation Spaces (Block.IS) envisions to build an open and collaborative cross-border, cross-sectoral innovation ecosystem that fosters the use of this cutting-edge technology in three vital sectors for the European economy: agrifood, logistics and finance. Block.IS will bring together (connect) actors (with an emphasis on SMEs and clusters) from these three heavily interconnected sectors, with SMEs/ innovators, to catalyse their cooperation towards innovation-driven and mutual growth (boost). The catalysation is aimed at networking the members of the ecosystem, raising understanding of the benefits of blockchain technology and stimulating the creation of new blockchain-based solutions - Cluster Missions and Clusters-Innovators Assembly. Block.IS will support innovators (SMEs) all the way from ideation to commercialisation offering them tailored business and technical support as well as direct funding, through a novel funnel approach - Innovate > Experiment > Commercialise acceleration programme. As such, the project will directly foster and strengthen competitiveness of digital SMEs (that will develop the solutions) and of the clusters and SMEs of the three verticals which will use them to offer added value to their customers. The Block.IS consortium is a fusion between: Tech founders and SMEs community (F6S), sector-oriented clusters and sectoral associations (VOICT, FEDACOVA, IT-Log, DSME, FTS), international innovation and Tech-transfer specialists (INO, IDI, CIVITTA, SYN) and Blockchain tech experts (INTRA, TNO); with an outreach of >1,017,000 SME. Block.IS invests 81% of the EC budget in SMEs and 51% through Open Calls (€2,800,000)

APPETITE Project was carried out for 2 years between December 2017 and November 2019. The APPETITE Project’s objective was developing training and practical education on enduring business models among an innovative training course addressing on experienced agri-food entrepreneurs and youth seeking for new work opportunities.APPETITE project focused development of a training aimed at awareness rising of experienced agri-food entrepreneurs about their need for adaptation and innovation to make a transition toward a sustainable business model; development of new competences for youth and unemployed to apply innovation and sustainable schemes to the agri-food sector.For this reason, project partners developed the learning journey in the project. The classification of the training contents in the 3 parts of the training course (Discovery, Incubation, Acceleration) and 1 part for optional (Transversal) developed structure of the course and allocation of the topics through ideas about how business models were created based in the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. According to partner’s decision, the structure of the training course created the same for entrepreneurs and youths, but the contents of the course were different. Within this scope, under O1-A1 and O2-A1 (Researching course modules) were distributed training subjects to all partners by the leaders. Under O1-A2 and O2-A2 (Creation of a structured learning journey) learning journey was created. Under O3, the intergenerational contents created the expected dialogue between the two-target group and their collaboration toward sector innovation.The subjects are training activities; Introduction to Sustainability and CSR; Sustainable Development; Agri-food Value Chain 1 (value chain management); Agri-food Value Chain 2 (stakeholder management); Creativity and Innovation Skills; Stakeholder Management (Engagement); Stakeholder Maps and Prioritization Matrix; Sustainability Context Matrix; Business Modelling; Market Analysis (SWOT); Materiality Matrix; Sustainability Report; Action Plan; Change Management. Also, some modules are optional, the trainees have the possibility to improve their skills regarding: Circular economy; Industry 4.0; Globalization; Servitization; Open innovation; Social innovation; Social media and reputation; Cooperation and Team-working skills. Project partner, TATICS, created a project web site and training platform. All the training materials were uploaded the platform on each partners’ own language except Danish (www.appetiteproject.eu). The course contents aimed to test via two technical meetings in the application form; one of them was for the entrepreneurs under O1-A4 activity and the other was for youths under O2-A4 in each partner country. These two meetings were organised together as structure of the learning journey. So, it was decided that this structure would be well-organised and more useful for both entrepreneurs and youths. In the technical meetings, modules of the APPETITE course and functionalities of the platform and the decision that took the consortium to elaborate the course that way were explained during the events. Totally, 26 students, 20 entrepreneurs and 9 stakeholders were attended the technical meetings. Feedbacks were collected from the participants (Annex 1 – Technical Meetings Report).After the completion of all training materials, project partners organised a short-term blended activity (C1) for 5 days in Rome. The main objective of this activity was to test the intergenerational methodology developed APPETITE training and made pilot practice.Students, entrepreneurs and partner representatives, totally 20 participants, were attended the training activity. After the activity, all the participants filled the “Trainee’s competences questionnaire” and “Trainee’s satisfaction questionnaire” for evaluate and give feedbacks according to Validation Methodology. Also, project partners fill the “Trainer’s assessment” forms (Annex 2 – Minutes of C1 activity, Annex 3 - Validation Reports).Then, each country organised Multiplier Events (E) which targets a local territorial scale and FEDACOVA organised the final conference in Valencia, to present the conclusions of the project and to collect the feedbacks. Totally, 104 students, 57 entrepreneurs and 45 stakeholders attended these events; with extra 8 project partners participation to final conference (Annex 4 – Report of Local Multiplier Workshops). For the project sustainability and long-term impact, Exploitation Plan and Collaboration Agreement was prepared by SETBİR. After the project completion, the new competences and supporting Learning Management System will be completely developed, and maintenance activities will be sustained after the project end so that the delivered outputs can generate the expected positive impacts and spin-offs on the target groups (Annex 5 – Exploitation Plan and Collaboration Agreement).

