The world in 2045 will be a different place. Although we cannot predict the future, we can shape it. Futures studies have developed methodologies to create futures images and scenarios. The potential for creativity and imagination at art schools, together with the urge for innovation in society at large brought together key players from Higher Arts Education and business in a Knowledge Alliance FAST 45 – Futures Art School Trends 2045. They are geared up to imagine a desirable future in which the participation, education and research in the arts play an integral part in a world that will have been radically reshaped by the 4th Industrial Revolution, globalisation and climate change. FAST45 collects knowledge, creates and tests methods and broadly implements them in Art School Futures Labs in which educators, researchers and employers will co-create futures scenarios and operationalise them in policy papers, long term collaborations and tools that will empower institutions and enterprises to not only better anticipate an unknown future, but actively shape it.By working across sectoral boundaries and by envisioning futures scenarios for 2045, FAST45 will (a) explore and inventory already existing research that substantiate ideas of possible, probable, or preferable futures for higher art education and the employment of artists, (b) organise Art School Futures Labs that enhance futures thinking and imagining alternative futures inside (students, lecturers, administrative staff and heads of departments) and outside (external public and private partners) institutes, (c) deliver four futures scenarios that highlight the discontinuities from the present and reveal the potential choices and their potential consequences that IHAE need to prepare for their longer-term future planning and decision-making, and (d) organise a general discussion / debate on possible policy and decision actions that informs and facilitates transformative leadership for strategic steps forward.

Our common heritage is a central element of our communities and economies, and a principal but vulnerable dimension of our common identity as Europeans. It has been proven that cultural heritage contributes to well-being, social cohesion, identity, local economy, territorial attractiveness, and environmental sustainability, but the climate crisis and natural hazards endanger this heritage. We propose RescueME to take immediate action for demonstrating how an innovative data-driven, community-based, heritage-centric actionable landscape approach to resilience enhancement can protect our cultural heritage and landscapes while supporting the transition toward a green society and economy that sustains resilient, cohesive, nature-connected communities. RescueME proposes a call for action, broadening the scope, triggering action, untapping and mobilizing resources, engaging actors, and facilitating the decision making and the implantation of co-created just resilience solutions to protect our common heritage. RescueME will develop, test and demonstrate the effectiveness of an Actionable Framework based on the Resilient Historical Landscape approach (RHL) complemented by data, models, methods, and tools able to assess risks and opportunities, co-develop inclusive and just resilience strategies and innovative solutions to protect European cultural heritage and cultural landscapes from climate change, disaster risk, as well as other stressors (such as pollution and over-tourism) with special focus on European coastal landscapes since a large share of this endangered heritage there. The five case studies (Psiloritis in Creta, Neuwerk in Hamburg, Portovenere, Cinque Terre & the Islands, València and the city of Zadar) have been selected carefully as complementary representatives of European coastal landscapes. They will act as resilience landscape laboratories (R- labscapes), validate the results and ensure their replicability.

"STEAMProcess has the ambition to foster disruptive innovation for research and science, by promoting the use of artistic soft-skills in science/tech education and practice. In particular the project wants to:1) Encourage programmes for skills development and lifelong learning to include a clear component for culture and creativity. It is crucial to assess the actual use and impact of the projects funded in the frame of programmes, such as Erasmus+, that are promoting the transition from STEM to STEAM training. 2) Support programmes integrating the arts into STEM curricula as well as cross-sectorial projects blending the arts with STEM disciplines. The studio and the laboratory are learn-by-doing, learn-by-making educational experiences. The iterative process and experimentation are key components to advances and discoveries in both fields. Artists, designers, and scientists alike are utilizing data in new and interesting ways to inform their practices and affect positive change. Productive cross-disciplinary collaborations are being formed in both the academy and in the workplace.3) The development of a Cultural and Creative Sector literacy policy, for example through an own-initiative report or via a pilot project/preparatory action. Such literacy policy would help to stimulate the interest and demand for European cultural diversity, as well as stimulate creative thinking across EU citizens, in particular, focused on specific policy issues. Art school students and graduates are also having a huge impact on social innovation by bringing to light and helping to solve important global issues. Architects and designers have a unique and ethical responsibility to develop, for example, environmentally creative solutions. And artists play an increasingly significant role in addressing societal challenges as many shift toward work that is collaborative and community-based. Project Objectives:General objectiveFostering cross-fertilization between technical/scientific skills and artistic/humanistic skills through the creation of innovative training materials and teaching supporting tools.Specific objectives: 1 - Identification of a skills frame characterizing the most innovative subjects in the arts/science cross-fertilization field2- Creation of a replicable methodology supported by gamification, aimed at integrating artistic and creative skills with technological skills, stimulating new forms of entrepreneurship and facilitating the formation of diverse teams giving birth to innovative projects3- Solidification of common experience and best practices to promote STEAM cross-fertilization in a cohesive way across the European UnionProject ProductsIntellectual Output 1 – Art Skills FrameworkThe objective of IO1 is to create the framework of the A (Art) Skills, the soft skills that are typical of artistic processes. In the general perspective of introducing the variable A in the STEM processes, it is, in fact, necessary to define the added value that artists can bring to the STEM sectors in terms of soft skills (e.g. the ability to think out of the box, the ability to manage unknowns, the ability to establish an empathic relationship with heterogeneous contexts, etc.).Intellectual Output 2 – STEAM Methodology Skills FrameworkThe aim of the IO2 is the development of a methodology aimed at designing an innovative response to an economic or social challenge through cross-fertilization. The methodology stems from the hackathon methodology (challenge, limited time, competition between teams), including the letter ""A"" of arts among the STEM competencies: from STEM to STEAM.The main features of the methodology make it a useful tool not only with toward its primary purpose - i.e. the generation of ideas and solutions from a specific need - but also from an educational point of view: the challenge favours teamworking, stimulating participants to collaborate with people often unknown, or coming from fields of study or professions far from their own; the limited time favours problem-solving: as reported in the literature on creative thinking (see for example Edward De Bono), the more the human mind is stressed by constraints the more lateral thinking is activated. Intellectual Output 3 – STEAMProcess GameThe objective of IO3 is the creation of an original and engaging educational tool for the training of students and STEM professionals in Artistic Skills, in order to stimulate a STEAM approach to research and design.Through a gamification process, the methodology developed during IO2 will be ""translated"" into a game aimed at training the creative and artistic skills of professionals and students in the scientific sector."