EU Research Winter 2025

EU Research Winter 2025

Adapting for Tomorrow Novel Prize Winner calls for Independent ERC

Good COP - Bad COP? COP30 and what it means for Europe

Scorpion venom potential Cancer cure

Climate Change Adaptation: How Europe is building resilience

Disseminating the latest research from around Europe and Horizon 2020

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Editor’s No Editor’s Note T

wo recent developments in global energy have given me a renewed sense of optimism. For the first time in history, renewable sources have overtaken coal as the world’s largest provider of electricity. Meanwhile, the massive ITER fusion project in France is completing key construction milestones, marking another leap toward clean, limitless energy.

Despite negative spin from some political quarters, the global green energy transition is accelerating. According to think tank Ember, wind and solar generated more power in the first half of 2025 than coal, a symbolic and practical victory. Cost has been the decisive factor: over the past decade, solar panel prices have fallen by almost 90%, and wind and battery costs have also plunged. Grid operators are now better equipped to balance fluctuating renewable output through forecasting, storage, and flexible demand.

China and India – among the world’s largest emitters – are investing heavily in clean infrastructure, expected to deliver nearly half the world’s renewable capacity by 2030.

Despite ongoing challenges, renewables are finally leading the charge.

As a seasoned editor and journalist, Richard Forsyth has been reporting on numerous aspects of European scientific research for over 10 years.

He has written for many titles including ERCIM’s publication, CSP Today, Sustainable Development magazine, eStrategies magazine and remains a prevalent contributor to the UK business press. He also works in Public Relations for businesses to help them communicate their services effectively to industry and consumers.

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Even as renewables mature, attention is turning to the next frontier: fusion energy. I recall visiting JET, the now-retired UK fusion reactor, and watching the hypnotic purple plasma flash and swirl in the doughnut-shaped reactor space after a countdown. Today, that pioneering spirit continues at ITER in southern France, the world’s largest fusion experiment. The project entered a crucial phase, the final assembly of its reactor core.

Once operational, ITER aims to produce 500 MW of fusion power from just 50 MW of input, a tenfold energy gain.

Fusion’s promise lies in its abundance and reliability. Using fuel derived from seawater, it could one day provide constant, zero-carbon power. Though ITER’s first plasma is still about a decade away, its construction progress already marks one of humanity’s greatest engineering efforts.

Replacing coal has long been an aspiration; now it’s becoming reality. With renewables leading and fusion advancing, the global energy transition is entering its most hopeful stage yet, a future where the world stays bright without burning or polluting.

Hope you enjoy the issue.

Richard Forsyth Editor

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Contents Contents

4 Research News

EU Research takes a look at the latest news in scientific research, highlighting new discoveries, major breakthroughs and new areas of investigation

10 TAaGC

Professor Didier Stainier and his team are investigating a form of genetic compensation called

18 LIFE-GREENAPI

28 Carbon sequestration

in Swedish cropland soils

Anna Codazzi, William Herbert

We spoke to Professor Thomas

Gazzo, and Tommaso Iacoangeli

Kätterer about his research

explain how combining batch and flow

into the impact of different

chemistry with life cycle assessment

management practices on soil

can help the pharmaceutical industry

carbon sequestration, and its wider

become more sustainable while

relevance in helping meet emissions

staying globally competitive.

reduction targets.

21 MICRODRINK

30 Adapting for tommorrow

transcriptional adaptation, which

Many European countries currently

Heatwaves, floods and droughts

could lead to more effective ways of

lack the capacity to effectively

are no longer distant risks but

treating certain inherited disorders.

monitor levels of microplastics in

everyday pressures across Europe.

drinking water, an issue that the team

In response, climate adaptation

behind the MicroDrink project

is moving from the margins to

consortium aims to address.

the backbone of modern society,

12 INTEGRATE The INTEGRATE programme has been providing interdisciplinary training, helping build a fuller

22 LIFE Maraisilience

reshaping transport, power systems, urban design, water management

picture of the relationship between

Climate change is altering the landscape

and circular resource use for a more

genomics data and human disease, as

in Marais Poitevin, in western France.

resilient future. By Maria Vlastara

Professor Eva Szegezdi and

The LIFE Maraisilience project unites

Dr Sandra Healy explain.

public entities to co-create adaptation

14 LIFECON The LIFECON project examines how demographic change impacts family

strategies for a resilient future, as Fanny Voix and Michèle Richet explain.

24 ClimatePol

34 LIFE SIP WetEST The team behind the LIFE SIP WetEST project are implementing a new management plan for the Western Estonian River Basin, aiming

life, work, and care, and how Finland

In the Interreg ClimatePol project,

to reduce pollutant concentrations

can respond with cross-sectoral, data-

Danish and German partners are

and improve water quality, as Mari

driven research, as Chief Researcher

joining forces to build resilience in

Sepp explains.

Dr Taina Leinonen explains.

their shared region. We spoke with

16 Smart Care Assist

We spoke to Martina Zeinzinger and Jana Koch about their work in

Jessica Baier, Søren Tinning and Nicolas Francart about their work.

26 LIFE CrossBorderBog

36 Life Renata

The Life Renata project aims to align the conservation and management of ecologically

understanding how new information

The LIFE CrossBorderBog project

significant sites in Moldova with

systems need to be designed to

team are working to rewet and

the standards of the Natura 2000

support nursing staff and help them

conserve a raised bog in the Dutch-

network. We spoke to the team

provide high-quality care.

German border region, as Jacob

behind the project.

van der Weele and Christoph Rückriem explain.

2

EU Research

39 ADT4Blue The ADT4Blue project is encouraging the adoption of advanced digital technologies to improve sustainability

52 RENEWAT

in the Blue Economy, and balance

The team behind the Renewat

economic activity with conservation,

project aim to show how renovating

as Joaquim Brigas explains.

and repowering watermills can

40 ENEPORTS

support the green transition towards a more sustainable energy model,

The ENEPORTS project tests

as Stephen Midgley, Linas

digital twins, renewable pilots, and

Jurevičius and Eliana Colzani

smart energy management across

explain.

ports in Spain and Portugal, creating a blueprint for sustainable and replicable port operations.

42 GR4SS

54 IRRISTAUD 2.0

Jan Ellenberger and Youri Timmermans tell us about their work in developing a new sensor

Auke Smet and his colleagues in

platform to help farmers identify

the GR4SS project are developing

the precise water needs of plants,

a demonstration plant to convert

ensuring they grow in the optimal

roadside grass into valuable products,

way.

contributing to the wider goal of building a more sustainable, circular economy.

44 Bio4HUMAN

56 BrAIn

We spoke to Renáta Csabai and Balázs Barta about how the BrAIn project will help companies across

Humanitarian aid saves lives, but

the Danube region capitalise on

also leaves behind large amounts of

the full potential of new Artificial

waste. The Bio4HUMAN project

Intelligence technologies.

is scouting bio-based packaging, digesters and other technologies

58 LIFE-SYNFLUOR

across Europe and Africa for use in

The LIFE-SYNFLUOR project

challenging settings.

aims to convert hexafluorosilicic

46 DRWO4.0

acid, a by-product of the fertiliser industry, into synthetic calcium

We spoke with Dr. Ivan Ambroš,

fluoride and silica. This will support

CEO of the Croatian Competence

greener tyres, circular chemistry, and

Centre Ltd., about DRWO4.0, a

European self-sufficiency.

transnational effort supporting small wood and forestry companies across

The LIFE Moonset project team is

to Industry 4.0.

developing a new transport solution reduce the number of cars on the road and promote sustainability, as

developing innovative breeding and

Vincent Neumayer explains.

pesticide use and safeguard viticulture’s heritage. We spoke with Dr. Giorgio

62 DANOVA NEXT

The DANOVA NEXT project is

Gambino, project coordinator, about

transforming transport accessibility

the vision and approach.

across the Danube region, working

50 GRaiNNOVATE

PRODUCTION Production Manager Jenny O’Neill jenny@euresearcher.com Production Assistant Tim Smith info@euresearcher.com Art Director Daniel Hall design@euresearcher.com Design Manager David Patten design@euresearcher.com Illustrator Martin Carr mary@twocatsintheyard.co.uk PUBLISHING Managing Director Edward Taberner etaberner@euresearcher.com Scientific Director Dr Peter Taberner info@euresearcher.com Office Manager Janis Beazley info@euresearcher.com Finance Manager Adrian Hawthorne finance@euresearcher.com Account Manager Jane Tareen jane@euresearcher.com

for night-time workers, designed to

The Shield4Grape project is pest management strategies to cut

Managing Editor Richard Forsyth info@euresearcher.com Deputy Editor Patrick Truss patrick@euresearcher.com Science Writer Nevena Nikolova nikolovan31@gmail.com Science Writer Maria Vlastara mvlastara@yahoo.gr

60 LIFE MOONSET

the Danube Region in their transition

48 Shield4Grape

EDITORIAL

together with disability organisations to create digital and physical

Current methods of assessing grain

solutions for passengers with

quality are time- consuming, leading

reduced mobility.

EU Research Blazon Publishing and Media Ltd 131 Lydney Road, Bristol, BS10 5JR, United Kingdom T: +44 (0)207 105 6433 F: +44 (0)117 9244 022 E: info@euresearcher.com www.euresearcher.com © Blazon Publishing June 2010 ISSN 2752-4736

companies to look for a faster, more standardised process, an issue Ernest van Wijk and Eduard van Wijk are addressing in the GraiNNOVATE project.

www.euresearcher.com

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RESEARCH

NEWS

The EU Research team take a look at current events in the scientific news

European Commission considers ‘simplifying’ delayed deforestation law NGO’s and Campaigners say ‘simplification’ masks a deregulation agenda.

The European Commission is weighing changes to the EU’s anti-deforestation law, Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told Renew Europe MEPs in the European Parliament on Thursday. According to the Commission, the law’s entry into force is still plagued by IT system problems, which could derail its implementation, scheduled to take effect on 30 December.

Roswall has already said it should be delayed by another year, effectively meaning it would only come into force in December 2026. But on Thursday Roswall also hinted at reopening and tweaking the regulation, according to several people present.

Changing the law would be another blow to one of the few parts of the Green Deal not yet revised, as Europe’s political focus shifts ever more towards economic growth. “Roswall says we need to simplify the legislation,” a Renew MEP present at the meeting said. A second MEP confirmed this, and a parliamentary source with knowledge of the discussions also confirmed the account, adding that relief for micro- and small enterprises is under consideration. Under the regulation – which would be the first of its kind in the world – farmers and foresters placing products on the EU market must upload geolocation data to demonstrate that their goods are not linked to deforestation.

During the meeting, Roswall reportedly linked the IT problems to the large volume of data uploaded by smallholders, the Renew MEP said. Fixing the issue could involve reopening the rules to exempt some producers – a long-standing demand by German and Austrian centre-right MEPs. Swedish Commissioner Roswall, who hails from the

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centre-right EPP, and her directorate-general for the environment have repeatedly insisted since last month that any delay to the IT system is technical, not political.

NGOs rally against rollback of environmental regulation Campaigners handed a petition to Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall in front of the European Parliament, demanding the EU executive spare key environmental legislation from its ongoing deregulation drive – but they received no guarantees. The green groups behind the action ran a #HandsOffNature campaign in early September, urging supporters to flood the Commission’s consultation with calls to maintain environmental protections.

“Under the guise of simplification, we see a deregulation agenda unfolding,” said Faustine Bas-Defossez from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), calling it a gamble with health and ecosystems. She and the other campaigners handed over a small tree to Roswall, marked with 187,621 – the number of people who protested via their website.

“I’m very happy with all the responses,” said Roswall, who denied there was any trade-off between simplifying legislation and achieving the EU’s environmental goals. But she offered few guarantees when asked whether the Deforestation Regulation or the Nature Restoration Law – which narrowly made it onto the statute books amid a backlash from mainly right-wing MEPs and governments – could be included in the upcoming omnibus proposal to amend environmental laws. “It is too early to say,” she said.

EU Research

COP30 seals uneasy climate deal that omits fossil fuels US absence from COP30 is ‘watershed moment’ states EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.

World leaders have agreed to a deal at the United Nations climate conference in Brazil that seeks to address the crisis, but the agreement does not include any mention of phasing out the fossil fuels driving climate change.The text was approved on Saturday afternoon after negotiations stretched through the night, well beyond the expected close of the two-week COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem, amid deep divisions over the fossil fuel phase-out.

The agreement pledges to review climate-related trade barriers and calls on developed nations to “at least triple” the money given to developing countries to help them withstand extreme weather events. It also urges “all actors to work together to significantly accelerate and scale up climate action worldwide” with the aim of keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark for global warming – an internationally agreedupon target set under the Paris Agreement – “within reach”.

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, said the outcome was a step in the right direction, but the bloc would have liked more. “We’re not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more, to have more ambition on everything,” Hoekstra told reporters. “We should support it because at least it is going in the right direction,” he said. France’s ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, also said it was a “rather flat text” but Europeans would not oppose it because “there is nothing extraordinarily bad in it”.

Countries had been divided on a number of issues in Belem, including a push to phase out fossil fuels – the largest drivers of the climate crisis – that drew opposition from oil-producing countries and nations that

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depend on oil, gas and coal. Questions of climate finance also sparked heated debates, with developing nations demanding that richer countries bear a greater share of the financial burden. But COP30 host Brazil had pushed for a show of unity, as the annual conference is largely viewed as a test of the world’s resolve to address a deepening crisis. “We need to show society that we want this without imposing anything on anyone, without setting deadlines for each country to decide what it can do within its own time, within its own possibilities,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said earlier this week.

Now the heightened attention to these issues at COP30 has created an opportunity for serious, long overdue, discussions on how to resolve the tensions between trade and climate concerns. The issue is particularly pressing given the World Trade Organization’s inability to resolve disputes, with the US consistently blocking appointments to its appellate body.

These conversations need to go beyond carbon pricing. Import tariffs on clean energy products are often higher than those on fossil fuels.

This stems partly from governments’ understandable desire to foster low-carbon manufacturing growth and avoid excessive reliance on China — but it creates obvious risks of slowing green investment. Another new initiative created by Brazil, the Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade, is aimed at promoting dialogue on these wider issues.

Donald Trump’s US administration, conspicuously absent from COP30, has created unprecedented challenges for both climate action and open international trade. Governments that remain committed to those principles now need to show how the two things can be promoted at once — despite the inevitable tensions between them.

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Deadly Scorpion venom offers new hope for breast cancer patients Brazilian scientists have discovered a molecule, BamazScplp1, in Amazonian scorpion venom that shows potential in treating breast cancer.

The venom of an Amazonian scorpion species may contain a compound capable of helping treat breast cancer, a disease that remains one of the top causes of death among women.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCFRP-USP) in Brazil have pinpointed a molecule in the toxin of Brotheas amazonicus that appears to attack breast cancer cells in a way similar to a widely used chemotherapy medication.

These initial results, developed with scientists from INPA and UEA, were presented at FAPESP Week France in southern Occitanie.

“Through bioprospecting, we were able to identify a molecule in the species of this Amazonian scorpion that is similar to that found in the venoms of other scorpions and that acts against breast cancer cells,” said Eliane Candiani Arantes, a professor at FCFRP-USP and the coordinator of the project.

Teams at FCFRP-USP and partner institutions have long worked to clone and express bioactive molecules, including proteins from rattlesnake and scorpion venom. These efforts take place within projects supported by FAPESP and connected to the Center for Translational Science and Development of Biopharmaceuticals (CTS), housed at the Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP) at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Botucatu.

One result of this research is CEVAP’s patented fibrin sealant, described as a “biological glue.” It is produced from serinoproteinase enzymes extracted from snake venom (including Bothrops neuwiedi pauloensis and Crotalus durissus terrificus) combined with cryoprecipitate enriched with fibrinogen from buffalo, cattle, or sheep.

When applied, these components form a fibrin structure resembling the body’s natural clotting and tissue repair processes. The sealant has been investigated for use in nerve repair, bone healing, and restoring movement following spinal cord injury. It is currently undergoing phase three clinical trials, which represent the final evaluation stage required before approval of a new therapy.

Another experimental strategy is under development at the Biomedical Sciences Institute at the University of São Paulo (ICBUSP), where researchers are exploring an immunotherapy based on dendritic cells. These cells are important components of the immune system, and their functioning is often compromised in cancer patients, explained José Alexandre Marzagão Barbuto, a professor at ICB-USP and the project coordinator. “A few years ago it was

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discovered that it’s possible to take monocytes from the blood cells of cancer patients and turn them into dendritic cells in the laboratory. But the dendritic cells produced in this way are often diverted to induce tolerance.”

To address this issue, the team created dendritic cells from healthy donors and fused them with cancer cells from patients, producing a personalized vaccine designed to activate the immune system against the individual’s own tumour. Results from studies involving various cancers, including more recent tests with glioblastoma patients, suggest that this strategy can be effective when the immune response it generates is properly controlled. “The immune system interprets this vaccine, based on dendritic cells from a healthy donor fused with the patient’s tumour cells, as a transplant and reacts violently,” said Barbuto.

“We did the first studies on patients with melanoma and kidney cancer, and the results were very good, and others with glioblastoma. Now we’re hoping to carry out a phase three clinical study.”

Researchers at the Cancer University Institute of Toulouse (IUCTOncopole) in France are also contributing to the understanding of glioblastoma. Their work investigates whether artificial intelligence applied to magnetic resonance imaging can reliably indicate whether chemotherapy patients have a DNA modification associated with treatment outcomes and survival.

The modification, known as “MGMT promoter region methylation,” influences how the MGMT protein is produced and regulated. “MGMT methylation status is an important prognostic factor, but it requires biopsies that aren’t necessarily representative of the entire tumour and can vary in recurrence,” said Elizabeth Moyal, a researcher at IUCTOncopole and coordinator of the project.

Partnering with computer scientist Ahmed Berjaoui from IRT SaintExupéry, the team adopted AI techniques originally designed for aerospace applications to help resolve these challenges.

“We’ve developed a model capable of predicting survival with high accuracy, ranging from 80% to 90%, and which surpasses other existing techniques,” said Berjaoui.

EU Research

Researchers say mindaltering “brain weapons” pose a global threat Experts say sophisticated mind-altering weapons that can attack or alter human behaviour are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

A new research study has raised alarm over the rapid development of non-lethal and potentially deadly brainmodifying weapons, warning that technologies once considered science fiction are edging dangerously close to real-world deployment.

Researchers Michael Crowley and Malcolm Dando of Bradford University are preparing to publish a book highlighting how advancements in neuroscience, pharmacology and artificial intelligence are converging to create unprecedented risks. The book, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, argues that the human mind is emerging as a future battlefield — one that requires immediate global attention to prevent misuse.

Crowley warned that the world is entering a phase where tools capable of manipulating the central nervous system — to sedate, confuse or coerce — are becoming more precise and increasingly attractive to states. “We are entering an era where the brain itself could become a battlefield,” he said, noting that technologies designed for medical treatment could also be repurposed for harm.

The study suggests that what was once unimaginable — highly targeted mind-altering weapons — is now technically plausible.

Researchers say the same neurological knowledge used to treat mental disorders could be weaponised to impair cognitive function or, in the future, influence individuals without their awareness. The study highlights how both non-lethal and more destructive applications of brain-focused technologies may soon become accessible enough to threaten global security.

The book outlines several urgent steps to reduce risks, including the creation of international working groups, clearer definitions, and improved scientific training focusing on ethical safeguards.

Crowley and Dando emphasise that while understanding the human brain is essential for scientific progress, the rapid evolution of neurotechnology also poses inherent dangers.

The researchers conclude that mind-altering weapons are no longer theoretical future threats but emerging capabilities that demand immediate global policy interventions. The study calls for robust oversight to protect scientific integrity and prevent the militarisation of neurological research.