"The Food and Drink Manufacturing and Processing (FDMP) sector is no longer seen as an attractive choice for workers mainly due to the traditional reluctance to invest in innovation. As a consequence, recruitment difficulties have arisen, especially for high-level, food science and technology roles. Moreover, employers and experts feel that young people are often ill-prepared and are not sufficiently focused on the development of skills that are required in the workplace.In the field of food quality, safety and defence assurance, tests still rely on traditional laboratory analyses as well as on personnel expertise. However, new inspection technologies have been developed with great potential to be transferred to the food sector, such as: optical spectroscopy, X-ray radiology, gas sensing, and biosensors. Unfortunately, very few of them have been introduced neither in industry nor in educational and training programmes.The objective of UPDATEST has been to bridge this transnational gap by increasing the knowledge, competences and skills on new technologies for food quality, safety and defence assurance in FDMP industries. The target group of the project has comprised initial and continuing vocational education and training students, such as: students in the initial education system; individuals entering a job at an entry-level position; and food industry professionals who have already gained experience in the labour market. These people are recognised as being capable of, firstly, assessing both in-place and alternative, technological solutions to address food quality, safety and defence issues; and, secondly, influencing decision-makers and so bringing about change in their organisations. As a result, the project was intended to contribute to the transformation of the EU FDMP industry in the short-medium term and in line with the Commission’s priorities.The consortium consisted of a Spanish technology centre (AINIA), a UK sector skills council (NSAFD), a Spanish federation of food associations (FEDACOVA), an Italian federation of food associations (FEDSERV), and a Greek university (Agricultural University of Athens, AUA).The work plan to achieve the project objective was structured into six activities (A1 - A6). A validation analysis was performed in A1 by surveying 80 stakeholders from FDMP industries, technological research institutes, VET centres, and academia. On the basis of the analysis, the learning programmes guidelines were produced. These documents were used in A2 to select potential participants for the courses (teachers and students; researchers and technology providers; and trainers and staff members of FDMP industries); and to produce the materials for the in-person and on-line courses. 2 pilot courses for 34 IVET and CVET students were executed in A3 to evaluate both programmes and extract valuable information to improve the quality of the generated guidelines and materials. Additionally, three horizontal activities were carried out for communication and dissemination (A4); exploitation and sustainability (A5); and management activities (A6) purposes.The three main outcomes (or ""intellectual outputs"") that were produced by the project are explained in more detail as follows:•The Programme Guidelines document outlines the structure, tone, delivery methods, proposed learning objectives and content for both the in-person and on-line learning programmes. The document has been produced in English.•The educational materials for the face-to-face learning programme consisted of chapters (i.e. text documents) and presentations on 14 topics related to food authentication. The materials were originally produced in English and introductory summaries for every chapter were generated in Greek and Spanish.•The training materials for the on-line learning programme were uploaded to a Moodle platform which is accessible through the project website. They consisted of chapters (i.e. text documents), presentations, and multiple-choice assessments about 12 topics grouped into 3 modules. The materials were originally produced in English; the presentations and multiple-choice assessments were translated into Spanish; and introductory summaries were also prepared in Greek.It is important for the consortium to ensure that the project results will be used beyond the lifetime of the project in order to contribute to the sustainability of UPDATEST. The association has made the intellectual outputs freely accessible. The dimension of the targeted EU-FDMP industry (285,000 companies employing more than 4.5 million people) ensures a huge initial group of potential end users through the appropriate combination of dissemination and sustainability strategies. In order to further expand the number of people interested in the courses, the intellectual outputs have considered some technologies that could be adapted to cover the training needs of other sectors, such as: packaging, pharmaceutical and cosmetics."