Logistics industry is facing continuous and significant challenges during the recent years. The trend is the adoption of intelligent services for increasing the performance of the provided systems and synchromodal operations. Transfers and deliveries can benefit from the use of novel business models that adopt the aforementioned intelligent services when the optimization of the use of shared resources is the core target and become the basis for the provision of a climate friendly infrastructure. The goal of synchromodal operations and the integration of heterogeneous logistics services is the reduction of current transfers in order to reduce the carbon footprint while securing the uninterrupted deliveries and the resilience to any disruptive event. TRACE targets to the aforementioned integration activities offering a universal platform with functionalities related to planning, scheduling, optimization and events management as well as the use of blockchain technology to facilitate the real time conclusion of smart contracts and financial operations, thus, becoming one of the first attempts to provide an ‘intelligent cover’ upon the current logistics frameworks. TRACE envisions real demonstrators in different European countries with different goals that start from transportations with the use of shared resources, the disruptive events detection and re-scheduling of transfers while concluding with the use of unmanned vehicles to automate the last mile deliveries. TRACE also proposes new transfer corridors, safe areas where unmanned vehicles can collect items towards the final destination and new (virtual) hubs. TRACE will perform studies related to the barriers towards the new logistics era, the new business opportunities, the requirements for the legislation and regulatory frameworks and expose the benefits of the proposed approach in terms of the reduction for energy demand and emissions while limiting the operational costs for logistics stakeholders.

New trends such as teleworking and e-commerce, as well as the need for a further increase of digital tools in all sectors (i.e., health, education, transportation, farming, etc.) demanded by the Covid-19 pandemic, are pointing out once again digital territorial inequalities, supply-chain disruptions and deficiencies in economic opportunities that hamper resilience and prosperity of rural communities. Accessibility and connectivity are key issues to mitigate this erosion of socio-territorial cohesion. However, identifying a common solution for equipping rural communities with increased access to services, opportunities and adequate innovation ecosystems ensuring that no one left behind is a challenging task, mainly due to the diversity of challenges and needs of different locations. In this respect, XGain fosters a sustainable, balanced and inclusive development of rural, coastal and urban areas by facilitating access to relevant stakeholders, such as municipalities, policymakers, farmers, foresters and their associations, to a comprehensive inventory of smart XG, last-mile connectivity and edge computing solutions, and of related assessment methods. The XGain overall project objective is, to deliver a Knowledge Facilitation Tool, facilitating business model development, supporting decision-making in the selection of an ecosystem of technologies, consisting of connectivity options and edge processing solutions, by following a multi-actor and practitioner-oriented approach, and by coherently assessing their socio-economic and techno-environmental effects, aiming at: increasing systemic resilience and energy efficiency; contributing to climate mitigation; and reducing the digital divides between different types of citizens, farms, sectors and regions.

The vision of TERMINET is to provide a novel next generation reference architecture based on cutting-edge technologies such as SDN, multiple-access edge computing, and virtualisation for next generation IoT, while introducing new, intelligent IoT devices for low-latency, market-oriented use cases. TERMINET’s primary intention is to bring (more efficient and accurate) decisions to the point of interest to better serve the final user targeting at applying distributed AI at the edge by using accelerated hardware and sophisticated software to support local AI model training using federated learning. Our solution aspires to reduce the complexity of the connecting vast number of heterogeneous devices through a flexible SDN-enabled middleware layer. It also aims to design, develop, and integrate novel, intelligent IoT devices such as smart glasses, haptic devices, energy harvesting modules, smart animal monitoring collars, AR/VR environments, and autonomous drones, to support new market-oriented use cases. Great expectation of the proposal is to foster AR/VR contextual computing by demonstrating applicable results in realistic use cases by using cutting-edge IoT-enabled AR/VR applications. By designing and implementing an IoT-driven decentralised and distributed blockchain framework within manufacturing, TERMINET aims to support maintenance and supply chain optimisation. Our solution intends to apply a vertical security by design methodology by meeting the privacy-preserving and trust requirements of the NG-IoT architecture. To foster standardisation activities for the IoT ecosystem, TERMINET will provide novel disruptive business models. For the evaluation of its wide applicability, TERMINET will validate and demonstrate six proof-of-concept, realistic use cases in compelling IoT domains such as the energy, smart buildings, smart farming, healthcare, and manufacturing.

In the era of hyper-connected digital economies, the smart technologies play a vital role in the operation of the Electrical Power and Energy Systems (EPES), transforming it into a new, decentralised model with multiple benefits, such as distributed generation, pervasive control, remote monitoring, and self-healing. However, the growing number of cybersecurity incidents in EPES promotes the need for shielding against a variety of threats, ranging from cyberattacks, dynamic and evolving Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), and privacy violations, to electricity disturbances and severe human errors caused by lack of relevant training. The diverse threats that modern EPES are facing require novel and holistic solutions that employ cutting-edge technologies to detect and mitigate threats, while continuously assessing the dynamic EPES environment, ensuring compliance with the latest cybersecurity standards and training the EPES personnel to appropriately respond to cybersecurity incidents and mitigate the human-error factor. Considering these, ELECTRON aims at delivering a new-generation EPES platform, capable of empowering the resilience of energy systems against cyber, privacy, and data attacks through four main pillars (risk assessment and certification, anomaly detection and prevention, failure mitigation and energy restoration, and addressing internal threats and gaps through AR-VR-based personnel training and certification), while fostering the cyber protection standardisation and certification via three novel authorities, namely the cybersecurity lighthouse, the cybersecurity training and certification authority, and the energy trading centre.

The journey towards tangible sustainability outcomes necessitates a fusion of technological advancements with strategic experimentation. In this pursuit, 6G-VERSUS emerges as a pioneering initiative, leveraging cutting-edge 6G research facilities across Europe to explore the frontiers of sustainable technology. Through meticulously designed trials and pilots, 6G-VERSUS addresses pressing challenges in 5 environmentally conscious vertical industries. In this regard, 6G-VERSUS introduces a novel methodology, transforming existing use cases into 6G applications, comprising Vertical App (V-App), Network App (N-App), and AI-assisted App (AI-App). This triadic structure optimizes the data and control planes of 6G systems, facilitating seamless information flow and decision-making processes. With the support of six (Stream C) 6G platforms spanning across Europe, 6G-VERSUS aims to demonstrate the profound sustainable, economic and societal impact of 6G technology, propelling towards a more sustainable and prosperous society.