Nobel prize winning economist calls for an independent European Research Council Philippe Aghion backs the European Research Council’s bid to become a standalone organisation, saying its autonomy is at risk.

French economist Philippe Aghion, one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for economics, has called on the European Commission to strengthen the independence of the European Research Council (ERC). Speaking at the European Business Summit on November 19, he called on policymakers to “secure the long-term stability of the ERC by establishing it as a permanent, standalone, independent body, within the European Union, similar to the European Central Bank.” This is needed in part because of Commission plans to harmonise rules across the Horizon Europe research programme. “I believe, personally, there is a danger that ERC autonomy will be eroded,” he said.

Aghion’s call echoes a letter sent by the ERC’s Scientific Council to the Commission in June, before the latter published its proposal for the post-2027 Horizon Europe programme.

In it, the Scientific Council requested a permanent, standalone structure with its own legal basis in a regulation. That request was not addressed in the Commission’s proposal. Instead, there are plans to reduce the length of the ERC president’s mandate and introduce a single rulebook for all research and innovation funding instruments. However, ERC president Maria Leptin recently said she had received assurances the ERC would not

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be constrained by this single set of rules.

The ERC, which supports investigator-driven frontier research, already has a significant degree of independence to draw up work programmes and determine the types of grants and budgets available to applicants, free from top-down policy priorities. “The ERC is great, because before, we had bureaucrats deciding how to allocate research funding,” said Aghion, who has benefited from two ERC Advanced Grants during his career.

In budget terms, the ERC is one of the winners of the Commission’s proposal for the next Horizon Europe programme, almost doubling its resources from €16 billion to €31.5 billion. However, the research community should not get carried away, according to Pascal Lamy, who chaired the high-level group that advised the Commission on the current Horizon Europe. Speaking on the same panel, he called the almost doubling of the overall Horizon Europe budget “the sacrificial lamb” that member states are likely to cut as a way to reduce the overall EU budget while preserving politically sensitive pots such as agriculture. “The odds [the doubling] will happen are very low,” he said. “If we get a plus to the existing roughly €100 billion which we have for the programme, that would be great, unless we organise a fight.”

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The origin of the moon and Earth’s neighbour that created it New research pinpoints origins for the planet Theia, whose ancient collision with Earth likely produced the moon.

Over 4.5 billion years ago, a giant body smashed into Earth in a cosmic collision that birthed our planet’s loyal companion, the moon. Now, new research indicates that this body, named Theia, may have actually formed in the inner solar system with Earth, meaning it was once our planet’s neighbor.

Scientists already knew a lot about how this collision influenced Earth beyond the creation of the moon, including how it affected the shape, composition, and mass of our planet and how it shifted its orbit around the sun. However, the fact that Theia was completely obliterated in this collision means there are still many unanswered questions about the impactor itself. These include: What type of object was Theia? How big was it? What was it made of? And where in the solar system did Theia emerge from to smash into Earth?

In this new research, a team of scientists has used the information we have about Theia to create an “ingredients list” that may have composed this giant impactor, finding that this points to its place of origin in the solar system.”The most convincing scenario is that most of the building blocks of Earth and Theia originated in the inner solar system,” said team leader and MPS researcher Timo Hopp. “Earth and Theia are likely to have been neighbours.” The team’s research was published in the journal Science.

Particularly useful for scientists aiming to reverse engineer Theia, like this team, are the ratios of variations of elements, called isotopes, that differ in the number of neutrons in their atomic nucleus. This is because researchers theorize that in the early solar system, isotopes were not evenly distributed, meaning the ratio of certain isotopes within a body should reveal if it formed at the edge of the solar system or closer to the sun.

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This team focused on isotopes of iron, chromium, molybdenum, and zirconium found in 15 rock samples from Earth and six rocks collected from the moon by Apollo astronauts. This revealed that the Earth and the moon are, almost without question, related, something scientists already knew from isotopes of other elements. However, the team took this further and compared the isotope ratios in the Earth and moon rock samples to the composition of our planet in order to explore different combinations of Theia’s size and makeup that could lead to the observed final state.

One important clue for the researchers was the fact that long before Theia slammed into Earth, our planet had formed a molten core where elements like iron and molybdenum accumulated. This led to these elements being scarce in Earth’s mantle. That means any iron found in our planet’s mantle, the layer between Earth’s crust and its core, likely arrived after the formation of the core.

This iron may have been delivered courtesy of Theia. As team member Thosten Klein of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) pointed out in a statement: “The composition of a body archives its entire history of formation, including its place of origin.”

The team had a useful way to further assess the composition for Theia that they arrived at, and what it meant for its origins, using meteorites collected from the surface of Earth. These are broken-away pieces of asteroids, which formed at the same time as the planets. While the composition of Earth corresponds to a mix of known types of meteorites, originating at differing points in the solar system, the composition of what they believe to be Theia doesn’t. This means hitherto unknown material could have been involved in the formation of Theia, indicating that Theia may have formed closer to the sun than Earth did.

EU Research

Researchers discover part of electron that drives catalysis Discovery has potential to lower production costs of fuels, chemicals, and materials.

A research team from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering and the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering has successfully identified and measured the fraction of an electron involved in catalytic manufacturing.Their findings, published in the open-access journal ACS Central Science, clarify why precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum excel in catalytic processes.The results also point to new possibilities for designing advanced catalytic materials.

Industrial catalysts -- substances that reduce the amount of energy required for a given chemical reaction -- help manufacturers boost reaction speed, yield or efficiency when producing key materials. They play a crucial role in fields ranging from pharmaceuticals and batteries to petrochemical operations such as crude oil refining, enabling production systems to meet global demand. Improving catalyst speed, reliability and control has become a major objective for the massive fuels, chemicals and materials sectors. As these industries expand, the race to develop more efficient, lower-cost catalytic systems has intensified around the world.

When molecules encounter a catalytic surface, they exchange a portion of their electrons with the metal (in this case, gold, silver or platinum). This interaction temporarily stabilizes the molecules, allowing reactions to proceed. Scientists have suspected this behavior for over 100 years, yet the tiny fractions of an electron involved had never been directly measured. Researchers at the Center for Programmable Energy Catalysis, based at the University of Minnesota, have now demonstrated that this electron sharing can be measured directly using a technique they created called Isopotential Electron Titration (IET).

materials more quickly. “IET allowed us to measure the fraction of an electron that is shared with a catalyst surface at levels even less than one percent, such as the case of a hydrogen atom on platinum,” said Omar Abdelrahman, corresponding author and an associate professor in University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering’s William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

“A hydrogen atom gives up only 0.2% of an electron when binding on platinum catalysts, but it’s that small percentage which makes it possible for hydrogen to react in industrial chemical manufacturing.”

The rapid growth of nanotechnology techniques for building catalysts, combined with machine learning tools that can search and analyze vast datasets, has already expanded the catalogue of known catalytic materials.

IET provides a third, complementary approach by allowing researchers to examine catalyst behavior directly at the fundamental electronic level.

“The foundation for new catalytic technologies for industry has always been fundamental basic research,” says Paul Dauenhauer, Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Programmable Energy Catalysis at the University of Minnesota.

“This new discovery of fractional electron distribution establishes an entirely new scientific foundation for understanding catalysts that we believe will drive new energy technologies over the next several decades.”

The IET technique can now be used to directly describe and compare new catalyst formulations, helping researchers identify promising

The “Bakiribu waridza” discovered in the form of petrified vomit found in Cariri, Brazil, in 2025 Aline Ghilardi and Tito Aureliano/ The Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN)

Dinosaur vomit reveals new flying reptile species An ancient regurgitated meal preserved a new species of filter-feeding pterosaur.

Even the most ferocious dinosaurs sometimes bit off more than they could chew. In one such instance, what was supposed to be inner came right back up, fossilized for over a hundred million years, and it ended up gathering dust in the back room of a museum - until scientists realized this half-digested mass contained the bones of a pterosaur species that had gone undiscovered.

Fossilized vomit is not usually where anyone expects to identify an unknown species. While a new species of prehistoric beetle was previously found in a coprolite, or fossil faeces, nothing has ever been discovered in the vomit equivalent known as a regurgitalite. It was originally unearthed in the Romualdo Formation of the Araripe Basin in northeastern Brazil. When a team of paleontologists examined it up close, they realized they were looking at the crushed remains of two nameless pterosaurs.

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The unfortunate flying reptiles represent an unusual new species of pterosaur which was a filter feeder. This means it fed by running its snout full of bristle-like teeth through the water like a sieve to catch small crustaceans and other small sea creatures. Bakiribu waridza literally means “comb-mouth” in the Indigenous Kariri language spoken in the region where it was found. While it is not the only known filter-feeing pterosaur, it is now the sole member of an entirely new pterosaur genus. Bakiribu has features that echo older specimens of closely related species in Germany and younger bones from Argentina. It is closest to Ctenochasmatidae, a diverse and widespread clade of pterosaurs that took to the skies during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Their remains have been found in sites that are remarkably distant, from China to Europe to South America.

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Figure 1: How transcriptional adaptation leads to utrophin upregulation Targeted antisense oligonucleotides induce exon skipping, which leads to the appearance of a premature termination codon (STOP) in dystrophin mRNA, thereby triggering its decay. mRNA decay fragments then promote utrophin upregulation, thereby compensating for the loss of dystrophin.

New insights into genetic compensation Genetic compensation helps organisms maintain function and robustness in the presence of mutations. We spoke to Professor Didier Stainier about his research into a form of genetic compensation called transcriptional adaptation, and how inducing or enhancing it could prove to be an effective way to treat certain inherited disorders.

There are several mechanisms by which organisms compensate for the presence of potentially harmful mutations, such as protein feedback loops. As head of a team of researchers and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Professor Didier Stainier has identified a process that differs from other genetic compensation mechanisms in that it is not triggered by the loss of protein function.

“Transcriptional adaptation is a process by which mRNA decay leads to the modulation of gene expression,” he explains. In the TAaGC project, Professor Stainier and his colleagues are now digging deeper into the mechanisms underlying transcriptional adaptation. “We are investigating how mRNA decay can lead to the presence of mRNA fragments that can go back to the nucleus to modulate gene expression,” he outlines. “A second important question is how these mRNA fragments - once back in the nucleus - modulate gene expression.”

TAaGC project This project involves working with fungi, C. elegans, zebrafish, and mice, as well as immortalised mouse and human cell lines in culture. The team is using a variety of different techniques, including complex molecular and biochemical approaches, to build a fuller picture of transcriptional adaptation. “Several different organisms and approaches are being used in this project, but at this time we’re mainly using genetic tools, as well as transcriptomic and proteomic analyses,” says Professor Stainier.

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Indeed, using these approaches, the team is investigating the molecular machinery underlying transcriptional adaptation, focusing on the roles of mRNA decay mechanisms and small RNA pathways. “For example, we can introduce a mutation that triggers the degradation of the mutated gene’s mRNA and compare it with a mutation that deletes the entire gene locus and thus leads to the complete absence of RNA from that locus,” explains Professor Stainier. “In the first case, the mutation creates a premature termination codon (PTC) in the mRNA, which in turn activates

of gene expression. The extent to which the details of the underlying mechanisms are the same remains to be determined, but we think it’s very likely that they are conserved across species,” says Professor Stainier. This research is still very much ongoing, with Professor Stainier and his current - as well as some of his former - colleagues looking to gain deeper insights into how transcriptional adaptation leads to changes in gene expression. “We’re making some progress as we are working towards a more satisfying or fuller understanding of the mechanisms,” he continues. “That doesn’t mean that we will

“In patients who do not exhibit transcriptional adaptation we would look to induce the expression of utrophin, a protein structurally similar to dystrophin. With patients who are already displaying utrophin up-regulation, the therapeutic approach would be to enhance this response.” nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. We then analyze this allele alongside both the wildtype and the full-locus deletion alleles.”

The transcriptional adaptation phenomenon was initially observed in zebrafish, and in a further line of research Professor Stainier and his team looked at the extent to which it is conserved across different species. Transcriptional adaptation has also been observed in the nematode C. elegans, as well as in mouse and human cells in culture, all of which display common features.

“In all these species it has been observed that mRNA decay leads to the modulation

have identified all of the critical proteins and all of the key nucleotides and amino acids by the end of the project, but we hope to have a better sense of how transcriptional adaptation works.” In addition, the team is also exploring self-transcriptional adaptation, whereby a gene upregulates its own expression after the decay of its transcript, a process that could be harnessed to boost healthy alleles.

The researchers are also working to translate their findings into therapeutic applications, including new methods to treat genetic disorders like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a condition where

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TAaGC Transcriptional Adaptation and Genetic Compensation

Project Objectives

These EU-supported projects aim to translate transcriptional adaptation (TA), an endogenous mRNA-decay–driven compensatory mechanism, into therapies for inherited diseases. By using spliceswitching antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to induce TA, the team aims to upregulate healthy paralogs of mutated genes in human models, thereby providing a mutation-independent treatment strategy.

Figure 2: From discovery to therapy: the TAaGC translational path: The concept of transcriptional adaptation first emerged from zebrafish genetics where some gene knockouts unexpectedly triggered compensatory transcriptional changes, a discovery that now underpins our therapeutic strategy. Image credit: Rupal Gehlot

mutations in the dystrophin gene lead to a non-functional form of the dystrophin protein or even to its loss. Inducing or enhancing the transcriptional adaptation response in DMD patients could help mitigate their symptoms by boosting the expression of utrophin, a structurally similar protein to dystrophin, says Professor Stainier. “In patients who do not exhibit transcriptional adaptation we would look to induce the expression of utrophin, a genetic and functional paralog of dystrophin.

With patients who are already displaying utrophin up-regulation, the therapeutic approach would be to enhance this response,” he outlines. As first author of the team’s recent Nature publication, Lara Falcucci highlights the broader potential of this mechanism: “Triggering this compensation response with antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) would be particularly interesting in disorders where missense mutations are more harmful than nonsense mutations,” she says.

The project team is developing ASOs to essentially trigger - or enhance transcriptional adaptation. “With ASOs, the approach is to induce the skipping of what are called out-of-frame exons. This skipping process leads to the appearance of a PTC on the mRNA, which will then cause its degradation and lead to transcriptional adaptation,” explains Professor Stainier.

Proof-of-Concept grant The team recently received an ERC proof-ofconcept grant to take this work further, with researchers looking to refine and optimise the ASOs, and then test them in mice to assess their efficacy. While DMD has been identified as a key therapeutic target, Professor Stainier says that this approach could also be used to develop treatments for other genetic disorders, including those without a clear paralog of the disease gene. “There is so much genetic robustness encoded in our genome that it’s possible that we will be able to use this approach even for genes that don’t have a

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paralog. Our work with DMD is very much the tip of the iceberg,” he stresses. This concept of boosting the organism’s endogenous ability to compensate for genetic defects represents a new approach to treating genetic disorders, and Professor Stainier and his team are also exploring the possibility of using self-cleaving ribozymes to induce transcriptional adaptation.

“We’re essentially looking to take advantage of this mechanism. We’re starting with DMD, but we certainly have plans to extend this work to develop treatments for other diseases,” says Professor Stainier.

The long-term goal is to provide effective new therapies to treat inherited disorders, and steps are being taken towards commercialising the group’s findings. The plan is to start a company that would further optimise and validate the ASOs, and provide a solid foundation for future development. “We’re currently working with the Max Planck Innovation office, which is responsible for technology transfer within the Max Planck Society, to try and turn these plans into reality,” outlines Professor Stainier.

The company has not yet been incorporated as the research team is first focusing on gathering additional functional data about the ASOs from tests in mice. “Once we have encouraging data from our in vivo studies, we plan to begin discussions with potential investors to secure the necessary funding for preclinical work and early-stage clinical development” continues Professor Stainier. “Looking further ahead, advancing the ASOs into later-stage clinical trials and eventually making them available to patients, would likely involve partnering with established biotech or pharmaceutical companies.”

As co-author and translational lead, Dr. Christopher Dooley adds: “We’re now at the stage of taking these discoveries into early therapeutic development. The challenge is to show in rigorous preclinical studies that inducing transcriptional adaptation can reliably improve disease outcomes. This is the bridge between our academic insights and future therapies, very exciting times indeed.”

Project Funding

Funded by the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant. Grant agreement ID: 101021349

Contact Details

Prof. Dr. Didier Stainier Director Dept. Developmental Genetics Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research Ludwigstr. 43 61231 Bad Nauheim Germany T: +49 6032 705-1301 E: didier.stainier@mpi-bn.mpg.de W: https://www.mpi-hlr.de/developmental-genetics

Prof. Dr. Didier Stainier Dr. Christopher Dooley

Prof. Dr. Didier Stainier is a BelgianAmerican developmental geneticist and Director of the Department of Developmental Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research (Bad Nauheim, Germany). A pioneer of zebrafish organogenesis models, his lab first described mRNA decay–driven transcriptional adaptation, helping to reveal genetic compensation pathways.

Dr. Christopher Dooley is a developmental geneticist, molecular biologist, and translational lead at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, where he advances transcriptional adaptation based therapeutic strategies.

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Supporting the future of genomics research Genome sequencing generates vast quantities of data, that must be processed, analysed and interpreted to draw meaningful conclusions, which requires a range of skills. The INTEGRATE programme provides interdisciplinary training to doctoral students, helping build a fuller picture of the relationship between genomics data and human disease, as Professor Eva Szegezdi and Dr Sandra Healy explain.

The analysis of genomics data allows us to gain deep insights into the root causes of different diseases, which could in the future lead to earlier diagnosis and more targeted, effective treatments. As coordinator of the INTEGRATE programme, Professor Eva Szegezdi is working to help the next generation of researchers develop their skills and contribute to the ongoing development of the integrative genomics field. “The INTEGRATE programme specialises in human genomics, related to human diseases and physiology,” she outlines. INTEGRATE is a doctorate training programme, led by the University of Galway in Ireland, under which 20 PhD students are conducting research across a range of topics. “Some PhD students are conducting microbiome research for example, looking at what kinds of microbes live with us and how they shape our health,” says Professor Szegezdi.

“We also have students looking into cancer genomics and neurodegenerative diseases.”

INTEGRATE programme This research is very much interdisciplinary in nature, bringing together elements of several different fields, including biomedicine and computational science. Genomic sequencing generates large amounts of data and analysing and interpreting it in a disease context requires both advanced computational skills and a good understanding of biology, says Professor Szegezdi. “Integrative genomics is largely a computational science, generating outputs which can then be linked to biological validation studies,” she explains.

The students came from different academic backgrounds, so it was important to provide a foundation training first and address any knowledge gaps. “Some of the students had a background in biology for example, but lacked computational skills. Thus, the

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Changes to marks on our DNA can be shaped by both our genetic makeup and by the environment and these can contribute to our disease risk. Integrate PhD student Anna Großbach is investigating how genetic risk for disease evolves across our lifetime from childhood to late adulthood.

students all undertook a four-month training programme at the University of Galway when they started their PhD, gaining a robust foundation knowledge complementing their background knowledge,” says Dr Sandra Healy, Programme Manager for the Research Ireland Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science at the University, a member of the project team.

The next step was then to look at how integrative genomics techniques are applied in different areas. Training was provided on the application of ‘omics techniques in cancer genomics, common and rare diseases, agriculture and pathogen surveillance, while advanced genomics data science training modules were also included.

“These modules cover advanced techniques,

such as machine learning and AI. There are essentially three layers to the training – basic, applied, and advanced,” outlines Dr Healy. Once the initial four-month training programme was over, students were able to choose a research project, based at one of the five partner universities across Ireland.

