Projects
INnovative oFfshore wInd techNologies In deep waTErs The INFINITE project demonstrates a 4.8 MW floating offshore wind system at 100m water depth with two key technology innovations. The first is a disruptive and environment-friendly concrete tension leg platform anchored with an innovative tendon-based mooring system. The platform is designed to work with commercially available WTGs and is scalable, modular and self-installing, showing a vast potential for industrialisation. The second is an innovative aluminium dynamic cable design that is safer, lighter, cheaper and allows for more standardisation in O&M. The demonstrator makes use of a cost optimised O&M strategy that increases...
FLIARA: Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas Key contemporary trends, such as climate change, gender inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic, bring new challenges to European rural areas. Change also brings opportunities to foster more resilient, inclusive and sustainable rural regions, such as created by the digital and ecological transitions. However, there is a need for all individuals and communities to participate in rural innovation. Traditionally, however, rural women’s employment opportunities and contribution to innovation has been overshadowed, and often suppressed, by for example a patriarchal ethos. FLIARA (Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) uniquely proposes a transdisciplinary, innovative...
Improving MicroPollutants Analysis and Controlling of Terrestrial and Aquatic Systems Degradation of plastics is a sequence of chemical and physical changes reducing their molecular weight and mechanical integrity of the polymer and leads to formation of microplastics (MPs). Negative effect of the MPs on the environment is not only physical, but also chemical due to their ability to adsorb and accumulate many persistent organic pollutants The role of MPs as a vector of the contamination is newly formed phenomenon and could fundamentally top off the role of MPs in the ecological systems. Only limited number of scientific papers and research...
Blue Culture Technology Excellence Hubs in EU Widening Member States BCThubs project aspires to build R&I capacities in the Blue Economy sector of the participating Widening countries, focusing on Blue Culture Technologies (BCT) supporting the Underwater (UW) Cultural Heritage (CH) scientific research and tourism valorization. Although the European seas are reach in UWCH sites and assets, only a few of them are exploited sustainably towards social welfare, cohesion and growth. BCThubs aims to build BCT Excellence Hubs supporting with new innovative solutions and products, the sustainable protection, restoration, valorisation, management, accessibility and promotion of UWCH. Each Excellence Hub brings together...
Laboratory for Innovation in Opto-Mechanics "Enabling large optical systems capable of resolving and measuring faint sources not accessible with current remote sensing instruments and detectors is the scientific overarching aim of LIOM by creating and sustain an excellent ERA Chairs optics and photonics' technology group of experimental physicists and astronomers, engineers, and technicians with an innovative optics and photonics technology environment. Under the leadership of the outstanding researcher and research manager Prof. Jeffrey Kuhn we aim to build a collaboration that will lead to the development of the next 50 years of astronomical telescopes - be they on the ground,...
Decentralised Qualifications' Verification and Management for Learner Empowerment, Education Reengineering and Public Sector Transformation QualiChain targets the creation, piloting and evaluation of a decentralised platform for storing, sharing and verifying education and employment qualifications and focuses on the assessment of the potential of blockchain technology, algorithmic techniques and computational intelligence for disrupting the domain of public education, as well as its interfaces with private education, the labour market, public sector administrative procedures and the wider socio-economic developments. The project focuses more specifically on the assessment of the implications (technical, political, socio-economic, legal and cultural) as well as the impact -...
Planetary RObots Deployed for Assembly and Construction Tasks The proposal addresses the establishment, with the support of mobile robotic platforms, of a precursor lunar base with essential capabilities in preparation to commercial exploitation of in-situ resources by assembling an ISRU resource extraction and utilization system will be essential for the establishment of future human settlement. It will in particular include the extraction of oxygen from regolith to serve as oxidizer for fuel and for artificial atmosphere generation within habitats, and 3D printing of relevant structures using regolith (with or without adjuvant, depending on printing strategy) for construction purpose – e.g....
Our common future ocean in the Earth system – quantifying coupled cycles of carbon, oxygen, and nutrients for determining and achieving safe operating spaces with respect to tipping points COMFORT will close knowledge gaps for key ocean tipping elements under anthropogenic physical and chemical climate forcing through an interdisciplinary research approach. It will provide added value to decision and policy makers in terms of science based safe marine operating spaces, refined climate mitigation targets, and feasible long-term mitigation pathways. We will determine the consequences of passing tipping points in physical tipping elements for the marine carbon, oxygen, and nutrient cycles,...
