The «Geo-ergon Paideia» project (in Greek: Γεωργών Παιδεία - Γεωργών Παιδιά) is a transnational exchange program which aims at training school students of the secondary level of education in becoming future eco-farmers. The main purpose of the project is to implement a sustainable strategic partnership between European universities –research centres, municipalities and schools in order to reinforce the concept of agricultural education and sustainable development in rural areas through an integrated interdisciplinary approach. University of the Aegean is coordinating the project and is responsible for the project management as well. A school from Greece (Gymnasium of Geraki in Lakonia), a school from Romania (Gymnasium school Adrian V. Radulescu), Municipality of Evrotas (Greece) and Municipality of Murfatlar (Romania) constitute the partnership along with IZES (Germany) and KEAN (Greece).The project's objectives are:1. Setting up a series of online open courses on eco-farming and start-up business2. Teaching agricultural entrepreneurship to school students3. Providing learning environment for current and future eco-farmers in innovative entrepreneurship4. Empowering a large number of students, parents, and stakeholders to set-up or develop their own business5. Supporting school students, through capacity building, to ensure the sustainability of the natural environment and the development of the local economy.6. Development of a network which will include students, stakeholders, entrepreneurs, academic professionals to promote innovation and sustainability in the agricultural sector in rural regions.7. Enhancement of transnational cooperation among schools in Europe.The program is addressed to students attending the second class of lower secondary school (gymnasium), who live in the selected rural areas in Greece and Romania. Apart from the students the participants of the project (around 200) include farmers, the parents of the students, local and governmental authorities, young entrepreneurs, academic professionals and researchers and stakeholders.The training program is organised with the following transnational learning activities:a) open courses “Start-up Farm” to school students at the Gymnasium of Geraki in Greeceb) open courses “Start-up Farm” to school students at the Gymnasium School Adrian V. Radulesku in Romania andc) Experiential learning workshop in Saarbrücken (Germany) through a study visit at the research institute IZES and the Bliesgau UNESCO Biosphere ReserveThrough multiplier events (Local workshops with stakeholders and Final Event -Networking) all the interested parts will participate in social dialogue for the development of eco-farming business sector , exchange knowledge, good practices and innovative methods of entrepreneurship.The expected results could be summarized as:1. Raising awareness of school students regarding professional perspectives in the agricultural sector in their region. 2. Raising awareness regarding the importance of transferable skills for professional development. 3. Introduction of school students to basic concepts of entrepreneurship . 4. Development of an integrated educational approach towards a rural sustainable development concept .5. Ideas for the development of a new summer school on eco-farming. 6. Increase in students’ business skills and positive attitude towards launching their own farm company. 7. Transfer of entrepreneurship-related knowledge and experience, between project partners, and stakeholders. This program intends to develop an integrated approach in order to bridge the gap between skills, education and labour market needs at local level in the agriculture sector that could potentially serve as a model for future use and adjustment. In addition, this project will promote interdisciplinary collaboration among different organizations, institutions and stakeholders. The development of a network of stakeholders will enhance the exchange of good practices and further collaboration leading to potential synergies.The intellectual outputs produced by the project will be available to the wider public through the e-learning platform, managed by the University of Aegean. An open access policy will be maintained throughout the duration of the project and at least two years after the completion of the project.

Europe is at the beginning of a major transition to a low carbon economy and is experiencing substantial growth in the expansion of renewable energy generating capacity. However, parallel to this technological investment, many Member States are witnessing increasing levels of local opposition to individual projects, particularly for wind energy, which is now the cheapest form of energy generation. This has a range of consequences including increased deployment costs/delays, increased regulatory demands, reduced market support and highlights a major social challenge for the energy transition. In response to this, MISTRAL aims to nurture a new generation of researchers who can effectively evaluate the complexity of social acceptance issues facing the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure and propose innovative solutions in a variety of research, government and business contexts. It will do this by fostering a vibrant inter-disciplinary environment to change the way we understand and respond to declining social acceptance of renewable energy infrastructure and engage a wider range of inter-sectoral stakeholders to develop innovative solutions. MISTRAL will also provide an innovative training environment where young researchers can develop advanced skills in research and transferable skills, benefit form a range of diverse secondment experiences and debate current issues with some of the world leading researchers in the field, in order to develop advanced capacities for progressing Europe’s energy transition.

CROWDTHERMAL aims to empower the European public to directly participate in the development of geothermal projects with the help of alternative financing schemes (crowdfunding) and social engagement tools. In order to reach this goal, the project will first increase the transparency of geothermal projects and technologies by creating one to one links between geothermal actors and the public so that a Social Licence to Operate (SLO) could be obtained. This will be done by assessing the nature of public concerns for the different types of geothermal technologies, considering deep and shallow geothermal installations separately, as well as various hybrid and emerging technology solutions. CROWDTHERMAL will create a social acceptance model for geothermal energy that will be used as baseline in subsequent actions for inspiring public support for geothermal energy. Parallel and synergetic with this CROWDTHERMAL will work out details of alternative financing and risk mitigation options covering the different types of geothermal resources and various socio-geographical settings. The models will be developed and validated with the help of three Case Studies in Iceland, Hungary and Spain and with the help of a Trans-European survey conducted by EFG Third Parties. Based on these feedbacks, a developers’ toolbox will be created with the aim of promoting new geothermal projects in Europe supported by new forms of financing and investment risk mitigation schemes that will be designed to work hand in hand with current engineering and microeconomic best practices and conventional financial instruments.

After 10 years of track record, the current EPCs schemes across the EU face several challenges which have led to not fully accomplish their initial objectives: lack of accuracy, a gap between theoretical and real consumption patterns, absence of proper protocols for inclusion of smart and novel technologies, little convergence across EU schemes, lack of trust in the market and very little user awareness related to energy efficiency. The objective of the ePANACEA project is to develop a holistic methodology for energy performance assessment and certification of buildings that can overcome the above mentioned challenges. The vision is ePANACEA becoming a relevant instrument in the European energy transition through the building sector. ePANACEA comprises the creation of a prototype (the Smart Energy Performance Assessment Platform) making use of the most advanced techniques in dynamic and automated simulation modelling, big data analysis and machine learning, inverse modelling or the estimation of potential energy savings and economic viability check. A relevant part of the project is to have a fluent dialogue with European policy makers, certification bodies, end-users and other stakeholders through two types of participatory actions: on the one hand a feedback loop with policy makers will be carried out through the so called Regional Exploitation Boards (REBs) covering EU-27+Norway+UK, and the dialogue with the end-users will be established by means of specific thematic workshops. Thanks to these participatory actions we will ensure that ePANACEA approach is aligned with and meets the needs of national public bodies, end-users and other stakeholders with a view to test the acceptance and to validate the methodology developed. ePANACEA will demonstrate and validate reliability, accuracy, user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness of the methodology through 15 case studies in 5 European countries.