“We are working with 150 supervisor PIs based across the five universities, and every year they submit proposals for research projects,” says Dr Healy. “The proposals were reviewed for quality and suitability for the INTEGRATE programme, then offered to the students, who had the freedom to choose the project which interested them.”

This student-led approach to project selection is a distinctive aspect of the INTEGRATE programme. The students had

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the opportunity to meet the supervisors during the first semester and chat to researchers in the lab, which helped them identify topics of interest. “The students had access to all the projects, so they were able to suss out the topics and research groups that interested them, and select their PhD project from there,” continues Dr Healy.

Studying for a PhD is highly demanding, and the cohort structure of the programme has encouraged the formation of peer support networks, which Dr Healy says are invaluable in research. “It’s important not to feel isolated,” she stresses. “During the initial training period each cohort of students lived and worked together and formed really strong connections with each other, which have served them well during their PhD and beyond. Students have access to a Slack channel for technical questions for example, so they can ask for help and advice from students not only in their own cohort, but also in the cohorts that are ahead of them.”

This ultimately is about preparing students for their future careers, whether in industry or academia, and helping them find their own path. INTEGRATE itself is set to conclude in the Summer of 2026, but Professor Szegezdi and her colleagues are keen to build on the success of the programme, and are working to secure funding. “We would like to establish a new programme in the future,” she says.

Further research will support the ongoing development of the field; one prominent area is genomics testing, and Professor Szegezdi believes that it will become a mainstream diagnostic tool in the near future. “Genomics testing holds huge importance in disease prevention, as it enables us to identify several risk factors,” she explains. “For example, a rare cancer might affect 10 people out of 100,000 – if we could do a genomics screen for it, we could identify people with a specific mutation.

Genomics screening can identify people at the highest risk of developing a disease.”

“Integrative genomics holds huge importance in disease prevention, as it enables us to identify disease risk factors and detect people at the highest risk of developing a disease.”

Career development The students also spent some time outside their university on a placement, either in industry or at an international academic institution, broadening their experience in terms of sectors and countries which helps them clarify their future career paths. This is an important consideration in the programme, and as students come close to submitting, there is an increasing focus on soft skills and career planning. “There’s now more of an emphasis on areas like communication skills, network building and career development planning” says Dr Healy. Many of the students have taken the lead in this respect and taken further, personalised training, based on their own career development plans and the experiences of their peers. “A lot of our students are very driven and investigate methods outside the particular discipline they studied,” outlines Professor Szegezdi. “The students communicate with each other, make recommendations, and if there is interest, we can make courses or modules more broadly available.”

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A good example is the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, which are associated with a heightened risk of developing breast cancer, and screening programmes have been established in the UK for women between the ages of 50-70. Screening programmes for other types of cancer would enable earlier diagnosis in many cases, increasing the likelihood of a successful outcome. “Cancer treatment is far more likely to be successful if it is diagnosed in the early stages,” stresses Professor Szegezdi. The INTEGRATE programme contributes to this wider goal, equipping students with the skills and knowledge they will need to identify biomarkers and develop new therapies, working across the academic and commercial sectors. “The idea is that these students will contribute to an innovative, dynamic economy,” says Dr Healy. “We have been able to build a comprehensive research infrastructure, which is part of the genomics CRT programme in Ireland.”

INTEGRATE

INTEGRATE programme

Project Objectives

The aim of the INTEGRATE Doctorate School is to advance research and training in integrative genomics, combining genomic, computational, and clinical data to drive precision medicine. Supported by MSCA COFUND and Research Ireland, it is training 20 PhD researchers in biomedical and data science through collaborations across academia, industry, healthcare, and policy sectors.

Project Funding

This research was funded by Research Ireland through the Research Ireland Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science under Grant number 18/CRT/6214 and by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2019-945385.

Project Partners

• Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) • University College Dublin (UCD) • University College Cork (UCC) • Trinity College Dublin (TCD)

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Prof Eva Szegezdi, Biomedical Sciences Building, University of Galway, Ireland.

T: +091-495037 E: eva.szegezdi@universityofgalway.ie W: https://integrategenomics.eu/ W: https://genomicsdatascience.ie/

Dr Eva Szegezdi, Dr Sandra Healy, and Anna Großbach (left to right)

Prof Eva Szegezdi is Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry at the University of Galway, Director of Blood Cancer Network Ireland and coordinator of the INTEGRATE programme. Her research explores bone marrow interactions driving leukemia cell resistance to chemotherapy.

Dr Sandra Healy is the manager of the Research Ireland Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science where she manages 100 PhD students across 5 Irish universities.

She spent most of her career in Industry and academia as a research scientist before moving into research management roles.

Anna Großbach is a final year PhD student at the University of Galway and an INTEGRATE MSCA fellow. Her research is investigating how genetic risk for disease changes across the life course.

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Understanding the Social and Economic Impacts of Ageing As populations age and fertility rates fall, welfare states face growing pressure. The LIFECON project examines how demographic change impacts family life, work, and care, and how Finland can respond with cross-sectoral, data-driven research. Chief Researcher Dr Taina Leinonen, who heads the project, shared how her team transforms data into actionable insights.

Across Europe and beyond, societies are undergoing a profound demographic transformation. People are living longer, and in many countries birth rates have reached low levels, and the balance between working-age populations and dependents is shifting. These trends raise urgent questions about the sustainability of welfare systems, the future of work and care, and the wellbeing of citizens across all stages of life.

The LIFECON project - short for Life course and economic implications of demographic change - is established to tackle these questions head-on. Rather than treating ageing as a single issue, LIFECON examines how demographic change unfolds over the entire life course - from family formation and labour market participation to health, care, and ageing. It seeks to understand how the interlinked phases of life are affected by these shifts, and how smart, data-driven policy can help societies adapt.

Led by Dr Taina Leinonen at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, the project brings together researchers from Etla Economic Research and the University of Helsinki. It is funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland as part of the national DEMOGRAPHY programme, which supports collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches to pressing societal challenges.

LIFECON views the life course as an integrated whole rather than separate phases.

Research spans family formation, working life, and ageing, health and care.

“Experiences in working life influence whether people have children, and the wellbeing of those children affects their longterm health, socio-demographic outcomes, and labour market attachment,” explains Dr Leinonen. “These stages are deeply interwoven - not only within individuals, but across generations.”

Over the course of the project, the researchers have published more than fifty peer-reviewed scientific articles and working papers. Many of these findings are also summarised in accessible language on the project’s website, ensuring that research outcomes reach both academic and public audiences.

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For example, one study examined the impact of education on family formation and found that access to further education increases the likelihood that women form partnerships and have children by their late thirties. Interestingly, the same effect was not observed for men, offering new insights into gendered patterns of family planning and social policy.

Another result focuses on public health: a LIFECON-linked study of alcohol policy reform showed that lowering the minimum legal drinking age was associated with higher longterm chronic alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality for the cohorts affected by the new legal drinking age - demonstrating how demographic research can inform societal resilience and preventive strategies.

Changing population structure in Finland: Data source for years 1974 and 2024: Official Statistics of Finland: Population structure. Helsinki: Statistics Finland. Available at: https://stat.fi/en/statistics/vaerak; Projection method for year 2074: Alho J,Valkonen T. 2024. Population of Finland, 2025–2070. ETLA Brief 148. [In Finnish] Available at: https://www.etla.fi/en/ publications/briefs/suomen-vaestokehitys-2025-2070/

Discussion event on migration in April 2025.

Pressures on the welfare state Like many European nations, Finland faces a lower share of working-age individuals relative to dependents. “Currently, immigration is the only factor maintaining the working-age population, and if migration continues at recent levels, the share may not decrease further for decades,” Dr Leinonen points out. The pressure is driven both by longer life expectancy and by the shifting age structure, with large cohorts now entering older age. “Fertility is difficult to shift directly, and while increased longevity is welcome, the increasing number of the oldest old people heightens long-term care demands”.

LIFECON combines register-based microdata with macroeconomic modelling to assess how demographic trends strain public finances - and what policy levers might alleviate the pressure. “We can’t reverse demographic change,” Dr Leinonen remarks, “but we can adapt - by supporting longer working lives, delaying the need for intensive care, and improving the sustainability of public finances.”

At the core is a commitment to grounding policy insights in real-world data. By drawing on detailed, longitudinal records, the project is able to uncover how demographic changes play out across people’s lives and across generations.

The teams’ analyses rely on comprehensive register datasets from Statistics Finland, the Finnish Centre for Pensions, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, enabling detailed tracking of socio-demographic factors,

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LIFECON

LIFECON researchers in Seili island 2023.

Life course and economic implications of demographic change

Project Objectives

The LIFECON project aims to provide societally relevant knowledge on how demographic changes manifest at different phases of the life course, i.e. family formation, working life, and health and care at the end of life. It also aims to understand the implications of demographic changes for the macroeconomy and public finances.

Project Funding health, labour market participation, and the use of social security benefits and services.

“We combine individual-level data with meso-level records on families, workplaces, and regions, and link them to macro-level indicators,” says Dr Leinonen. This layering along with data spanning multiple decades allows the team to identify causal links and longterm trends - essential for policy forecasting in pensions, care, and employment planning.

Research themes and interdisciplinary collaboration LIFECON research is structured around four work packages, each led by one partner organization but involving researchers across the consortium. Many work across themes, ensuring interdisciplinarity. Family formation explores links between socioeconomic factors, work, health and changing family structures; working life focuses on career dynamics and employment interventions; ageing examines health and care in later life;

organised across the programme, increasing both visibility and societal impact.

As the project progresses, the team is placing greater emphasis on making their findings accessible to decision-makers and the wider public. “Our next step is summarising key findings to inform policymaking directly,” says Dr Leinonen.

One high-profile output is a book on mental health in working life by Research Professor Ari Väänänen titled “The Rise of Mental Vulnerability at Work”, which received media attention in Finland. This work, based on extensive research, demonstrates that the widespread phenomenon of mental health should also be examined critically when aiming to support sustainable working careers in an ageing Europe.

Other influential outputs which have already been published so far explore topics such as the relationship between education and family formation, trends in care utilisation, and the role of migration in sustaining the

“We can’t reverse demographic change, but we can adapt by supporting longer working lives, delaying the need for intensive care, and improving the sustainability of public finances.” and welfare state resilience assesses the economic impacts of demographic change.

A key factor in the project’s success is its integration of stakeholder input from the very beginning. Representatives from ministries, expert organisations, trade unions, and employers’ associations all play an active role in interpreting the findings and ensuring that the work remains practically relevant.

Importantly, LIFECON is one of five research projects funded under Finland’s Strategic Research DEMOGRAPHY programme, which tackles demographic change from multiple angles. The projects actively collaborate, particularly in engaging with decision-makers.

“It’s more effective when projects work together to reach policymakers rather than approaching them individually,” Dr Leinonen explains. Many webinars, workshops and communication activities have been co-

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labour force. Through these efforts, the project continues to bridge the gap between research and real-world solutions.

As the project enters its final years, it aims to turn data into strategy. Moving from analysis to insight, it seeks to support smarter, fairer policies that respond to ageing societies. This means identifying risks and inefficiencies while also highlighting opportunities - such as supporting family formation, strengthening workforce resilience, and reducing health inequalities.

Though rooted in Finland, LIFECON’s lessons are relevant across Europe and beyond.

Many nations face similar pressures - low fertility, longer lives, shrinking labour forces - and are searching for sustainable ways to adapt. As these debates intensify, projects like LIFECON offer not only data but direction, reminding us that demographic change is about people, policies, and shared wellbeing.

The LIFECON project is funded by The Strategic Research Council of Finland: DEMOGRAPHY programme.

Project Partners

• Finnish Institute of Occupational Health • Etla Economic Research • University of Helsinki

Contact Details

Leinonen Taina Ph.D Chief researcher Finnish Institute of Occupational Health Adjunct Professor in Public Health University of Helsinki T: +358 5 0327 1723 E: Taina.Leinonen@ttl.fi : @taina_leinonen W: www.ttl.fi/lifecon W: www.demography.fi

Taina Leinonen

Taina Leinonen is a Chief researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Her background is in social sciences with specialization in demography. She uses large register data and quantitative methods to study work disability, health and labour market participation, focusing on sociodemographic differences, trends and measures to promote work participation.

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Technology to support high-quality nursing care

University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg Campus.

Nurses in care homes can often face extremely demanding workloads, and effective use of smart technology can play a vital role in easing their daily pressures. We spoke to Martina Zeinzinger and Jana Koch about their work in understanding how new information systems need to be designed to support nursing staff and help them provide high-quality care.

Caring for elderly residents in care homes places a considerable workload on nursing teams, who balance many responsibilities in providing attentive, highquality care. Smart sensor technologies are emerging as valuable tools in this effort, offering detailed information on the condition of residents and helping staff respond quickly to changing needs. This is the focus of the EU-funded Smart Care Assist project, which is developing an innovative information system using smart textiles. “We aim to develop a device that truly supports nursing staff in their daily work,” says Martina Zeinzinger, a researcher at the Embedded Systems Lab, Hagenberg Research Centre at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, who leads the project. The concept integrates data from textile sensors within care beds to detect presence, humidity, and movement, providing additional information to caregivers. Alongside the technical development, the team is conducting interviews and collecting feedback from caregivers to better understand how to meet their practical needs. The goal is to process and visualise this data in an intuitive and supportive way. “A nurse can then identify which residents might need help at a particular time,” explains Zeinzinger.

Enhancing care and prevention in collaboration with nursing staff Detecting both moisture and movement is also crucial for identifying the risk of bedsores, or pressure ulcers, a significant concern in long-term care. “If people lie for too long in one position, pressure can build up, damaging the skin and tissue. This is very painful and it can take quite a long time to heal,” Zeinzinger explains. The project aims

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to develop a system that monitors movement patterns using existing data, helping to identify residents at risk and allowing staff to take preventative action. “We want to collect and present information in a way that caregivers find genuinely beneficial. In this case they can see when a person is moving less than might be expected, indicating that they might need more attention,” says Zeinzinger. “Changed movement can also be linked to other health conditions. If we can quantify this accurately, we believe it could provide valuable health insights. In areas such as incontinence care – which can be distressing for residents – data from smart bed inserts may also help staff identify when care is truly needed, potentially reducing unnecessary interventions.

Presence detection supports dementia care by balancing independence and safety. For instance, if a patient doesn’t return to bed within a set time, nurses are notified in case the person has become disoriented.”

In practice, this means developing the best methods to combine sensor data from the smart bed inserts, which are developed by the project partner Texible GmbH, and presenting it through clear, supportive visualisations that fit seamlessly into nursing workflows. The visualisation of the data is led by project partner C&S Computer and Software GmbH, a provider of innovative software solutions for the care sector, ensuring that the information presented to staff is both accessible and actionable.

The sensors have been tested so far in two nursing homes, with the project team gathering data to refine the technology and ensure it accurately identifies humid and dry environments and reliably detects presence and movement. A central part of the project is its collaborative design process

with nursing staff. “Too often, new devices are introduced with the best intentions, but without enough feedback from users,” says Zeinzinger. “Sometimes, nurses find these tools add to their workload instead of reducing it.”

To avoid this, the Smart Care Assist team has conducted interviews and surveys with nursing staff to gather their input throughout the development process. “We have established open discussions so that everybody is kept informed and involved,” outlines Jana Koch of C&S Computer and Software GmbH. “Our goal is to deepen our understanding of how a system must

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be designed to truly meet the needs of care professionals.”

Researchers are currently analysing the various strands of data and are defining the next steps. The plan is to improve the system based on the available data, then test it in nursing homes and hospitals, initially through simulations with staff rather than with actual residents. The Living Care Lab, developed by the Faculty for Medical Technology and Social Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, provides an ideal environment to refine and improve the device. “We will use the Living Care Lab to conduct additional tests and fine-tune the system,” continues

for longer, while Zeinzinger highlights its potential for training and education.

“Nurses might gain confidence in their decision-making when supported by sensor data,” she outlines. “Using Living Care Lab methods, training on new assistance systems can be introduced very effectively.”

There is significant scope for further development, and while the project itself is set to conclude in the summer 2026, the research will continue. The research team is already exploring additional capabilities, such as non-intrusive fall detection, to further expand the system’s usefulness.

“Falls pose a danger because they often

“We are looking for answers to the question of how smart assistance systems for care beds have to be designed to relieve caregivers and at the same time support optimal care for patients.

Zeinzinger. “We want to provide an effective tool that provides useful information for nursing staff, as they know their residents better than we do and understand their usual activity levels. We aim to combine present information from sensors in an intuitively understandable way.”

Nursing homes - and beyond While the project’s primary focus is on nursing homes, the potential application of the device extends further. The same technology could enhance care in hospitals or in domestic settings for example, enabling elderly people to remain in their own homes

result in serious injuries, but are sometimes not noticed for a fairly long time.“ An effective, non-intrusive sensor that respects the privacy of carers and care recipients could support nurses to take action earlier and improve the safety and quality of life of residents. This remains a central aim for nursing homes, and Zeinzinger says there is great interest in using technology to improve care. “The nursing staff participating in this project are all very open to using and testing new solutions,” she stresses. “There’s a shared understanding that technology can ease workloads and strengthen care quality.”

Smart Care Assist

Assistance system for caregivers

Project Objectives

Smart Care Assist seeks answers to the question of how nursing beds with smart textiles can relieve the burden on caregivers while simultaneously supporting optimal patient care.

Project Funding

Smart Care Assist is an Interreg Bavaria– Austria research project co-financed by the EU. Project ID: BA0100035

Project Partners

• FH OÖ Forschungs & Entwicklungs GmbH, Roseggerstraße 15, 4600 Wels (Lead Partner) • Texible GmbH https://www.texible.com/ • C&S Computer und Software GmbH https://www.managingcare.de/ • Ordensklinikum Linz Elisabethinen https://www.ordensklinikum.at/de/ • Stiftung Liebenau GmbH https://www.stiftung-liebenau.at/ • AllgäuStift GmbH https://www.allgaeustift.de/ • Allgäu Stift Marienpark gGmbH https://www.allgaeustift.de/marienpark

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Martina Zeinzinger Research Center Hagenberg Embedded Systems Lab FH OÖ Forschungs & Entwicklungs GmbH Softwarepark 11 · SH3.110 A-4232 Hagenberg/Austria/Europe T: +43 (0)50804 27147 E: martina.zeinzinger@fh-hagenberg.at W: https://fh-ooe.at/ W: https://www.embedded-lab.at

Martina Zeinzinger, Jana Koch, Prof.

Dr. Irmtraud Ehrenmüller, Prof. DI Mag. Dr. Josef Langer, and Prof. DI Dr. Florian Eibensteiner (left to right)

Martina Zeinzinger is a researcher in the Embedded Systems Lab at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. Her work focuses on digital assistance systems in health and care applications.

Jana Koch is a research assistant and project coordinator at the C&S Institut in Augsburg.

Prof. Dr. Irmtraud Ehrenmüller is a business economist at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria.

Prof. DI Mag. Dr. Josef Langer is founder of the Embedded Systems Lab, which he heads together with Prof. Florian Eibensteiner.

Prof. DI Dr. Florian Eibensteiner is a professor of hardware-software co-engineering and head of the Josef Ressel Centre for Artificial Intelligence on Resource Limited Devices.

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Greener Pharma, Smarter Chemistry Angelini Pharma is leading the EU-funded LIFE-GREENAPI project to reduce the environmental footprint of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production. Anna Codazzi, William Herbert Gazzo, and Tommaso Iacoangeli explain how combining batch and flow chemistry, life cycle assessment, and collaboration with universities can help the pharmaceutical industry become more sustainable while staying globally competitive.

The pharmaceutical industry plays a vital role in improving and saving lives.

