Industry 4.0 has now extended its focus to a broader set of technologies rather than just CPS, and to the most vital processes included in the product and production systems lifecycle, rather than just to production. In all the dialects where the Industry 4.0 language is spoken, Industrial Internet of Things, Additive Manufacturing and Robotics from the technology side and Mass Customization, Product-Service Systems and Sustainable Manufacturing from the business side always represent key cornerstones and top priority challenges. FASTEN “mission” is to develop, demonstrate, validate, and disseminate an integrated and modular framework for efficiently producing custom-designed products. More specifically, FASTEN will demonstrate an open and standardized framework to produce and deliver tailored-designed products, capable to run autonomously and deliver fast and low cost additive manufactured products. This will be achieved by effectively pairing digital integrated service/products to additive manufacturing processes, on top of tools for decentralizing decision-making and data interchange. Sophisticated software technologies for self-learning, self-optimizing, and advanced control will be applied to build a full connected additive manufacturing system. ThyssenKrupp and Embraer are two of these companies that must overcome challenges of this nature, in order to cope with an increasing demand diversity, products with shorter life cycles, and the need for supplying low volumes per order, requiring flexible solutions capable to effectively manufacture and deliver personalized products.

INCOBRA – Increasing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) International Cooperation between Brazil (BR) and the European Union (EU) – is a 36-month Coordination and Support Action aiming to increase, enhance and focus Research and Innovation (R&I) cooperation between BR and EU. INCOBRA is expected to contribute to (i) Increased cooperation patterns – by supporting cooperation networks among BR and EU R&I actors (Work Package –WP2), (ii) Enhanced framework conditions – by fostering coordination and alignment of R&I funding in BR and EU (WP3), (iii) More focused BR-EU R&I cooperation – by identifying emerging topics and opportunities in priority R&I areas for cooperation (WP1). Capacity building, sustainability will also be fully addressed by INCOBRA (WP4 and WP5, respectively). INCOBRA’s approach is completely aligned with the EU Strategy for International R&I Cooperation, the EU Roadmap for R&I Cooperation with BR, the BR-EU Policy Dialogue priorities and with the work of the Strategic Forum for International STI Cooperation (SFIC). It thus draws upon a multilateral perspective (interests and needs of BR-state level, BR-federal level, EU and EU-Member States), whilst capitalizing and going beyond the outcomes of the previous R&I cooperation project with Brazil (B.BICE+). INCOBRA’s approach also assumes innovation (holistic concept) as a key driver for BR-EU STI cooperation and Strategic Foresight as a relevant tool to anticipate R&I trends of mutual interest for BR and EU R&I actors, while promoting mutual openness of BR and EU R&I funding programmes to encourage cooperation. The INCOBRA consortium comprises 13 partners (7 from EU and 6 from BR), including Universities, Research Organizations, International Organizations, Technology Parks, Private Companies and Funding Agencies. Building upon a stakeholder-driven basis, INCOBRA already incorporates 36 organizations as members of the Stakeholder Group to be deployed during the project.

This is a project-based on cooperation between 5 European and 10 Latinamerican universities. The main objective of the Project is to integrate social innovation in academic curriculum and learning environments in Latin American Universities to promote quality improvement in academic programs through fostering competence to solve regional social problems. This implies: 1. Design and apply educational models to promote competences on social entrepreneurship and social innovation amongst university students.2. Design and offer academic strategies to develop competences on social entrepreneurship and social innovation.3. Design valuable methodological tools for academic programs to improve understanding of the community`s needs and offer inclusive, sustainable solutions for detected problems.4. Design a monitoring system to evaluate curricular development on social entrepreneurship and innovation competences.5.Design and implement institutional policies and programs for administrative, academic and support management to promote social innovation in Latin American Universities.6. Create alliances between Latin American and European Universities interested in promoting social entrepreneurship.7. Support existing social incubators in participant universities to improve links between educational tools and students learning process to foster creativity and sustainability in social projects.With these activities, the Project will achieve short and long term impact at four different targets: institutions, teachers, students, external/Social Stakeholders. Then, the Project has some specific key indicators that serve to review the progress and the impact of the actions:1.Reporting the state of art of Social Entrepreneurship in participant institutions2.Guidelines of competencies on social innovation. 3.Toolbox for teaching social innovation including methods for working with different external stakeholders (NGO’s, Companies, Communities) 4.Selection and Confirmation of pilot courses and teachers that will implement social innovation methods or activities inside their courses. 5.Teachers’ participation in the training program on how to design and implement social entrepreneurship within selected courses during the pilot period.6.Implementation and monitoring of pilot projects7.Identification and early development of institutional support actions to enhance innovation and social entrepreneurship in HEI. 8.Results and impact of pilot projects To accomplish this, there are seven important moments or milestones in the project. 1.Kick-off meeting- Mexico (Starting Point, Clarification on Tasks & Expectations)2.Valencia meeting (Progress and Difficulties of the Project)3.Teachers online training (Expectations)4.Porto Alegre’s meeting (Satisfaction and Usefulness)5.Pilot’s implementation (Progress and Difficulties)6.Talca’s meeting (Results and Impact, this meeting changed from the city of Talca to Bgotá). 7.Final Meeting (Results and Impact)By now, we have passed through all the moments mentioned above covering 8 key indicators listed before. There were changes to some of the actions conceived at the beginning. These changes were discussed with the Steering Committee, as part of our internal quality measures; and later, were discussed with our Project Officer, to grant here authorization. The changes imply an improvement in the impact and the results of the project. The previously expected impact was: the implementation of a methodology in SI and SE in 20 pilot courses, 450 students implicated, 55 trained teachers, the reinforcement of social incubators in the participant universities with an impact in the communities, and the implementation of measures for the mainstreaming of social innovation. The final impact overpassed these numbers: 70 courses, 1614 students, 56 teachers trained.

Climate Labs seeks to strengthen the applied research and innovation capacities of ten partner universities from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia through the design and implementation of Social Innovation Labs for mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change. In a network with Universities from Spain, France, and Italy, plus Ashoka as a non-academic expert partner, the project seeks to build interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder labs that will institutionalize the applied research and innovation for climate change in the territories the partners are inserted. In a term of three years, the project expects to train scholars, students and staff members in Latin America, who will form changemaker leader teams, design and implement labs according to the needs, strengths, challenges and characteristics of the institutions and territories they serve. In this period, each university will also implement a pilot project, get connected with international relevant networks as well as other national institutions, build the physical and virtual infrastructure of the lab, and develop strategies for the sustainability and scalability of the project. The project seeks, ultimately, to build strong and connected areas of innovation and applied research within universities impacting in the overall capacities and strategies of the partner countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.