Resilient Bio-inspired Modular Robotic Miners ROBOMINERS will develop a bio-inspired, modular and reconfigurable robot-miner for small and difficult to access deposits. The aim is to create a prototype robot that is capable of mining underground, underwater or above water, and can be delivered in modules to the deposit via a large diameter borehole. In the envisioned ROBOMINERS technology line, mining will take place underground, underwater in a flooded environment. A large diameter borehole is drilled from the surface to the mineral deposit. A modular mining machine is delivered in modules via the borehole. This will then self-assemble and begin its...
ENergy aware BIM Cloud Platform in a COst-effective Building REnovation Context The main objective of ENCORE is to increase the share of renovated stock in Europe and worldwide by providing effective and affordable BIM tools that cover the whole renovation life-cycle (from data collection to project execution, and commissioning/delivery). It will tackle energy efficiency and comfort parameters, involving all the actors in the process (architecture studios, designers, constructors, tenants, or public administration), and facilitating information exchange among all the parties. To achieve this objective ENCORE proposes the creation of a system that integrates services for data acquisition from the buildings...
Grounding RRI practices in research performing organisations GRRIP will embed sustainable RRI practices in 4 research performing organisations (RPO) and 1 dual function RPO and research funding organisation (RPO/RFO) (total 5 RPO&RFO) in the Marine and Maritime (M&M) sectors through Action Plans (AP) for institutional and cultural change. This will be accompanied by establishing a platform for engagement with the Quadruple Helix (QH) for each RPO&RFO, and a platform for mutual learning between the 5 RPO&RFOs and QHs. M&M is a high priority for the EU. However, the M&M is seriously exposed to the non RRI alignment between Research and...
All AtlaNtic Cooperation for Ocean Research and innovation The main ambition of AANChOR is to promote the implementation of the South Atlantic Research and Innovation Flagship initiative and the Belém Statement (BS), signed by the EU, Brazil and South Africa in 2017, to upscale research and innovation cooperation within the Atlantic basin, from Antarctica to the Arctic. AANChOR will pursue this ambition by providing the EC and the BS Implementation Committee (to be established by signatories of the Statement) with a framework to identify and contribute to the implementation of concrete long-term collaborative activities, reinforcing international cooperation between Europe and...
Genomic and nutritional innovations for genetically superior farmed fish to improve efficiency in European aquaculture AquaIMPACT is a major effort to integrate the fields of fish breeding and nutrition to increase the competiveness of EU's aquaculture of Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, gilthead seabream and European seabass, to ensure food and nutrition security and to satisfy consumer demands for high-quality seafood with limited environmental impact. These four species together represent 75% in volume and 89% in value of the total farmed finfish production. AquaIMPACT will develop products and services based on genomic selection for the European aquaculture breeding industry, with focus...
New species, processes and products contributing to increased production and improved sustainability in emerging low trophic, and existing low and high trophic aquaculture value chains in the Atlantic The overall objective of AquaVitae is to increase aquaculture production in and around the Atlantic Ocean in a sustainable way by developing new and emerging low trophic species and by optimising production in existing aquaculture value chains. The value chains that AquaVitae will focus on include macroalgae production, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, and production of new echinoderm species as well as existing shellfish and finfish species. A series of cross-cutting Work Packages (WPs)...
Integrated Assessment of Atlantic Marine Ecosystems in Space and Time iAtlantic will take an interdisciplinary scientific approach to unifying stakeholder efforts to better inform sustainable management and enhance human and observational capacity throughout the Atlantic. The integration of ecosystem data with major circulation pathways connecting the North and South linked with climatic data and forecasts provides a systematic approach to jointly assess and tackle policy challenges. Ocean physics and ecosystem connectivity will enable high-resolution oceanographic hindcasts and forecasts of future circulation together with ground-truthing genomic data. Advances in eDNA genomics, machine learning and autonomous underwater robotics will be combined with...