Yet behind every medicine lies an intensive manufacturing process, particularly in the production of APIs - the biologically active components of drugs. API production is resource-heavy, consuming large volumes of solvents, water, and energy, and generating substantial waste.

For a company like Angelini Pharma, which operates a large fine chemicals plant in Aprilia, near Rome, the question became pressing: how could such processes be reimagined to reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining the highest quality standards?

In 2022, Angelini Pharma began a structured reflection on how it could contribute to the European Green Deal, which calls for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050. The company identified the LIFE Programme as the natural partner - the EU’s only funding scheme dedicated entirely to environment and climate action, with an annual focus on greening the chemical sector.

The answer took shape in LIFE-GREENAPI, a three-year, €2.5 million project co-funded

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by the EU LIFE Programme. Launched in June 2023, the project set out to explore whether APIs could be produced with significantly lower environmental impacts.

As Anna Codazzi, Global R&D Open Innovation Lead at Angelini Pharma, recalls: “The question we asked ourselves was simple: can we produce APIs with a smaller impact on the environment? That was the starting point for LIFE-GREENAPI.”

Smarter chemistry At the heart of LIFE-GREENAPI lies chemistry itself. For decades, pharmaceutical production has relied on batch chemistry, a well-established but resource-intensive method. In this approach, all reactants are loaded into a large vessel, the reaction is run to completion, and the finished product is discharged before the vessel is cleaned and prepared for the next cycle. It is a tried-andtested system, valued for its flexibility, but it also comes with drawbacks: large volumes of solvents, long reaction times, and high energy requirements, often leading to considerable waste generation.

An increasingly attractive alternative is flow chemistry, where reactants are

continuously pumped through a narrow reactor, with the reaction occurring as they move along the system. This technique offers a number of advantages: greater control over reaction conditions, faster throughput, enhanced safety, and improved resource efficiency. Heat and mass transfer are far more effective in a flow reactor than in a large batch vessel, making it easier to run reactions under conditions that boost yield while cutting solvent and energy use. Long established in the petrochemical sector, flow chemistry has only recently begun to gain wider acceptance in pharmaceuticals - a shift supported by updated regulatory guidance and the industry’s growing sustainability commitments.

Yet the project’s key insight was not to choose between batch and flow. Instead, it demonstrated that the most sustainable and competitive path often comes from combining the two. As Tommaso Iacoangeli, Fine Chemicals Business Project Manager at Angelini Pharma, explains: “It’s not enough to say you are more sustainable. You must also remain competitive. The innovation is learning when to use batch, when to use flow, or even when to adopt other methods

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like mechanochemistry. The best results come from choosing the right technology for each step.”

The project is anchored in Angelini Pharma’s fine chemicals plant in Aprilia - a 70,000 square meter site with an annual capacity of 350–400 tons of output.

Here, APIs, advanced intermediates, and original Angelini molecules are produced at scale, making it the ideal site to test greener processes with real-world impact.

By “opening the box” on a historic API process, the team redesigned its multi-step synthesis, optimising traditional batch stages while introducing flow reactors where these offered advantages in energy use, solvent reduction, or yield.

Measurable impact In order to include additional outside experience, the project partnered with Leiden University in the Netherlands, which brought expertise in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - a rigorous method of quantifying environmental impacts across the entire production process. Key indicators included greenhouse gas emissions, electricity and methane consumption, water use, chemicals use, and waste generation.

Preliminary results are striking: LIFEGREENAPI shows the potential to cut environmental impacts by up to 60% compared with baseline processes. While final numbers will be released at the project’s conclusion, improvements are already clear across solvents, water, waste, and energy.

For example, solvent volumes - which can

account for up to 80% of material inputs in organic synthesis - were reduced through both optimisation and substitution with biobased, recyclable alternatives. Water usage was minimised not only by lowering volumes but also by treating and reusing process water. Energy efficiency was improved by exploiting flow chemistry’s ability to run under pressure, shifting reaction equilibria and cutting reaction times.

“We discovered the best results came not from replacing batch with flow, but from combining the two approaches,” says Codazzi. “This hybrid process reduces emissions, saves resources, and creates cost advantages. It proves sustainability and competitiveness can go hand in hand.”

through green procurement, favouring partners with recognised sustainability certifications. “To tackle complex challenges like sustainability, you cannot act alone.

Partnerships with academia, providers, and policymakers are essential,” notes Codazzi.

As William Herbert Gazzo, R&D Funding Manager at Angelini Pharma, adds: “European projects like LIFE-GREENAPI are not only about technical results. They also build ecosystems where knowledge and resources can flow between companies, universities, and institutions. That is the real strength.”

This collaborative ethos also extends to knowledge sharing. By demonstrating practical examples of sustainable chemistry, Angelini Pharma hopes LIFE-GREENAPI

“It’s not just about being greener. We need to prove that greener processes can also be efficient and cost-effective.

That is what will convince companies to adopt them widely.”

Collaboration matters No company can deliver a green transition alone. From its inception, LIFE-GREENAPI was designed as an open innovation project, engaging with universities, suppliers, and wider stakeholders.

Collaboration with Leiden University was central, embedding environmental assessment into every stage of development.

Industrial PhD programmes with Italian universities are exploring advanced fields such as mechanochemistry, which uses mechanical force rather than solvents to drive reactions. Suppliers are evaluated

can inspire others in the sector, helping to spread best practices across Europe’s pharmaceutical landscape.

Beyond sustainability While sustainability is a moral and regulatory imperative, competitiveness is the industry’s lifeblood. Developing and implementing new technologies is expensive: laboratory equipment may cost tens of thousands of euros, while scaling up to pilot plants or industrial lines requires millions. Public funding such as the LIFE Programme plays a crucial role in de-risking these investments.

Angelini Pharma Fine Chemicals Business Unit, Aprilia.

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LIFE-GREENAPI Development & demonstration of low environmental impact innovation and optimization practices in pharma production

Project Objectives

LIFE GREENAPI, a three-year project led by Angelini Pharma in collaboration with Leiden University, is pioneering greener production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

Combining continuous flow chemistry with traditional methods, it seeks to optimise energy and resource use, improve safety, and promote sustainability in a highly regulated, hard-to-decarbonise industry.

Project Funding

LIFE-GREENAPI is co-funded by the European Union under Project Number: 101114152 (LIFE22-ENV-IT-LIFE-GREENAPI).

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Project Partner

Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Leiden.

Contact Details

Anna Codazzi Global R&D Open Innovation Lead Angelini Pharma S.p.A. Viale Amelia, 70, 00181 Rome, Italy T: +39 3 42769 8693 E: anna.codazzi@angelinipharma.com W: www.angelinipharma.com

Tommaso Iacoangeli, Anna Codazzi, and William Herbert Gazzo (left to right)

Angelini Pharma Fine Chemicals Business Unit, Aprilia.

As Iacoangeli stresses, “It’s not just about being greener. We need to prove that greener processes can also be efficient and cost-effective. That is what will convince companies to adopt them widely.”

This dual challenge - of being both sustainable and competitive - echoes broader European debates. As Codazzi points out, “Funding for research and innovation is fundamental, but it must dialogue with the goal of competitiveness.

Europe is moving in this direction, but we know other economies are not following the same path. For us, it is not just about impacts, but also about ensuring Europe remains competitive.”

Reducing bureaucratic burdens is also part of the equation. In a heavily regulated sector like pharmaceuticals, companies can spend more time reporting than researching.

Mid-sized firms, such as Angelini Pharma, are particularly vulnerable. Simplifying administrative processes could accelerate innovation and level the playing field.

Future vision Tommaso Iacoangeli, chemist with an Executive MBA, is Angelini Pharma’s Fine Chemicals Business Project Manager, supporting CDMO projects, funded initiatives, LIFE-GREENAPI, and sustainability efforts since 2022.

Anna Codazzi, with a background in International Sciences, leads Angelini Pharma’s Funding and Innovation strategy, driving digital and green transitions, LIFE-GREENAPI, Open Innovation, sustainability, and scientific communication initiatives.

William Herbert Gazzo is the R&D Funding Manager at Angelini Pharma. With an economic background, he oversees funding for multi-disciplinary projects, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector, across several production plants.

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Looking ahead, Angelini Pharma sees API production evolving into a toolkit of green technologies rather than relying on a single method. Batch and flow will remain central, but new approaches are emerging.

Mechanochemistry uses mechanical force to drive reactions without solvents, while electrochemistry and photochemistry harness electricity and light to enable

reactions that generate fewer emissions and less waste. Together, these tools could significantly cut the environmental footprint of pharmaceutical production.

Another enabler is artificial intelligence.

By analysing data, AI can optimise reaction conditions, predict failures, and monitor impacts in real time - turning sustainability into not just an obligation, but a strategic advantage.

Yet innovation does not happen in a vacuum. The team stresses the importance of a regulatory environment that supports experimentation and scale-up. As Iacoangeli underlines: “The frameworks are crucial - we need a balance that allows innovation while maintaining safety and quality standards.”

Without this, even the most promising technologies could stall before reaching industrial maturity.

For Codazzi, the future is about more than technical advances; it is also about a cultural shift in how the industry views its role in society. “At the end of the day, sustainability is not just ethics - it is competitiveness, innovation, and legacy for future generations.”

By showing that environmental responsibility can align with efficiency and profitability, LIFE-GREENAPI is not only greening one company’s production lines but also pointing the way toward a pharmaceutical industry that is more resilient, innovative, and sustainable across Europe.

Angelini Pharma Fine Chemicals Business Unit, Aprilia.

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Putting microplastics in the picture Large quantities of microplastics are present in the environment, and while the impact of these small polymers on health is not entirely clear, there is growing concern over their effects. Many European countries currently lack the capacity to effectively monitor levels of microplastics in drinking water, an issue that the MicroDrink project consortium aims to address.

There is growing concern around the environmental and health impact of microplastics (MPs), generally defined as polymer particles with dimensions equal to or less than 5 millimetres. Large quantities of MPs enter the environment every year and the effects of MPs on human health and the environment are not yet entirely clear. The European Commission is considering whether to include them in its watch list of pollutants, yet many Member States currently lack the capacity to conduct detailed monitoring. “Most countries don’t have a proper procedure for sampling MPs in drinking water,” explain experts of the Croatian Geological Survey (HGI-CGS), a lead partner in the MicroDrink project. Researchers from 11 partners are investigating MP levels in raw and treated drinking water within water supply facilities at nine pilot locations around the Danube River Basin. “We have taken three of the most common resource types for drinking water in the Danube River Basin – karst, intergranular and surface/riverbank filtration,” HGICGS experts say.

To assess the capacity for large-scale implementation of the Delegated Decision supplementing the Drinking Water Directive, the MicroDrink project will employ a harmonized approach to the prescribed sampling and analysis methodology across the nine pilot locations. One sampling campaign is conducted per quarter, covering different seasons and hydrological conditions. Water is sampled using filters comprised of a steelcentred mesh with several layers, that filter the MP particles down to 20 microns, which is the typical cut-off point at which particles can be reliably analysed. The project is currently in its final monitoring campaign. “We want to assess whether this methodology is applicable more widely,” outline HGI-CGS experts.

The MicroDrink consortium also aims to gather stakeholder feedback, spread knowledge and raise awareness of the issue. “We have been conducting webinars and workshops for water operators and researchers, where we posed questions related to their capacity to conduct MP sampling

“We are working on a decision-making support tool, and have created the MicroDrink knowledge base, a resource for people to learn more about microplastics (MPs).”

MicroDrink project The key priority of the project is to consolidate scattered knowledge on MPs and enhance capacity for the implementation of MP monitoring in drinking water resources across the Danube Region. The project aims to identify both the positive aspects of the sampling and analysis methodologies for MP in drinking water prescribed in Commission Delegated Decision (EU) 2024/1441 as well as determine flaws, which can then guide implementation should the EU decide to make MP monitoring obligatory.

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and analysis. The results largely reflected the lack of available sampling equipment and adequately equipped laboratories, and high-cost concerns, indicating a deficiency in Danube countries capacity.” In the event that EU states are required to monitor MPs in the future, capacity will need to be built up, and the MicroDrink project is making valuable contributions in this respect. “We are working on a decision-making support tool, and have created the MicroDrink knowledge base, a resource for people to learn more about MPs,” continues the lead partner.

Expert team with microplastics sampling equipment.

The knowledge base is an open-access, multilingual, harmonized and reliable source of information on sampling protocols, analytical methods, laboratory capacities, instruments, legislation, and ongoing MPs projects, bridging stakeholders’ knowledge gaps. The decision support tool will also be highly valuable in providing guidance on the relevant sampling and analysis methodology, putting the information in the knowledge base to practical use. In this way, stakeholders are empowered to make optimal decisions in line with their capacity. “The decision support tool will lead stakeholders through finding the appropriate sampling and analysis methodology for their specific circumstances, while we also strive to make recommendations to the EU on how the methodology in the prescribed legislation could be improved,” HGI-CGS experts say.

MICRODRINK

Capacity building for management and governance of MICROplastics in DRINKing water resources of Danube Region This project is supported by the Interreg Danube Region Programme co-funded by the European Union.

Dr. sc. Jasmina Lukač Reberski Croatian Geological Survey Milana Sachsa 2, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia T: +385 1 6160 735 E: jlukac@hgi-cgs.hr W: https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/ microdrink

Dr. sc. Jasmina Lukač Reberski is a hydrogeologist at the Croatian Geological Survey. Her research focuses on karst aquifer hydrogeology, with an emphasis on investigating groundwater dynamics and hydrochemical characteristics to evaluate groundwater quantity and quality. Her recent work examines emerging contaminants in karst groundwater and their potential application in assessing karst aquifer vulnerability.

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Building Climate Resilience in the French wetland In western France’s Marais Poitevin, the country’s largest Atlantic-coast wetland, climate change is altering the landscape, and communities. The LIFE Maraisilience project unites public entities to co-create adaptation strategies for a resilient future. We spoke with Fanny Voix, project manager, and Michèle Richet, communication manager, to learn more about their vision and approach.

Straddling two French regions and three departments, the Marais Poitevin is the largest wetland on France’s Atlantic coast covering around 110,000 hectares and home to 200,000 residents. Awarded Ramsar status in 2023 - an international designation recognising wetlands of global importance under the Ramsar Convention - the area’s intricate mosaic of waterways, marshes, and farmland has been shaped by human hands for centuries, balancing natural richness with human activity. This delicate interplay supports a diverse and vibrant economy, where tourism draws visitors to its landscapes and wildlife, agriculture produces cereals, corn, and livestock; forestry manages valuable woodland resources and shellfish farming - including renowned oyster and mussel cultivation - thrives along its coastal fringes.

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© Kryzalid

A Wetland Under Threat

A collective leap forward

Unfortunately, the region faces escalating climate threats that are already reshaping its environment and way of life. Large areas of the Marais Poitevin lie below the highest sea level, leaving them highly vulnerable to marine submersion during storms and high tides. Intense flooding events are becoming more common, while droughts in summer threaten water supplies for both ecosystems and agriculture. Although the Aiguillon bay is sedimentating at a high rate, coastal erosion is steadily eating away at protective shorelines, north and south, and storms - probably more frequent and violent in the future - cause damage to infrastructure, homes, and farmland. Rising sea levels compound these problems by making it increasingly difficult to drain river water to the ocean during periods of heavy rainfall, creating a dangerous bottleneck effect.

These overlapping pressures not only threaten the wetland’s biodiversity but also disrupt local economies, from farming and shellfish production to tourism, making adaptation a pressing necessity. Until now, adaptation efforts were often fragmented - each municipality or public authority focusing only on its own territory. “If everyone works separately, solutions won’t be efficient,” says Fanny Voix, project manager of LIFE Maraisilience project.

“We need to think and act together.”

This need for unity lies at the heart of LIFE Maraisilience, a €2.9 million project running from October 2024 to September 2028 under the EU’s LIFE programme (“Governance and Climate Information” category). For the first time, nine public beneficiaries - including the

adaptation action plan by 2028 - one that is both locally grounded and globally relevant.

The Climate Observatory A flagship initiative of LIFE Maraisilience is the Climate Observatory, scheduled for launch in late 2026. Conceived as both a

“The Agora is the beating heart of the project. It’s where local visions meet scientific data to shape practical solutions.”

Regional Natural Park of the Marais Poitevin, six inter-municipal cooperation bodies, La Rochelle University, and a flood-management union - are working side-by-side.

It’s a rare example of multi-level publicsector cooperation. “These public bodies aren’t used to working together,” notes Michèle Richet, communication manager of the project. “The fact that we’ve built this partnership is already a success.”

At its core, the project is as much about building trust and a common culture as it is about developing technical solutions.

Its mission is threefold: to inform and experiment by improving understanding of climate change impacts; to think collectively by engaging citizens, professionals, and policymakers in shaping future scenarios; and to propose solutions by delivering a concrete

scientific resource and a public engagement tool, the platform will gather and consolidate climate-related data from across the Marais Poitevin, transforming it into an accessible, visual format that speaks to a wide audience - from local residents and farmers to tourists, students, and policymakers.

Unlike purely technical databases intended for experts, the Observatory is designed to translate complexity into clarity. Through interactive maps, infographics, timelines, and story-driven explanations, users will be able to explore how climate change is affecting their surroundings in real time. Visitors might, for example, see how much carbon is sequestrated in different categories of wetland (freshwater wetland, brakish water wetland), track shifts in local biodiversity, or follow the impact of citizen-led ecological initiatives.

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© Phonic lips

Six initial topics will serve as entry points: climate vulnerabilities, biodiversity impacts, sedimentation dynamics, carbon sequestration, social representations of climate change, and citizen-led ecological initiatives.

“The aim is to make climate data understandable to everyone,” says Fanny Voix. “It’s about empowering people to act, not just informing them - showing them that the challenges are real, but that solutions are possible and within reach.”

Citizen engagement & The “Agora” Citizen engagement is central to Maraisilience’s approach. Between September 2025 and February 2026, many workshops will be held across six communities, each bringing together the same participants multiple times to explore “desirable futures” for living in the Marais Poitevin.

These scenario-building sessions feed directly into the Climate Agora - three large gatherings of 200 participants combining voluntary citizens with people selected at random, local elected officials and local economic stakeholders. This deliberate mix ensures that voices not usually heard in public consultations are included.

“The Agora is the beating heart of the project,” explains Voix. “It’s where local visions meet scientific data to shape practical solutions.”

From vision to action By the project’s final phase, Maraisilience aims to translate these dialogues into a concrete adaptation plan - potentially combining nature-based measures (such as wetland restoration) with technical interventions (like cities’ adaptation to heat waves).

Beyond the Marais Poitevin, the project is designed as a replicable governance

model. Many regions in France, Europe, and beyond face similar challenges especially wetlands under the Ramsar Convention. Early interest has come from other LIFE projects and international partners curious about its approach to bridging the gap between policymakers, professionals, and citizens.

“The most important result may be the method itself,” says Fanny Voix. “If public bodies can learn how to work together and engage communities meaningfully, that’s a legacy worth sharing.” This collaborative framework - built on trust, transparency, and shared decision-making - could prove just as valuable as the physical adaptation measures themselves. By breaking down silos between institutions and actively involving citizens at every stage, the project is fostering a culture of cooperation that can outlast funding cycles and political changes.

Shaping a Resilient Future In the coming years, the project will move from planning to visible action. The launch of the Climate Observatory will give residents, professionals, and decision-makers access to clear, accessible data - turning climate science into a practical tool for daily life. The first Climate Agora will bring hundreds of citizens together to debate, prioritise, and co-design adaptation measures, ensuring that local voices shape the solutions.

The ultimate goal is a territory where climate adaptation is woven into everyday decision-making, and where the collaborative networks forged during the project endure well beyond 2028. “This is about building a territory of cooperation and resilience,” Richet concludes. “If we can achieve that here, others can do it too - creating a ripple effect far beyond the Marais Poitevin.”

LIFE Maraisilience LIFE Climate Resilience of the Marais Poitevin

Project Objectives

LIFE Maraisilience is a EU-funded initiative uniting nine public bodies in France’s Marais Poitevin wetland, where climate change threatens both communities and ecosystems.

Running from 2024 to 2028, it blends science, citizen engagement, and policy innovation through a Climate Observatory, workshops, and “Agoras.” The project aims to strengthen resilience, build cooperation across regions, and provide a model for climate governance.

Project Funding

LIFE Maraisilience is co-funded by the European Union under the LIFE program category “Governance and Climate Information.”

Project Partners

The LIFE Maraisilience project is coordinated by the Marais Poitevin Regional Natural Park with 8 cobeneficiaries: • Communauté de communes Aunis Atlantique • Communauté de communes Pays de FontenayVendée • Communauté de communes Sud Vendée Littoral • Communauté de communes Vendée Grand Littoral • Communauté d’agglomération du Niortais • Communauté d’agglomération de La Rochelle • Syndicat Mixte du Bassin Versant de la Sèvre Niortaise • La Rochelle Université

Contact Details

Project manager, Fanny Voix LIFE Maraisilience project Parc naturel régional du Marais poitevin 2 rue de l’église, 79510 Coulon, France T: +336 46 19 98 91 E: f.voix@parc-marais-poitevin.fr W: https://life-maraisilience.parc-maraispoitevin.fr/ W: https://pnr.parc-marais-poitevin.fr/

Fanny Voix

Michèle Richet

Fanny Voix is familiar with both coastal and rural environments, Fanny Voix draws on her experience in project coordination for the LIFE Maraisilience project.

Michèle Richet is a communication manager. After completing a master’s degree in digital communication, Michèle wanted to focus her work on an environmental project such as LIFE Maraisilience.

© Parc naturel régional du Marais poitevin

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Bridging Borders for Climate Resilience Climate challenges are shared across borders, therefore adaptation requires shared action. In the Interreg project ClimatePol, researchers and practitioners from Denmark and Germany are working together to build resilience across the border region. We spoke with project coordinator Jessica Baier, researcher Søren Tinning, and policy expert Nicolas Francart about their cross-border approach.

In October 2023, a devastating storm surge swept across the Danish-German border region, leaving behind flooded towns, damaged homes, and losses exceeding €300 million. Water levels in some coastal towns rose more than two metres above normal.

For local residents, it was a harsh reminder of how vulnerable this region is to the forces of climate change. For researchers and policymakers, it was an urgent wake-up call: adaptation can no longer wait.

It is precisely these challenges that ClimatePol is designed to address. Funded by the EU’s Interreg Deutschland - Denmark programme, ClimatePol brings together scientists, policymakers, and municipalities from both sides of the border to strengthen climate resilience through a unique focus on governance, collaboration, and local innovation.

“The overall goal is to improve the climate resilience in the area because, basically, the region is affected by the same climate and will continue to be affected by the same climate,” explains project coordinator Jessica Baier, SDU Climate Cluster University of Southern Denmark.

Rising temperatures, shrinking frost The scientific backdrop is clear: the border region is warming fast. Climate assessments led by the SDU Climate Cluster show that since 2011, average annual temperatures have increased by about 1.3°C, with coastal areas warming more steadily than inland areas.

Perhaps more striking is the loss of frost days: on average, the region now experiences 26 fewer days per year with temperatures below zero compared to just over a decade ago.

This has profound implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and infrastructure.

“It may sound small, but losing nearly a month of frost in such a short period is remarkable,” says Baier. “It changes how the land, crops, and water systems behave.”

Looking forward, projections suggest that by 2100 the region could warm by another three degrees. With hotter summers, heavier

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Workshop during the project’s midterm-conference in September 2025 in Kiel, Germany. Photo: J.Vinum, Flowerhaus ApS.

rainfall, and rising seas, water emerges as the main challenge: too much of it in the form of flooding, groundwater rise, and storm surges - and not enough in times of drought.

Understanding solutions locally Instead of relying only on broad strategies, the project builds on a micro-missions approach in which broad mobilisation from stakeholders and collaboration are considered essential to tackle climate challenges. In ClimatePol, the focus is on one municipality on each side of the border: Vejen in Denmark and Niebüll in Germany. These municipalities also function as in-depth studies of the everyday municipal challenges of climate adaptation.

In Vejen, where precipitation is among the highest in Denmark, local teams are exploring new ways to manage water, such as protecting homes from flooding. In Niebüll, a low-lying community exposed to sea-level rise, attention must be focused on coastal defence as well as housing areas.

“Working closely with local actors gives us valuable insights”,” says Søren Tinning, Postdoc at Europa-Universität Flensburg. “This also allows municipalities to learn from other actors both within and across the border.”

The invisible barrier While climate data and pilot projects are crucial, ClimatePol stands out for tackling a less visible - but equally decisive - aspect of adaptation: governance. Denmark and Germany differ markedly in how they organise climate action. In Denmark, municipalities often play a leading role in driving adaptation, whereas in Germany, initiatives are mainly developed at the national and federal state levels, with local authorities still integrating adaptation into their daily work. Aligning policies, responsibilities, and even terminology can therefore be surprisingly complex.

“Denmark and Germany often use the same words for very different governance structures,” notes Nicolas Francart, Climate Analyst at Cities Unit CONCITO. “That can cause real misunderstandings. We need to build trust, networks, and common ground if we want effective adaptation.”

Søren Tinning describes one of the barriers as the “national container problem”: local actors may be geographically close but remain locked in their own national systems, making cross-border collaboration unnecessarily complicated. Overcoming

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this requires not just policies but personal connections - something ClimatePol actively fosters through workshops, joint mapping, and conferences.

Joint forces At the midterm conference in Kiel (2930 September 2025), ClimatePol’s themes took center stage - but not in isolation. The event was held jointly with its sister project POSEIDON, highlighting how different perspectives on climate adaptation can reinforce one another.

While ClimatePol concentrates on governance, networks, and cross-border policy, POSEIDON focuses on technical and innovation-driven solutions - from naturebased methods to engineered infrastructure for managing floods, droughts, and rising water levels.

Participants in Kiel included researchers, municipal managers, utilities, companies, and policymakers. For example, workshops with the City of Kiel examined how to draft local adaptation plans, while a site visit showcased pilot innovations, such as smart irrigation systems for urban trees.

dimensions of climate change. Rising heat, shifting ecosystems, and even the potential relocation of communities loom on the horizon. Francart warns: “We may reach a point where some areas become uninhabitable, and communities will have to move. That’s not just a technical issue - it’s a deeply social and political one.”

This awareness shapes the project’s interdisciplinary nature, linking climate science with economics, governance, and public communication. It also places strong emphasis on citizen engagement, ensuring that adaptation strategies are not only technically sound but also socially acceptable.

Building resilience, sharing lessons What sets ClimatePol apart is not only the knowledge it produces, but the framework for cooperation it is putting in place. By bringing together municipalities, scientists, policymakers, and citizens, the project is building channels of communication that will outlast the funding period. These networks are crucial in a border region where climate impacts are shared, but responsibilities often stop at the line on the map.

“We are not just producing data and reports. We are

creating connections between people and institutions who otherwise would not work together. That’s what will make adaptation sustainable.” Jessica Baier “I really enjoyed the practice-oriented approach, which is due to the broad diversity of practitioners, who were at the conference.

The link between the two projects and the application-oriented research worked really well”, one participant explained.

Jessica Baier notes that the midterm event deliberately focused on local adaptation managers, where needs are immediate and practical. The conference was jointly organised with ClimatePol’s sister project POSEIDON. A third initiative, ClimateBlue, started a year later and is still in its early stages, but forms part of the same ecosystem led by the SDU Climate Cluster. Together, the three projects aim to create synergies - linking governance, technology, and citizen engagement for stronger climate adaptation across the region.

Social and political implications While water dominates the conversation, ClimatePol does not ignore the broader

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For Jessica Baier, the project’s strength lies in this integration: “We are not just producing data and reports. We are creating connections between people and institutions who otherwise would not work together.

That’s what will make adaptation sustainable.”

The ultimate test will be whether this model can inspire others. As Søren Tinning notes, the border region is in many ways a microcosm of Europe: diverse governance systems, shared risks, and the need for trust across boundaries.

Lessons learned here could be transferred to Alpine valleys, the North Sea coast, or the Mediterranean - wherever borders complicate climate adaptation.

The October 2023 storm surge revealed what is at stake. But it also demonstrated why projects like ClimatePol matter: they are not only responding to immediate threats, but building a new culture of cooperation that can help Europe weather the storms of the future.

ClimatePol Climate Adaptation and Policy across the Border

Project Objectives

ClimatePol is an Interreg project investigating climate adaptation decisionmaking and implementation across the Danish-German border. It maps key challenges and opportunities for effective cross-border cooperation on heatwaves, droughts, storms, groundwater, and sealevel rise. The project develops practical recommendations, a handbook, and a toolbox to help decision-makers create appropriate solutions and joint resilience strategies.

Project Funding

The project has a total budget of 2,8 million EUR, of which 1,8 million EUR are funded

by Interreg Germany-Denmark and the European Union. It runs from 2024-2027.

Project Partners

• SDU Center for Sustainable Business Development and Policy • SDU Centre for Border Region Studies • SDU Aqua-NbS • Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel • Europa-Universität Flensburg • CONCITO • Klimatorium • Vejen Kommune • Stadt Niebüll

Contact Details

Jessica Baier, Project Manager SDU Climate Cluster University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55 DK-5230 Odense M T: +45 93 53 45 39 E: baier@sdu.dk W: https://climatepol.dk/da/ W: www.sdu.dk

Jessica Baier, Søren Tinning, and Nicolas Francart (left to right)

Jessica Baier is the project coordinator of ClimatePol at SDU Climate Cluster, overseeing coordination, communication, and administration. Originally from Germany, she bridges cultures in this cross-border, multilingual Interreg project.

Søren Tinning is a postdoc at SDU and Europa-Universität Flensburg working with ClimatePol where he maps governance, regulations, and stakeholder networks, and explores cross-border climate adaptation collaboration.

Nicolas Francart is an analyst in CONCITO’s Cities Unit, leading international engagement for ClimatePol. He shares knowledge, builds collaborations, and analyzes data to monitor municipal climate action within the Danish Climate Alliance.

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Raising biodiversity of peat bogs Raised bogs sequester CO2 and provide a unique habitat for wildlife, but many have been degraded. The LIFE CrossBorderBog project is now working to rewet and conserve a raised bog in the Dutch-German border region. This will fulfil Nature 2000 targets and boost its ability to mitigate the impact of climate change, as Jacob van der Weele and Christoph Rückriem explain.

The Aamsveen-Hundfelder Moor

LIFE CrossBorderBog

is situated on the Dutch-German border and is part of a former large raised bog area. The bog started to form approximately 5000 BC and has historically provided an important habitat for flora and fauna as well as the storage of large quantities of CO2 . However, over time large quantities of peat were extracted from the area, and the bog does not function in the same way today. “Currently the raised bog is considered to be degraded, as it is limited in its ability to retain water. Water loss changes the quality of peat, the physical way that water is retained,” says Christoph Rückriem, a biologist and site manager at the Zwillbrock Biological Station, located close to the Moor.

This issue is crucial to the CrossBorderBog project, an initiative funded under the EUs LIFE programme, which provides valuable support for biodiversity, environment and climate related issues. The aim in the project is to restore and conserve the biodiversity of the raised bog, which starts from preventing water run-off. “We want the bog to retain the water that it needs,” explains Jacob van der Weele, an ecologist with project partners Landschap Overijssel. “In the project team we have a lot of experience in restoring or re-wetting raised bog areas. We’ve seen that if we make small compartments, and enclose them by dams, we can prevent water run-off and create conditions in which peat can grow again. Only then can we create the conditions for typical peatland biodiversity to develop again.”

As part of their roles in the project, Rückriem and Van der Weele aim to help support the growth of peat mosses at the two Natura 2000 sites, while also looking to bridge national differences and essentially merge the two sides into a single raised bog. This is not a simple task however, as the bog has been managed differently on both sides of the border, notably with the creation of a drainage ditch in the ‘70s on the German side. “Managers at the time decided not to collaborate with their counterparts across the border but to find their own, purely German

the project makes it much more complicated than a purely national initiative, but one of the benefits is that it moves both sides out of their comfort zones.”

The two sides were initially quite far apart in terms of their vision for the area, and it took some time to identify joint goals before the project began in 2023. A key aim in the project is to establish a consistently high water table to support the growth of peat mosses in the bog, specifically sphagnum moss, a key component of peat. “There are about 15 species of sphagnum moss in the area, and each has their own particular

“It would not be possible to do this work on a purely national basis, as many of the proposed measures require close crossborder coordination.

We need to establish cross-border compartments in the bog for example, and they have to be organised and managed on a common basis.” solution. So they created this drainage ditch on the border, which allows water to run out,” explains Rückriem. Given this background, and shared environmental concerns, Rückriem emphasises a cross-border initiative was required to restore the bog. “It would not be possible to do this work on a purely national basis, as many of the proposed measures require close cross-border coordination. We need to establish cross-border compartments in the bog for example, and they have to be organised and managed on a common basis,” he points out. “The cross-border nature of

preferences in terms of where they grow, how they grow, and how fast,” outlines Van der Weele. These mosses require a stable water level near the surface, so the project team are establishing dams to prevent runoff. “In the Netherlands we look to establish loam dams, using a very sticky type of mud, which is impermeable to water. Our German colleagues only use peat to build dams,” says Van der Weele. “There are also © Biologische Station Zwillbrock e.V.

© Michiel Poolman | Landschap Overijssel.

© Milou Sijtsma | Provincie Overijssel

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some other differences in approach. In the Netherlands we have decided to remove all the birch trees in our area, whereas in Germany they are taking a more gradual approach, in the knowledge that water levels will rise in future and scattered birch forests will slowly diminish.”

A third important measure in the project involves essentially flattening the area, taking into account significant differences in the height of the water table within the bog.

Some peat ridges within the bog have been excavated while others haven’t, leading to height differences of up to two metres, which Van der Weele says represents a significant challenge to the project team. “It’s very difficult to establish a flat water table with these height differences. We fill up the lower parts and look to bring down the high parts, to try and get a flat surface,” he explains.

The impact of all the restoration actions will be monitored, with the project team paying particularly close attention to the development of the water table within the bog. “We’ve put between 50-60 monitoring sensors in the area which are taking measurements continuously. In collaboration with our partners at the University of Münster (ILÖK) we will develop a groundwater table model, to provide annual reports of the main changes,” says Rückriem. “We will be able to see a detailed picture of the whole area, then we can identify specific areas where we haven’t had the impact we hoped and where we maybe need to take some additional measures. All of this is being done with a view to caring for flora and fauna.”

Stable water level The main aim here is to establish a stable water table and only raise it gradually, to prevent the development of large water bodies, which are not well-suited to the growth of peat mosses. The water level will

© Henk Wubs | Provincie Overijssel.

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be raised step by step, taking into account variations in the climate and observations of growth rates. “If we see strong growth of peat mosses, we can potentially look to raise the water level somewhat quicker, while if we have very dry summers we will perhaps look to raise it at a different speed,” says Van der Weele. The team is also considering how the site will be managed over the longterm, beyond the end of the project, with climate change likely to have an impact on water levels in the bog. “We modelled the stability of the water table, in the context of climate change. We found that we can still reach our goals in conserving the bog, even with the likelihood of longer, drier summers in future,” outlines Rückriem. “We will create these compartments with adjustable overflows in the bog, so we can react to monitoring data, which will be very valuable for long-term management of the site.”

This work will in the long term enable both Natura 2000 sites to once again host the typical elements of biodiversity associated with raised bogs, while also increasing their capacity to store CO2 and so mitigate the impact of climate change. This is a prominent issue across Europe, and so Van der Weele and his colleagues are keen to share their findings with other site managers of raised bog areas. “We held a symposium in October 2025, at which we presented our findings to site managers from across North-Western Europe, and described the steps we took,” he says. However, while the project’s research holds valuable insights for others looking to restore raised bog areas, Rückriem says that each bog is different and requires a specific solution. “It’s essential to consider the local circumstances and the specific conditions,” he stresses. “In ecology, it is important to be guided by the facts, then you can put in place the right measures, in the right place, at the right time.”

LIFE-CrossBorderBog Cross-border restoration and reunion of the raised bogs Aamsveen and Hündfelder Moor

Project Objectives

The overall objective of the LIFE CrossBorderBog is to create living raised bogs in the Natura 2000 areas of Aamsveen and Hündfelder Moor. In doing so, we are also protecting and creating habitats for typical raised bog animal species such as the crane, Artic emeral dragonfly, raised bog mosaic dragonfly, European frog, adder, common lizard, common snipe and golden plover.

Project Funding

The Life CrossBorderBog is financed by the LIFE programme, the EU Financial instrument for nature, environment and climate protection. The project takes place in the Natura 2000 sites Aamsveen (NL2003001, Netherlands) and Amtsvenn u.

Hündfelder Moor (DE3807301, Germany).

Project Partners

https://lifecrossborderbog.nl/en/partnersfunding/

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Gert-Jan Hoeve LIFE CrossBorderBog Aamsveen – Hündfelder Moor Postbus 10078 8000 GB Zwolle Netherlands T: +31 6 10982752 E: gj.hoeve@overijssel.nl W: https://lifecrossborderbog.nl/en/

Christoph Rückriem Jacob van der Weele

Christoph Rückriem is an ecologist and site manager at the Biologische Station Zwillbrock e.V., and has worked as the German project manager for the LIFE CrossBorderBog project since 2023.

Jacob van der Weele is a biologist. He has long experience of working in nature conservation for provincial governments and for the last two decades has served as an ecological advisor within Landschap Overijssel, a nature conservation organisation.

© Milou Sijtsma | Provincie Overijssel.

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Deep in the roots of carbon sequestration Soil can play a major role in mitigating the impact of climate change by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. We spoke to Professor Thomas Kätterer about his research into the impact of different management practices on soil carbon sequestration, and its wider relevance in helping meet emissions reduction targets.

The process of carbon sequestration is the focus of a great deal of attention in research, as countries across the world seek to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change. Plants take in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and form biomass, part of which then goes into the soil, where it is stored for sustained periods. “This mitigates the effects of climate change,” explains Thomas Kätterer, Professor in ecosystem ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Different crop management practices affect the rate at which CO2 is transported from the atmosphere to soil, a topic central to Professor Kätterer’s research. “We’re looking at how different management practices affect this carbon flux. What management practices favour the storage of carbon in the soil?” he asks. “Building up carbon storage also has other positive effects, including on plants, microbes, fungi and animals that live in soil.”

Carbon sequestration As the Principal Investigator of a project backed by the Swedish government research council (Formas), Professor Kätterer is now looking to build a fuller picture of the rate at which carbon is sequestered under different crop management practices.

Certain practices can lead to an increase in soil carbon or organic matter content, which many governments are keen to encourage. “In Sweden for example farmers are subsidised to use cover crops,” outlines Professor Kätterer. These cover crops grow later in the year after the harvest of main crops, leading to the formation of new biomass that increases the level of soil organic matter, alongside other benefits.

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Maize in the Ultuna Frame Experiment, which started in 1956. Photo: Michael Kvick, SLU.

“When you have these cover crops it also reduces erosion problems, as rains in Autumn and Winter transport particles to the waterways, and degrade the soil, by transporting the top soil within the landscape,” explains Professor Kätterer.

The project team is now investigating the effects of this practice on rates of carbon soil sequestration, as well as assessing the impact of other practices, such as sowing and rotating different crops. Carbon accumulation in soil is a slow process and annual changes are relatively small, so Professor Kätterer says many years’ worth of data are needed to see measurable changes. “A huge amount of carbon is already there, and changes have to accumulate over a long time before we really

see a measurable effect, so we need long-term studies,” he acknowledges. Researchers are using data from long-term field experiments (LTEs) conducted at different locations, while soil samples are taken from 2,000 fields in Sweden in a long-term monitoring programme. “Researchers go back to the same spot in a field every ten years or so and measure the changes that have occurred,” says Professor Kätterer.

This provides a rich source of data going back several decades in some cases. One experiment started in the town of Ultuna in 1956 for example, with researchers looking at the impact of different treatments within a field on crop yields, and some marked variations in soil carbon content can now be

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seen. “We measured almost 4 times more carbon in the soil in the highest treatment compared to the lowest treatment. We have looked at the response of the maize grown over the last 20 years, and have been able to relate maize productivity to changes in soil carbon,” outlines Professor Kätterer. A further important aim in the project is to disentangle the effect of increased nutrient levels from the impact of changes to the soil structure. “If you increase soil organic carbon you also increase levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, which are constituents of organic material in the soil,” explains Professor Kätterer.

A higher turnover of soil organic matter leads to the delivery of more nutrients to crops and increased levels of soil organic matter.

Researchers have been working to separate the

Professor Kätterer. “There is a lot of interest in effective tools to estimate the impact of different management practices on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration,” he continues. The project team is now working to improve and refine these models further.

“From the LTEs we parameterise models that we then use at the regional scale, or scale the effect up to the country scale,” says Professor Kätterer. “We use different kinds of models, and are building a platform to run models on different data series.”

Researchers are sharing their findings with the agricultural sector, while Professor Kätterer and his colleagues also work together with Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency. The data they provide on carbon stock changes in Swedish agricultural land is used

“ We’re looking at how different management practices affect this carbon flux. What management practices favour the storage of carbon in the soil?” impact of this on maize yields from the physical effects of improved soil structure, which enhances the water-holding capacity of the soil.

“We were able to show that the main factor behind increased maize yields was changes in the physical properties of the soil, rather than increased delivery of nutrients,” says Professor Kätterer. Alongside working with data from LTEs, Professor Kätterer and his colleagues are also conducting flux measurements, measuring the exchange of gases between the surface and the atmosphere. “We have chambers which cover the soil - with or without vegetation, depending on the specific fluxes we are interested in. We can measure the exchange of gases at a small scale,” he explains.

Climate models These measurements can then be used to inform models of the underlying processes behind soil carbon sequestration, which will be invaluable in terms of understanding which practices can mitigate the impact of climate change. There is also wider interest in these models from beyond the agricultural sector, says

every year in compiling the national climate report, illustrating the wider importance of this research. “The national climate report is then delivered to the EU, UN and other bodies,” says Professor Kätterer. This work is very much ongoing, and Professor Kätterer plans to pursue further research in this area, aiming to build a deeper picture of the effects of different land management practices. “From the soil monitoring programmes and the LTEs we can relate changes in soil properties - like soil organic carbon - to how the land was managed,” he outlines.

The project team is also using other sources of information, including satellite data and public databases, to understand the historical background and then relate that to the changes that researchers see in soil samples today. This can then inform management practices and advice to the agricultural sector, helping farmers improve soil quality and mitigate the impact of climate change. “The models we are developing can provide valuable insights for farmers,” stresses Professor Kätterer.

CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN SWEDISH CROPLAND SOILS Project Objectives

This project aims to generate new applicable knowledge from the information we have gained from studies on Swedish long-term field experiments, national soil monitoring, and other databases, and integrate it into a novel modeling approach to advance our estimates of the carbon sequestration potential in agricultural soils under Swedish conditions.

Project Funding

This project is funded by the Swedish Research Council under Grant Number 2022-00214_Formas. https://www.vr.se/english/swecris. html?project=2022-00214_Formas#/

Project Team

Martin Bolinder, Carlos Sierra, Lorenzo Menichetti, Rong Lang, Nick Jarvis, Katharina Meurer, Johanna Wetterlind, Elin Röös.

Contact Details

Project Coordinator: Professor Thomas Kätterer Department of Ecology P.O. Box 7044 750 07 UPPSALA T: +4618672425 E: thomas.katterer@slu.se W: https://www.slu.se/en/ew-cv/thomaskatterer2/ https://www.lantbruksforskning.se/projektdatabasen/ fang-och-mellangrodors-bidrag-till-kolinlagringmullens-betydelse-for-skord-och-skordestabilitet/ ff80818182a02a440182d5881d4b084c/ https://ejpsoil.eu/soil-research/carboseq/ https://ejpsoil.eu/soil-research/eom4soil/intodialogue/simple https://www.nibio.no/en/projects/captureassessment-of-cover-cropping-as-climate-action-incereal-production-in-norway?locationfilter=true

Professor Thomas Kätterer

Thomas Kätterer is a professor in ecosystem ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an elected fellow of The Royal Swedish Agricultural Academy. He has a background in agronomy, soil science, ecology, and environmental sciences. His research focuses on carbon and nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, particularly agricultural management practices related to mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

One of the Swedish long-term soil fertility experiments at Högåsa.

The different hues of green indicate crop productivity. Photo: Gunnar Börjesson.

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Adapting for Tomorrow:

How Europe Is Building Systems Resilient to a Changing Climate

Heatwaves, floods and droughts are no longer distant risks but everyday pressures across Europe. In response, climate adaptation is moving from the margins to the backbone of modern society, reshaping transport, power systems, urban design, water management and circular resource use for a more resilient future.

By Maria Vlastara

A

cross Europe, climate impacts are pushing societies to rethink how they function. Heatwaves last longer each year, forcing cities to redesign public spaces and transport systems. Sudden intense rainfall overwhelms drainage networks built for gentler weather, while droughts strain rivers, agriculture and drinking-water supplies. Along the coasts, communities face rising seas and stronger storm surges that threaten homes, ports and vital infrastructure.

These pressures are forcing a decisive shift: climate adaptation is no longer a specialist concern, but a core task of governance, planning and investment. The EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, reinforced through the European Green Deal, is steering this transition. It calls for resilient transport corridors, climateproof energy systems, circular resource use, and water management designed for extremes rather than averages. Across the continent, adaptation is becoming a practical blueprint - guiding how Europe prepares, strengthens and transforms its systems to endure a warmer, more unpredictable,ag future.

Why Adaptation Matters Now Across Europe, the impacts of climate change have moved from abstract projections to lived reality. In just the past years, devastating floods swept through Germany and Belgium, heatwaves scorched southern Europe, crops failed under extreme drought in France and Italy, and unprecedented wildfires burned landscapes from Portugal to Greece. These events have revealed a simple truth: even the most ambitious emissions-reduction measures cannot prevent the consequences of warming already locked into the atmosphere.

Adaptation is not optional - it is an urgent necessity.

Europe’s climate risks vary by region. Southern Europe faces accelerating heat extremes, reduced rainfall and an escalating threat of wildfires, with some projections indicating up to a 20% drop in annual rainfall by mid-century under higher-warming scenarios. Central Europe contends with heavier rainfall and more frequent river flooding, while northern regions are warming faster than the global average, placing ecosystems and

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infrastructure under significant strain. Economic damage is rising sharply. According to the European Court of Auditors, climaterelated extreme events have cost the EU an average of €26 billion per year over the last decade, and without effective adaptation these losses could climb to between €42 billion and €175 billion annually as temperatures rise. These figures underline the scale of the challenge - and the urgent need for climate-resilient planning across all regions.

Recognising this, the European Union has elevated adaptation as a strategic priority. The EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change (2021) sets out a long-term vision for a climate-resilient Europe by 2050, focusing on stronger risk assessments, deeper knowledge of climate impacts, accelerated adaptation action, and reinforced global resilience efforts. The European Green Deal places adaptation alongside mitigation as a core pillar of Europe’s pathway to climate neutrality by mid-century, shaping policies across energy, transport, biodiversity, and the circular economy. Complementing these, the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change aims to support at least 150 regions and communities by 2030, helping them understand their specific risks, develop adaptation pathways, and deploy innovative solutions on the ground.

Yet adaptation extends beyond policy. It requires redesigning the systems that support modern life - transport, energy, water, food, built environments, and digital infrastructure. Europe is now beginning that transformation, shifting from reactive measures toward long-term resilience planning.

Adapting Transportation Transport networks are the backbone of European society - and some of the most climate-sensitive systems. Extreme heat can deform rails and soften asphalt; storm surges can disable ports and airports; heavy rainfall overwhelms tunnels and metro systems. To stay operational under growing climate stress, Europe’s mobility systems are undergoing a profound transformation.

One strand of adaptation focuses on heat-resilient design. Rail operators are adopting materials that withstand higher temperatures,

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Across Europe, the impacts of climate change have moved from abstract projections to lived reality. In just the past years, devastating floods swept through Germany and Belgium, heatwaves scorched southern Europe, crops failed under extreme drought in France and Italy, and unprecedented wildfires burned landscapes from Portugal to Greece.

while cities introduce reflective road surfaces and cooler pavement technologies. Public-transport hubs are being redesigned with shade structures, natural ventilation, green roofs, and heat-resilient materials to keep temperatures tolerable during heatwaves - now far more frequent across the continent.

Flooding poses an equally serious challenge. Cities are elevating vulnerable rail lines, reinforcing tunnels, expanding stormwater drainage, and upgrading pumps in metro stations.

Low-lying transport corridors are being redesigned to drain water quickly, Adaptation also means changing how people move.

Shifts to active mobility - walking and cycling - and robust public transport reduce reliance on car travel during extreme heat and severe weather events. More walkable, shaded, and bike-friendly streets not only support resilience but also improve air quality and public health. This approach is already taking shape in several European cities. Barcelona, for instance, has transformed many neighbourhoods through its Superilla (“Superblock”) programme, redesigning streets to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists while reducing through-traffic. These car-light zones stay cooler during heatwaves thanks to expanded tree cover and shaded public areas, while permeable pavements help manage intense rainfall. The city’s cycling network - now spanning more than 250 kilometres offers residents reliable, low-carbon mobility even when extreme weather disrupts other transport modes. Barcelona’s experience shows how rethinking mobility can serve as a practical form of climate adaptation, keeping streets safer, cooler and more accessible as conditions change.

Finally, mobility adaptation intersects strongly with decarbonisation. The rapid rise of electric vehicles requires charging networks that remain reliable in extreme weather, supported by more flexible, distributed power systems rather than a single central grid. Across Europe, this shift is already visible. In Utrecht, the Netherlands, Europe’s first large-scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G) car-sharing service allows electric cars not only to charge but also to feed electricity back into the network, helping stabilise the local grid during heatwaves or periods of high demand. Powered in part by the city’s extensive rooftop solar capacity, these bidirectional charging points act as miniature storage units that reinforce energy resilience while reducing the strain on infrastructure. Microgrids, battery-backed charging hubs, and renewable-powered stations like those emerging across Dutch municipalities offer a practical way to maintain mobility even as climate pressures intensify illustrating how adaptation and decarbonisation increasingly move forward together.

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Building a Low-Carbon Power System Renewable energy is essential for Europe’s decarbonisation goals, but the shifting climate presents new challenges for energy systems themselves. Heatwaves can reduce the efficiency of solar panels and place heavy strain on electricity demand. Droughts diminish hydropower output. Fierce storms force shutdowns of offshore wind farms. Adapting energy systems has become central to ensuring Europe’s long-term stability.

In Portugal’s Alentejo region, several municipalities have deployed solar-powered microgrids that keep schools, health centres and water-pumping stations running even during heatwaves or grid disturbances - a clear demonstration of how decentralised energy strengthens climate resilience.

A core strategy is decentralisation. Distributed renewable energy - rooftop solar, community wind generation, village microgrids - reduces dependency on single points of failure during storms or extreme heat. When severe weather hits, decentralised systems help maintain essential services, offering flexibility and stability that centralised grids alone can no longer guarantee. Storage is another essential pillar. Batteries, hydrogen solutions, pumped hydro, and emerging long-duration storage technologies improve electricity reliability during supply disruptions. Flexibility measures, including smart-charging systems and demand-response programs, help balance energy use under climate stress.

Infrastructure design is adapting as well. Solar installations are now tested for higher operating temperatures, while wind turbines are being engineered for more turbulent conditions. Offshore energy platforms integrate storm-resistant foundations and rising sea-level projections. Hydroelectric power stations recalibrate management strategies to cope with variable water availability.

Digitalisation plays a critical role. Smart grids, digital monitoring, and AI-enhanced forecasting help operators anticipate disruptions and adjust in real time. Advanced models can predict heat or storm impacts on grid stability days ahead, giving operators time to prepare.

Reuse and recycling While recycling and circularity are usually associated with waste reduction and sustainability, they also play a powerful role in climate adaptation. As climate impacts disrupt global supply chains and threaten access to raw materials, maintaining reliable resource flows becomes central to economic resilience.

In Finland, the growing national network of textile-recycling plants has already reduced dependence on imported fibres and created domestic material streams that are far less exposed to

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global market volatility - a clear example of how circular systems strengthen resilience. High-quality recycling systems reduce vulnerability to disruptions in global commodity markets, while Europe’s increasing focus on recycling metals, plastics, batteries, electronics and construction materials helps maintain supply stability when climate crises interrupt international logistics.

Circular manufacturing - designing products to be repaired, reused and remanufactured - further shields economies from climate or geopolitical shocks. In Belgium, Brussels’ BeCircular programme supports businesses that design for reuse and offers incentives for using locally recovered materials, helping the city remain more secure during supply disruptions linked to extreme weather events.

Waste infrastructure itself must also adapt. Floods can damage sorting centres and contaminate waste streams, while heatwaves increase the risk of fires at waste sites. Many regions are now upgrading drainage, reinforcing structures, and integrating renewable backup power into waste-management facilities to build climate resilience.

Material innovation is another adaptation frontier. Bio-based materials, low-carbon construction products, and climate-resilient composites provide alternatives when conventional resources are strained. Denmark’s city, Næstved, for example, is transforming the city through circular economy, smart waste systems, and energyefficient infrastructure. It reuses construction materials via a local “material bank” (PlusByg), reselling leftover building parts, while doors, windows and fittings from public buildings are reused in new renovations. At the same time, underground waste collection is installed in the city centre to improve cleanliness and recycling.

District heating is being upgraded with high-performance insulation, cutting heat loss by about 50%.

Cities, Water, and Food Climate change directly affects the fundamentals of life - water, food, and the places we live. European cities and regions are redesigning these essential systems to withstand extreme heat, water scarcity, flooding, and ecosystem disruption.

Urban areas face escalating heat, and many cities are responding with cooling strategies: tree planting, shaded walkways, reflective surfaces, water features, and green roofs. Nature-based solutions such as wetlands, bioswales, and urban forests reduce both heat and flood risk. Cities are increasingly treating natural systems as infrastructure - reliable, cost-effective, and self-maintaining.

Coastal regions are adapting to rising sea levels and stronger storm surges with combinations of engineered and nature-based measures: sea walls, adaptive waterfronts, dune restoration, and living shorelines. Meanwhile, inland cities strengthen flood defences through retention basins, improved drainage, permeable pavements, and real-time water management systems.

Water scarcity is a growing challenge across southern and central Europe. Regions are investing in smart irrigation, reclaimed wastewater, aquifer recharge, desalination, leak-reduction programs, and water-efficient agriculture. Drought-resilient farming practices - including soil regeneration, precision irrigation, and crop diversification - support food-security under increasingly unpredictable conditions.

Food systems themselves are adapting. Heat-tolerant crop varieties, digital farming tools, and regenerative agriculture improve resilience while restoring ecosystems. Shorter supply chains, urban agriculture, and community-supported farming increase local food stability during disruptions.

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Technology, Data, and AI Behind nearly every modern adaptation effort lies a rapidly growing ecosystem of digital applications. Technology is transforming how Europe measures, predicts and responds to climate impacts - often long before they occur. At EU level, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) plays a central role in this shift, providing highresolution climate data, seasonal forecasts and impact indicators used across Member States to guide adaptation planning. C3S underpins the Climate-ADAPT platform, the EU’s main adaptation knowledge hub, giving local authorities access to consistent data for flood mapping, heatwave preparedness and coastal-risk assessment.

Artificial intelligence has become a cornerstone of climate-risk forecasting. Machine-learning models integrate satellite imagery, weather data, soil-moisture readings, flood records and sensor data to predict extreme events with increasing accuracy. AI can anticipate urban flood zones, model heatwaves, forecast wind-farm disruption or estimate wildfire spread in real time. Spain’s Forest Fire Prevention Service in Catalonia already uses AI-supported fire-spread simulations to guide firefighting strategies during periods of high heat and drought.

Digital twins - virtual replicas of buildings, cities, transport corridors and energy systems - allow planners to stress-test infrastructure against future climate scenarios. A digital twin of a coastal city, for example, can simulate the effects of sea-level rise or storm surges on transport, drainage and energy systems simultaneously. The City of Rotterdam operates one of Europe’s leading digital twins, modelling rainfall, sewer overflow, port operations and sea-level rise to guide multi-billion-euro adaptation investments.

IoT sensors - small, internet-connected devices that capture realtime data from the physical environment - are turning infrastructure into living, responsive systems. Thousands of these sensors embedded in bridges, pipelines, power lines and rail networks monitor temperature, vibration, corrosion and water flow. When connected to analytics platforms, they support predictive maintenance identifying risks before failures occur. In Italy, the early-warning flood system in Emilia-Romagna uses more than 500 sensors across rivers and reservoirs to provide real-time alerts, which proved essential during the 2023 floods. In Denmark, Copenhagen’s smart-drainage network uses sensors and AI to divert stormwater during cloudbursts, significantly reducing flood damage in low-lying districts.

Climate-risk dashboards are also emerging across governments and industries, transforming complex climate data into actionable insights. France’s national “Climat HD” platform and Ireland’s Climate Ireland Portal help local authorities assess risks, identify vulnerabilities and plan adaptation measures based on the latest science. These tools are becoming essential for public agencies seeking to prioritise investments, improve emergency planning and coordinate adaptation across regions.

Designing a Resilient Europe Adaptation is no longer a niche issue within climate policy - it is becoming the organising principle for infrastructure, economics, urban planning, environmental protection and public health.

Across Europe, the shift is visible: cities greening their streets to combat heat, farmers adopting precision tools to manage droughts, energy systems decentralizing energy systems for flexibility, and employing digital technologies to expand our ability to anticipate climate extremes. These changes reflect a growing recognition that resilience must be built into the everyday workings of society, not added as an afterthought.

A climate-resilient Europe is not about resisting change at all costs. It is about engaging with change strategically, redesigning

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systems to function under new conditions and ensuring that societies can thrive even in an unpredictable world. As climate impacts intensify, resilience will increasingly define Europe’s competitiveness, security and wellbeing.

The challenge is immense, but so is Europe’s capacity for innovation - and several newer EU policy instruments are helping to accelerate this shift. The EU Climate Law (2021) embeds longterm climate planning into legislation, requiring Member States to integrate adaptation alongside mitigation in national strategies.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)-the EU’s largest-ever investment programme-requires countries to allocate significant portions of funding to climate resilience, supporting everything from flood protection to drought-resistant water systems. At the same

time, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) has expanded its mandate to strengthen cross-border preparedness for wildfires, floods and extreme weather, enabling Member States to share resources and expertise when climate impacts exceed national capacity. Cohesion Policy funding and the updated TEN-T and TEN-E regulations also now require climate-proofing of major transport and energy infrastructure, ensuring that Europe’s core networks are built for a warmer, more volatile climate.

Together, these initiatives point toward a deeper transformation.

By embedding resilience into investment, legislation and cross-border cooperation-and by harnessing the power of technology, nature-based solutions and inclusive planning-Europe can build a future that is safer, more sustainable and prepared for whatever comes next.

Barcelona, for instance, has transformed many neighbourhoods through its Superilla (“Superblock”) programme, redesigning streets to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists while reducing through-traffic. These car-light zones stay cooler during heatwaves thanks to expanded tree cover and shaded public areas, while permeable pavements help manage intense rainfall. www.euresearcher.com

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New management for Estonian River Basin Only 57% of Estonia’s surface waters were rated as reaching a good status in 2024 in West-Estonian River Basin District, underlining the need for more effective management. The team behind the LIFE SIP WetEST project are implementing a new management plan for the Western Estonian River Basin, aiming to reduce pollutant concentrations and improve water quality, as Mari Sepp explains.

The ecological health of Estonia’s river basins is in decline, with agricultural pollution and the legacy of heavy industry having a significant impact on water bodies across the country.

There are 14 coastal water bodies in the Western Estonian river basin district for example, none of which are currently rated as having a ‘good’ status. “They are all currently either moderate or bad, mainly due to the loads of nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen,” explains Mari Sepp, Manager of the LIFE SIP WetEST project, an EUbacked initiative bringing together 17 partners. As part of her role in the project, Sepp is working to help improve the status of the Western Estonian river basin, which covers almost 60 percent of the country’s territory. “The Western Estonian river basin covers 45,256 km². It includes 347 rivers, 43 lakes, and 14 coastal water bodies. In 2024, only 57 percent of surface waters were rated as reaching a good status,” she outlines.

“By 2027, all water bodies should either be in good status or have measures in place; however, natural processes need time, so the attainment of good status may occur later in practice.”

At the beginning of summer, the Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMU) installed the first buoy stations in Lake Ülemiste and Lake Niguliste. Automated buoys, deployed across eight different lake types, enable in situ data collection from these water bodies. By combining buoy measurements with satellite observations, researchers can obtain a comprehensive overview of lake conditions and their temporal changes. The measurement data from these stations is available to the public via the EMU lake portal: https://jarveveeb.emu.ee/

purposes, and is also close to a lot of housing.

We are looking to remove juvenile small fish to reduce the nitrogen load and encourage the growth of native water plants, which in turn supports the development of predatory fish species that are native to the waterbody,” explains Sepp. “A second biomanipulation pilot is at Haapsalu Bay in Western Estonia, where

methods, aiming to bring down the level of chemicals in water bodies. Action on land is essential to protecting the health of water bodies, says Sepp. “You have to act on land to protect and sustain the status of our waters,” she stresses. In one workpackage, the project team are looking at mercury levels in cities and waste management processes, while

“The West-Estonian River Basin District includes 347 rivers, 43 lakes, and 14 coastal water bodies. In 2024, only 57 percent of surface waters were rated as reaching a good status”

Management Plan This work centres on implementing some of the measures contained in the Western Estonian River Basin Management Plan (WE RBMP), which is designed to improve water quality in line with the targets set out in the EU Water Framework Directive. The project is looking at different melioration practices in specific pilot catchment areas, with a particular focus on the remediation and treatment of shallow lakes and bays, common around the river basin.

Alongside, Community Action Groups will also be established to bring together stakeholders to jointly promote water health within the catchment area, while the project pilots also involve living labs, which engage farmers in the implementation of water protection measures.

“We are conducting two main bio-manipulation pilots in the project. One is at Lake Harku in the capital Tallinn, which is used for recreational

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there is a high level of nitrates in the water. The hope is that the growth of algae and mussels will reduce the amount of nitrates in the water and so improve its ecological status We are farming algae and mussels in the Bay, monitoring the water quality, and considering how the farming plan should develop over the next few years.”

The project team are also applying a number of nature-based pollutant control Haapsalu Bay - a shallow coastal area popular with the local community.

another is focused more on the agriculture sector. “For example nitrate levels are a problem in the agriculture sector. We are working towards defined targets in terms of the amount by which we aim to reduce levels of certain chemicals,” says Sepp. Limiting the amount of chemicals that then enter the water is essential to translating this work into long-term improvement, so Sepp and her colleagues in the project are working closely with agricultural stakeholders to promote water-friendly agricultural practices.

“This could be using different types of buffer zones, or changing the way fertilisers are used and spread around fields, so they don’t flow into water bodies,” she continues. “We are looking at the river basin management governance system and are setting up a system of catchment officers as coordinators.”

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Researchers from the University of Tartu conducting field surveys of amphibians and invertebrates in wet forest habitats adjacent to the Rannamõisa River, in an area where land drainage works are planned.

LIFE SIP WetEST

Enabling collaborative efforts for systemic change in Estonian River Basin Management

Project Objectives

This new governance system is designed to engage stakeholders at an earlier stage than previously, who can then play a more active role in shaping the management of the river basin and implementing measures. In the new catchment-based system, a single coordinator acts as the main point of contact for all the different stakeholders involved in managing the river basin in a particular area, who can then report any issues or concerns. “The coordinator knows all of the stakeholders in their area, they can gather them together and guide them in implementing the measures outlined in the WE RBMP,” says Sepp. This will help policy-makers balance environmental concerns with the commercial priorities of the agricultural sector, which forms an important part of the local economy. “Environmental experts also need to understand the goals and priorities of the agricultural sector, so we are almost learning a new language. We need to look at the mindset of both sides, and consider the financial incentives,” says Sepp.

There is much to learn here from other countries facing similar challenges, and the project team are looking beyond Estonia’s borders to identify the measures and practices that have led to improved water quality, as well as those that haven’t. At the same time, Sepp is committed to sharing the project’s findings more widely. “We regularly participate in seminars and write reports and articles. We hope that the other countries facing the same

problem will find valuable insights from our project,” she says. The long-term aim is to bring all surface water bodies in the Western Estonian River Basin up to a ‘good’ status, and the project team are looking to contribute towards this ambition. “The target of achieving 100 percent ‘good’ status is quite ambitious, we want to make progress towards that,” outlines Sepp. “In the 2024 status assessment 57 percent of surface water bodies were found to have a ‘good’ ecological and chemical status. In the project we aim to bring this up to 70 percent.”

The next step then is to maintain improved water quality levels, and ensure that the project’s work has a long-term impact. A large part of this is about raising awareness of water quality concerns, which Sepp says is a core objective of the project. “This is crucial for maintaining good ecological health of the Western Estonian River Basin over the long term. Increasing understanding among stakeholders - including local communities, industries, and policymakers - helps foster a shared responsibility for protecting water resources,” she stresses.

Greater awareness of water scarcity can encourage more responsible water use, believes Sepp. “This can lead industries to adopt more efficient and sustainable practices, while individual citizens become more conscious of their water consumption,” she continues.

“The project’s approach, which includes active stakeholder engagement, living labs, and citizen science initiatives, is designed to empower all groups to participate in safeguarding water quality and availability in a sustainable way.”

The aim of WetEST is to reduce diffuse pollution from agricultural activities.

Haapsalu city is located between two shallow bays Haapsalu Bay and Tagalaht (Back Bay).

International picture

LIFE SIP WetEST paves the way for the full implementation of the Western- Estonian River Basin Management Plan (W-E RBMP), expanding the implementation of the water framework directive in the largest of three river basins of Estonia. Aligning with the RBMP objectives, the project proposes solutions to reinvent the river basin governance system as well as boost uptake of new methods and support decision based solutions for river basin management.

Project Funding

The LIFE-SIP WetEST project is funded by the LIFE programme, the co-financing programme for environmental projects of the European Union Member States, and the State of Estonia from the proceeds of greenhouse gas emission allowance trading. LIFE programme funding agreement 101147477 — LIFE23-IPE-EE-LIFE SIP WET-EST. The European Union and the donor agencies are not responsible for the accuracy and use of the content of the information on the website.

Project Partners

Ministry of Climate, Environmental Investment Centre,The Environmental Board,The Environmental Agency,The Estonian Environmental Research Center,The Information Technology Centre of the Ministry of the Environment,The Agriculture and Food Board,The Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge,The Estonian Land and Spatial Development Board, Tallinn University of Technology, University of Tartu,Tallinn University, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Baltic Environmental Forum, Estonian Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce, NGO Wildlife Estonia, Estonian Environmental Law Center, Estonian Public Broadcasting.

Contact Details

Mari Sepp LIFE WetEST Project Manager Ministry of Climate Suur-Ameerika 1, 10122 Tallinn T: +372 6262839 E: Mari.sepp@kliimaministeerium.ee W: www.lifewetest.ee

Mari Sepp

Mari Sepp leads the LIFE SIP WetEST project at the Estonian Ministry of Climate, overseeing nationwide efforts to modernise and implement integrated river basin management in Western Estonia. Drawing on expertise in environmental governance, stakeholder engagement, and innovative water management solutions, she coordinates a multi-partner €30 million EU-funded programme aimed at enhancing water quality, ecological status, and adaptive governance frameworks.

Credit for upper photos (buoys and field surveys): Kristo Elias, Estonian National Broadcasting.

Credit for lower photos (nature/ landscapes): Sven Začek, Enviromental Investment Centre.

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Meeting the Natura 2000 standards in Moldova Moldova hosts a rich diversity of flora and fauna, encompassing numerous species of ecological significance. The Life Renata project team are now working to align the conservation and management of these sites with the standards of the Natura 2000 network, as Apostolos Karteris, Artemis Margaritidou, Natalia Guranda and Vasiliki Chrysopolitou explain.

The Emerald Network of protected sites was established in 1989 to support the conservation of different species and habitats across Europe, part of the wider goal of combatting biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. Currently there are 61 Emerald sites in Moldova, now the team behind the Life Renata project are working towards harmonising the conservation and management of these sites with the standards of the Natura 2000 Network, which spans all 27 EU Member States.

“We are studying the current biodiversity status of Emerald sites in Moldova in order to develop recommendations for the transition to Natura 2000,” says Artemis Margaritidou, the project’s coordinator.

Some partners of the project consortium have previous experience in this area, having worked on establishing Natura 2000 network sites in Greece, now they aim to help their Moldovan partners succeed in this transition. “We are updating the current Emerald Network database, which contains detailed ecological information on each Emerald site in Moldova, with lists of habitat types and important species,” outlines Vasiliki Chrysopolitou, an experienced biologist in implementing EU Habitats and Birds Directives in Greece and abroad.

Life Renata Project Database This database provides a lot of information on the Emerald sites, yet it doesn’t always meet the level of detail required under Natura 2000 standards, an issue that the project team is working to address. The database is being updated to reflect the current situation on the Emerald sites in Moldova, which Chrysopolitou says is a complex, challenging task. “Much of the information is widely scattered, and in many cases even the responsible authorities are facing issues,” she explains. Information on protected areas is being gathered together in the project, with researchers looking to iron out any anomalies and produce a consistent and reliable database. “We’ve seen that there were several inconsistencies in the baseline information, and we have spent quite a lot of time reviewing files and correlating data. The final result will be a

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Ardea purpurea (Linnaeus 1766) – purple heron, Emerald site Stepa Bugeacului, Taraclia lake

rigorous, detailed database,” says Apostolos Karteris, founder of environmental consultancy kartECO, one of the partners in the project. “This database will then be very useful beyond the end of the Life Renata project, supporting Moldova’s transition towards integration into the Natura 2000 network.”

The database, now fully operational, offers a comprehensive and structured platform for storing and accessing geospatial and conservation data. It enhances spatial

visualisation, supports advanced analysis, and improves data management, making it a practical tool for conservation planning and decision-making. It is expected to assist not only in managing Moldova’s Emerald Network and future Natura 2000 sites, but also in fulfilling EU reporting obligations.

The database is organised into several datasets, reflecting core project activities, national data, field observations and outputs from project analyses. It also includes thematic tables with conservation

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and management information, such as the status of management plans per Emerald site. “It will provide a long-term support tool for the effective management of the country’s designated areas and biodiversity goals,” adds Karteris. This geospatial tool forms a key part of the broader Roadmap being developed by Life Renata, providing the data foundation needed to guide recommendations for protected site management, monitoring, and biodiversity conservation across Moldova.

The EU released a new, more demanding version of the Natura 2000 database earlier this year, requiring more detailed information while adding further fields, so the project team are aware of the need to adapt to evolving standards. Training will be provided on how to gather information in line with Natura 2000, building on the expertise of the project’s Moldovan partners. “Within the consortium there are experts in the local flora and fauna, such as birds and fish experts, as well as habitat experts,” explains Chrysopolitou. The aim here is to provide strong foundations and a set of tools for the Moldovan authorities to monitor biodiversity in future. “We are trying to set a basis to improve the conservation and management of protected sites in the future. If you don’t know exactly what species occur at a protected site and the condition of the habitats, you cannot design the management measures properly,” points out Chrysopolitou.

“We are developing two main tools in the project, a GIS (Geographic Information System) Database and a Knowledge Repository Hub, which will be designed and operated within the framework of the project.”

A clear, detailed picture of the current biodiversity status of the Emerald sites is essential to their ongoing conservation and management and for ensuring compliance with Natura 2000 standards. A team of Moldovan and international experts are also working on the Knowledge Repository Hub, aiming to provide an accessible, reliable resource that can guide conservation work, while collaborative events have been held.

is already a part of various international agreements and, as a country, they place a high priority on environmental protection and conservation.”

Roadmap for Natura 2000 Transition The Life Renata project is developing a comprehensive roadmap to support Moldova’s transition towards the Natura 2000 network. This strategic document will include recommendations to improve national legislation, as well as monitoring and management tools for biodiversity protection. “The roadmap will have several different categories, covering a number of

“We are now updating the current Emerald Network database, which contains detailed ecological information on each Emerald site in Moldova, with lists of protected

habitat types and species.”

“We’ve had specialised working groups looking at different aspects of biodiversity monitoring, and we’ve also held capacity building events,” says Karteris. This will help set a path towards full compliance with the Natura 2000 standards, which is an essential requirement for Moldova’s future integration within the EU as a full Member State, following the start of accession negotiations in 2024. “Our Moldovan partners need to adjust their operational framework in line with EU legislation and directives,” outlines Margaritidou. “Moldova

activities. It will outline priorities for the management of protected sites, biodiversity inventory, monitoring, and habitat protection,” says Karteris. A key focus is habitat mapping, which forms the foundation of effective biodiversity conservation. “The boundaries of protected areas depend on the extent of the habitat types that require protection. There is still no national inventory of habitat mapping in Moldova, based on EU legislation,” stresses Chrysopolitou.

The team is identifying essential steps and specifications to continue habitat mapping

Ardeola ralloides (Scopoli, 1769) – squacco heron, Emerald site Lacurile Prutului de Jos, Brinza pond.

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LIFE RENATA

Roadmap for the alignment of EMERALD network establishment and management to NATURA 2000 standards in Moldova

Project Objectives

The primary aim in the Life Renata project is to help Moldova align the management of its protected Emerald Sites with EU standards, as accession talks progress. The project team aim to help their Moldovan partners build a deeper understanding of EU Habitat Directives, and to provide effective tools to monitor different species.

Project Funding

LIFE Renata is co-funded by the European Union under the LIFE Programme: Grant Number: 101148675.

Project Partners

The project is coordinated by Lever Development Consultants S.A., member of “Samaras & Partners” Group of Companies, with the participation of five (5) beneficiaries from Greece and Moldova: the Institute of Forestry Research and Development (ICAS) (Moldova), the Goulandris Natural History Museum – Greek Biotope/Wetland Centre (EKBY), the consulting company for environmental and energy engineering kartECO (Greece), the NGO EcoContact (Moldova) and the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Moldova. https://liferenata.eu/partners/

Contact Details

Project Coordinator - Artemis Margaritidou, Urban Planning and Development Engineer, MA Director of Research and European Projects Department T: +30 6985 552 597 E: artemis.margaritidou@lever.gr W: https://www.lever.gr/ W: https://liferenata.eu

Artemis Margaritidou, Apostolos Karteris, Vasiliki Chrysopolitou, and Natalia Guranda (left to right)

Artemis Margaritidou is Director of the Research and European Projects Dept. at Lever S.A. Apostolos Karteris is the Co-founder and Head of Business Development at kartECO, Greece.

Vasiliki Chrysopolitou is Head of Conservation and Networking at the Department for Biodiversity Research and Protection of the Goulandris Natural History Museum – Greek Biotope/Wetland Centre (EKBY).

Natalia Guranda is an Environmental Expert at EcoContact with extensive experience in environmental governance.

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Egretta garzetta (Linnaeus, 1766) – little egret, Emerald site Prutului de Jos, Beleu lake

and biodiversity management beyond the project’s conclusion.

According to Natalia Guranda, Environmental Expert at EcoContact and one of the lead authors of the roadmap, these actions are directly aligned with the national priorities established under the National Programme for the Republic of Moldova’s Accession to the European Union 2025–2029: “Ensuring the effective management of protected natural areas, conserving biodiversity and adapting to climate change through the establishment of a Protected Areas Agency; the development of the Automated Information System Register of Protected Natural Areas, and the preparation of a roadmap for aligning Emerald sites with Natura 2000 standards.

According to the European Commission’s 2023–2024 Report, the Republic of Moldova must further strengthen its management capacity in the field of nature protection,

continue preparations for the identification and pre-designation of sites to be covered by the Natura 2000 network, and establish an independent service for protected areas in this regard.”

Guranda emphasises that the Life Renata roadmap is designed precisely to respond to these national commitments, offering technical guidance, priority actions, and a clear pathway for future EU-aligned biodiversity governance in Moldova.

Alongside Moldova, the neighbouring country of Ukraine is being considered for EU membership. Towards this transition, Life Renata is collaborating with sister project ConNaturLIFE Ukraine, to address common challenges regarding the protected areas which share borders. This synergy allows the teams to exchange information and knowledge, and among other efforts, develop a joint list of species and habitat types that could be proposed for inclusion in the EU habitats directive.

“The boundaries of protected areas depend on the

extent of the habitat types that require protection.

There is still no national inventory of habitat mapping in Moldova, based on EU legislation.”

Lanius collurio (Linnaeus 1758) – red-backed shrike, Emerald site Padurea Domneasca, Padurea Domneasca Reserve.

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Backing the blue economy The oceans are rich in valuable resources which many companies are keen to exploit, while coastal areas attract large numbers of tourists, yet these activities must be balanced with sustainability concerns. The ADT4Blue project is encouraging the adoption of advanced digital technologies to improve sustainability in the Blue Economy, as Joaquim Brigas explains.

The oceans are rich in valuable resources which humans have long exploited, from fish to oil and gas, while surrounding coastal areas often attract large numbers of tourists. These are just some of the activities that fall within the scope of the Blue Economy, a concept which can be broadly thought of as the sustainable use of ocean resources and local ecosystems. “The Blue Economy refers to the sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources for economic growth, while simultaneously respecting local communities and preserving ecosystem health,” explains Joaquim Brigas, President of Guarda Polytechnic University (IPG) located at the heart of Portugal’s Inland. The two main pillars of the modern Blue Economy are sustainability and coastal communities, as much of what we discard on land ends up in the oceans.

“The main source of plastics in the oceans is rivers, which push pollutants out towards the sea,” points out Brigas.

ADT4Blue project As part of the team behind the EU-backed ADT4Blue project, co-funded by Interreg Atlantic Area, Brigas is helping address some of the major challenges in the Blue Economy. The project aims to encourage the use of advanced digital technologies to improve sustainability and support the Blue Economy, starting from a deep understanding of the challenges it faces. “The first step was to sit down with stakeholders across all the different sectors of the Blue Economy, from tourism, to aquaculture, to renewable energy.

We held workshops, where they told us about the problems they face,” outlines Brigas. A wide range of issues have been identified, many with a sustainability dimension; applicants then submit ideas on how these challenges can be tackled using advanced digital technologies, the most promising of which will receive support. “We provide participants with an advanced training programme,” says Brigas.

Researchers can choose from a variety of different training modules, covering not just technical topics, but also business and commercial skills. There are training modules on entrepreneurship, marketing and communication

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for example, while Brigas says further support is available to help turn innovative ideas into reality. “We have established a 1-1 mentorship programme, where experienced people provide support and guidance to the participants. There are also several networking events, where young researchers can build relationships with potential future clients, and also explore funding opportunities to further develop their ideas,” he continues. To some extent the clients for these solutions are ready and waiting, as researchers are responding to challenges that have already been identified. “Researchers are looking to solve real-world challenges,” says Brigas.

The challenges were identified by Blue Economy stakeholders in four European countries, yet many of these issues are common to other areas of the world, so there is a large potential market for the solutions developed in ADT4Blue.

A good idea is not enough in itself however; an entrepreneurial mindset is also essential when trying to bring a new product to the commercial market, says Brigas. “You need to develop the solution, and bring it up to a stage where you can then pitch it to potential investors,” he outlines.

There have been two calls for proposals so far in the project, and Brigas hopes further exciting

ideas will be revealed in the third call, benefitting researchers, stakeholders and the wider blue economy. “Stakeholders can share insights into the challenges they face, and researchers can develop ideas that can then be transformed into potential business models,” he says.

ADT4Blue

Advanced Digital Technologies for the Blue Economy The ADT4Blue project is cofunded by Interrer Atlantic Area.

Guarda Polytechnic University Av. Dr. Francisco Sá Carneiro, N. 50 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal E: ipg@ipg.pt W: https://adt4blue.eu/

Joaquim Brigas is the President of Guarda Polytechnic University (IPG), since 2018. He is a Coordinating Professor with Habilitation, a Senior Researcher in Communication, and the coordinator of the ADT4Blue project.

Raquel Amaral has been working as a project manager of European Projects since 2022. At ADT4Blue she is the leader coordinator of the open calls, currently managing the project’s second and soon to be launched third open call.

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Ports as Living Laboratories for Clean Energy Ports are among Europe’s largest energy users, but they also hold the key to cleaner seas.

Funded by the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme, ENEPORTS tests digital twins, renewable pilots, and smart energy management across ports in Spain and Portugal, creating a blueprint for sustainable and replicable port operations.

Ports are more than gateways for trade.

They are also major energy consumers.

Cranes, refrigerated containers, all industrial players in the port environment, and ships running their engines at berth all require enormous amounts of power. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is clear: heavy energy demand means high emissions, often in urban areas where air quality is of the essence. The opportunity lies in using ports as living laboratories for clean energy and energy management solutions.

This is exactly what ENEPORTS sets out to do. Funded by the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme and led by the ITG, the project brings together three Atlantic ports: Ferrol in Spain, Leixões in Portugal, and Granadilla in Tenerife, Spain. The aim is to explore how ports can reduce their carbon footprint and lead the way in renewable integration. By combining traditional renewable sources such as solar and wind with port-specific technologies like wave energy, and by giving ships access to onshore power, ENEPORTS shows how harbours can become pioneers of the green transition.

At the heart of the initiative is a simple process: measure, simulate, and then act.

Ports first install smart meters and controls to understand how energy is used. They then build a digital twin, a virtual copy of the port grid, to test different scenarios safely. Finally, they apply the most effective energy management solutions in real life, through a monitoring and control platform adapted to every port environment.

This results in cleaner air, quieter docks, a higher renewable energies exploitation and a toolkit that any port authority in Europe can adopt alongside their energy transition plans.

From models to twins: building the digital backbone of ENEPORTS Behind every crane movement and every ship at berth is a flow of electricity that must be predicted, measured and managed. For ENEPORTS, the first step is to create a digital layer that makes sense of this complexity.

The project begins with simulation models that show how a port grid reacts under stress, from sudden spikes in demand or renewable generation, to changes in frequency and voltage. On top of these models, the team

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Port of Ferrol (APFSC).

builds digital twins, virtual copies of the energy systems in Ferrol, Leixões, and Granadilla. These twins allow engineers to test technical scenarios that would be either risky or impossible to try on the ground and other scenarios demonstrating feasibility of different energy markets, energy management and energy sharing business models.

Once the data flows in, it is channelled through a smart energy management platform. Equipped with IoT sensors and artificial intelligence algorithms, the

the transition, getting the ports to embrace renewable energy technologies knowing that they will produce cost-competitive energy for their energy networks without compromising the security of energy supply.

Three ports, three contexts Every harbour comes with its own environment, rules and energy profile.

ENEPORTS works with three Atlantic ports that share the same ambition but face very different conditions.

“Each port has a different context, from weather to grid rules, so we forecast production and tailor strategies adapted to each site.” platform can track consumption across terminals, forecast renewable generation, and propose strategies to balance loads.

“We are testing monitoring and control hardware, and the software strategies that let ports run their operations within a sustainable, energy-efficient and cost-effective system,” explains Samuel Ormaechea from ITG, the project’s lead partner. This digital backbone enables port authorities to see how an onshore power supply would affect their grid, or how much wave energy or any other renewable energy project could contribute, before investing millions in infrastructure. By testing first in the twin and only then in the real port, ENEPORTS reduces risk while speeding up

Ferrol is exploring how to scale up selfconsumption. The port authority plans more than 30 megawatts of renewables, combining almost 20 megawatts of solar with up to 12 megawatts of wind. Daily energy demand will rise once ships begin plugging into on-shore power. By 2027 the inner and outer ports will improve their electrical infrastructures, giving operators more flexibility to balance supply and demand.

At Leixões the focus is port-wide electrification. A new 30 kilovolt backbone grid will allow the phased roll-out of onshore power across terminals. Generation comes from a mix of rooftop and floating solar, onshore wind, and wave energy. A one megawatt wave pilot is planned to expand

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to a five-megawatt station, with expected annual outputs of around 6 gigawatt hours from solar, more than 15 gigawatt hours from wind and almost 19 gigawatt hours from wave. The challenges lie both in installing the technology and designing protection and flexibility into the grid from the start.

Granadilla is testing options that push the frontier. The port is preparing a pilot that will compare a hydrogen-fuelled generator for tugboats Onshore Power Supply with conventional systems. Other projects will include offshore wind technology demonstrators and green hydrogen plants, taking the isle of Tenerife to the living laboratory status that ENEPORTS is aiming at.

“Each port has a different context, from weather to grid rules, so we forecast production and tailor strategies adapted to each site, and what we build is repeatable - any port authority can reuse our platform, methods and procedures,” explains Samuel Ormaechea.

Ports as testbeds for society For ENEPORTS, the pilot sites are more than technical demonstrations. They are laboratories where new technologies and management strategies can be tested under real operating conditions. Partners use their own facilities to push the work further, from ITG’s smart energy laboratory, with microgrids and digital twins in Galicia, to coastal testing environments in Normandy by BUILDERS École d’Ingénieurs, and hydrogen-fuelled OPS systems at the Port of Tenerife. This ensures that results are grounded in practice.

The next milestone is the partner meeting and project event presenting the mid-term results in Tenerife on 17–18 November.

The team will visit installations, review the first version of the monitoring and control platform, and hold working sessions with the industry. The event follows earlier lab visits in Spain and France, and it will include a visit to ITER’s and Port Authority of Tenerife’s facilities. The meeting will bring project partners together with interested ports and industry to look at the work on the ground,

ENEPORTS Decarbonization and Digitalization of Atlantic Ports

Project Objectives

Signature of the Agreement between ITG - ITER - APSCT.

compare notes and discuss what is practical to reuse elsewhere.

By treating ports as living laboratories, ENEPORTS is not only helping to decarbonise shipping and port operations, but also creating pathways for society to benefit from renewable technologies tested at scale.

“We are showing that ports can go beyond being gateways for goods,” reflects Samuel Ormaechea. “They can become testbeds where new energy devices are deployed, refined and proven in real conditions. Once this happens, the lessons can be transferred to other ports and even to cities.” The tools and methods developed here are designed to be repeatable, reusable and transferable, so that other Port Authorities and other nations’ Critical Infrastructures can adopt them with confidence.

In this way, ENEPORTS extends far beyond the Atlantic seaboard. What is being built in Ferrol, Tenerife and Leixões is a blueprint for how coastal infrastructure can lead the clean energy transition. The aim is clear: to turn ports into active players in Europe’s climate goals while ensuring that the innovations they host ripple outward, supporting industries, communities and the wider shift to a more resilient energy system.

ENEPORTS aims to accelerate ports’ energy transition through decarbonisation and digitalisation, deploying cutting-edge renewable technologies, AI algorithms and a specialized IoT Platform in real environments.

The project also aims to enable ports to test and optimize renewable integration by turning them into real-life technology testbeds, apply standardized protocols, and become specialized hubs for innovation, maximizing efficiency and harnessing their own clean energy production.

Project Funding

The project is co-financed (75%) by European Interreg Atlantic Area (IAA) cross-border cooperation programme, funded by ERDF.

Project Partners

https://eneports.eu/about-eneports#partners

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Elizabeth Giraut Smart Energy Project Manager & Researcher ITG | National Technological Centre Cantón Grande 9, Planta 3 15003 · A Coruña (Spain) E: eneportsproject@gmail.com W: https://eneports.eu/

Elizabeth Giraut

Elizabeth Giraut is an electrical engineer with an MBA and Head of Energy Projects at ITG Technology Centre. She leads initiatives in digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and port decarbonisation. Previously at ACCIONA Energía and ABB, she managed renewable integration, innovation projects and large-scale energy systems.”

ENEPORTS partners at Ferrol Event in January 2024.

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Getting the value out of roadside grass Many of Europe’s roads and river banks are lined with grass, which can be used to develop high-value products such as biomethane, a sustainable source of energy. Auke Smet and his colleagues in the GR4SS project are developing a demonstration plant to convert roadside grass into valuable products, contributing to the wider goal of building a more sustainable, circular economy.

The roads and river banks of Europe are commonly lined with grass, much of which is currently composted after it’s been cut, destined to be used as fertiliser on agricultural land or in gardens. However, roadside grass can also be processed in other ways which lead to the development of higher value products than compost, a topic central to Auke Smet’s work in the EU-backed GR4SS project. “We’re developing a multi-feedstock fermentation plant to convert, among others, grass into high-value products. A multi-feedstock plant essentially keeps the bacteria happy, and we need to feed liquid material, such as beet molasses, organic glycerin or food products past their due date, or water to ensure the mixture is pumpable,” he outlines. The project consortium brings together four partners in this work, which alongside providing a renewable source of valuable products like fertiliser, biomethane and peat substitute, will also help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with composting grass. “When you compost grass you produce CO2 , which is emitted into the air, rather than being captured in a digester,” explains Smet.

Fermentation plant As project developer in the GR4SS project, Smet is now working to develop a demonstration plant to essentially digest grass gathered from roadsides and convert it into valuable products. A first step is to pretreat the grass and remove any impurities,

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such as rubber, cardboard packaging and cans, before it can then go into a digester to be converted. “The biomass consists of a lot of water, which mainly goes to the digestate. Between 90-95 percent of the biomass that goes into a typical digester comes out in the form of digestate, and the other 5-10 percent is biogas, a mixture of CO2 and methane. In the installation we have a biomethane production that reaches as far as 95% of the biomethane potential of the biomass feedstock,” outlines Smet.

release of CO2 . Peat is essentially a layer of organic material, which forms when partially decomposed plant material accumulates in waterlogged, low-oxygen environments called peatlands. “Peat can be thought of as a very early stage of the fossil fuel production process,” says Smet. A lot of peat has been extracted over time across different parts of Europe, leading to significant CO2 emissions.

Now Smet and his colleagues aim to provide an alternative. , which he says could have a major impact. “Currently almost all potting

“We produce biomethane with a negative carbon intensity (CI) score, because of the CO2 liquefaction and utilisation. We are essentially storing CO2, while also producing sustainable gas and replacing peat with sustainable alternatives.”

The biogas can then be separated and purified to produce biomethane, reaching the same quality as natural gas, while Smet says the digestate is also a highly valuable resource. “The digestate is essentially a nutrient-rich slurry, which is separated into thick (solid) and thin (liquid) fractions. There is typically a certain quantity of nitrogen in the thin fraction, while there are Nitrogen, Potasium and Phosphates (NPK) and stable organic matter in the thick fraction,” he explains. “The thick fraction serves as a peat replacement, while it can also be used to produce organic fertiliser.”

This work holds important implications in terms of providing an alternative to peat extraction, a process which leads to the

soil comes from peat, and so providing an alternative has great potential in terms of reducing peat usage,” he stresses. “The novel aspect of our project is that by applying these pre-treatment and aftertreatment technologies, we can produce this peat replacement, which can then provide a medium for growth, like soil,” he outlines.

“We are also producing biomethane which we sell to offtakers across Europe, a contribution towards the EU target of producing 35 billion cubic metres (bcm) of biomethane annually by 2030. This biomethane comes with guarantees of origin (GOs), which is the proof of sustainability of the biomethane. Currently a lot of the GOs go abroad to foreign markets. We expect

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we will be able to sell these GOs in the Netherlands in future, adding value to our domestic market and helping to meet the targets set out in the EU ‘fit for 55’ package.”

The plant itself is designed to deal with 60,000 tonnes of feedstock, but the size of any further plants developed in future could be modified to suit local circumstances and the availability of resources. This is likely to mean a combination of small and large plants, believes Smet. “We envision developing multiple plants of a certain size and density,” he says. The project team are also considering the way these products would be used; with gas, the idea is to inject it into the grid locally, so developing multiple plants would limit the need to transport it over large distances.

“The gas grid in the Netherlands is like a tree, with a big branch going through the country.

It then branches off from a high-pressure to a low-pressure network in smaller and smaller branches,” continues Smet. “Injecting gas locally is the most energy-efficient approach.

Having lots of smaller plants would mean that gas could be fed into the grid from smaller locations throughout the year, without any gas grid congestion.”

Business model This represents a new approach to using roadside grass, and while some companies may be ready to embrace innovative ideas, others may be more hesitant. This is an issue of which the project team are well aware, so Smet and his colleagues are developing a new business model to demonstrate the effectiveness of the plant and encourage the shift towards a circular economy. “We are in contact with the authorities in the province of Friesland and the surrounding municipalities to supply roadside grass,” he says. The aim with the demonstration plant is not just to showcase the technology, but also prove its economic viability, and Smet says there have already been expressions of interest. “Several companies have

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reached out to us and other consortium partners, even though the plant has not yet been demonstrated on a large scale,” he continues. “A pilot scale digester was operated between April-December 2024, where we demonstrated that the digestate can be separated into a thin fraction and a thick one, which can be used to produce a peat replacement.”

With the conclusion of the pilot phase, the project team are now working to prove the effectiveness of the plant as a large-scale installation, and highlight its wider benefits.

“We intend to process 60,000 tonnes of biomass to biomethane and digestate per year. In the end we expect to produce around 9.000.000 Nm3 of biomethane per year which is the equivalent of the annual gas consumption of 9.000 households. We also expect to produce around 9,000 tonnes of peat alternative,” says Smet. Alongside producing biomethane, peat substitute and fertiliser, Smet says residual CO2 coming from the biogas upgrading system – where CO2 and methane are separated – can also be utilised.

“CO2 can actually be liquified and utilised as a fertiliser in greenhouses, so they don’t need to use natural gas-fired Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems during the Summer months, when the plants are growing and the sun is shining,” he outlines. “By utilizing our green CO2 , we can replace fossil CO2 from natural gas-fired CHP systems.”

There are also other potential ways in which CO2 could be utilised, further underlining the potential of the project’s work. “It can also be used by soda companies who produce fizzy drinks, or in making dry ice for example, while some companies are interested in storing CO2 in concrete,” says Smet. “We produce biomethane with a negative carbon intensity (CI) score, because of the CO2 liquefaction and utilisation.

We are essentially storing CO2 , while also producing sustainable gas and replacing peat with sustainable alternatives.”

GR4SS Grass Refinery for Sustainability & Shared value

Project Objectives

The GR4SS project pioneers the first commercial multi-feedstock fermentation plant, converting roadside and natural grass into biomethane, peat substitutes, biogenic CO2, and organic fertilizer. Combining innovative and proven technologies, it reduces emissions, supports circular and climate-neutral economies, restores ecosystems, and strengthens biodiversity, while establishing a robust business model for sustainable grass processing.

Project Funding

The GR4SS project is co-funded by the European Union under the LIFE Programme – Grant Agreement No. 101074660.

Project Partners

• HOST BIOGAS BV https://host-group.com/ • D4 BV https://d4.nl/ • KEKKILA-BVB DE LIER BV https://www.kekkila-bvb.com/nl/

Contact Details

SPV Bermgras ECL B.V. Stationsplein 32 3511 ED Utrecht, the Netherlands T: +31 6 21 54 13 61 E: a.smet@host-group.com W: https://gr4ss.nl/

Auke Smet

Auke Smet, MSc in Sustainable Energy Technology, works as a Project Developer within the HoSt Group, driving innovative bioenergy projects and advancing sustainable solutions that accelerate the energy transition for a cleaner and fossilfree future.

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Rethinking Waste in Humanitarian Aid Humanitarian aid saves lives, but unfortunately also leaves behind large amounts of waste.

Bio4HUMAN, a Horizon Europe project, is scouting bio-based packaging, digesters and other technologies across Europe and Africa for use in challenging settings, then producing a roadmap to bring workable options for solid waste management in humanitarian settings.

Crisis response saves lives, but it also generates waste that lingers long after the emergency passes. In long-term emergencies, camps and host villages struggle with piles of plastic packaging, discarded bottles, and organic waste that has nowhere to go. With weak infrastructure and overstretched budgets, most humanitarian organisations have little choice but to let it build up.

Bio4HUMAN takes this overlooked problem as its starting point. The project brings together humanitarian NGOs and the bio-based sector to ask a simple yet difficult question: how can aid be both life-saving and sustainable?

In the first year and a half of the project, the consortium scanned the field for bio-based alternatives and explored their environmental impact through life cycle assessments (LCAs).

The next step is the most practical one: in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, the team is now asking if these solutions fit the community, the regulations, and the realities of everyday aid delivery.

The hidden footprint of aid When humanitarian organisations mobilise, speed and scale matter the most. Supply chains are designed for robustness, with items packaged to survive long transport and harsh storage conditions. Once distributed, much of that material becomes waste. Previous surveys of humanitarian actors show that 81 percent see packaging and plastics as the most pressing waste challenge. But Bio4HUMAN is careful not to assume that these materials can be easily replaced. Local production of bio-based packaging is limited, and long supply chains make substitution difficult in practice.

Instead, the project is assessing feasibility: where packaging alternatives might work, but also where other approaches - such as onsite treatments for organic waste - are more realistic. In Sub-Saharan Africa, municipal waste streams are already dominated by

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organic matter (around 57 percent) and plastics (about 13 percent), according to UNEP’s Africa Waste Management Outlook (2018). Humanitarian aid adds further strain to fragile systems, underscoring the need for solutions that fit local contexts.

Local infrastructure is rarely equipped to cope with solid waste management. Roads are poor, collection is patchy, and formal landfills are scarce. Most camps and communities rely on open burning or informal dumps, leading to health risks and environmental damage.

For aid agencies, solid waste management usually falls outside their immediate life-saving

To back up the choices, partners are running life cycle assessments (LCA). This method tracks every stage of a product’s life: from raw materials and production, through transport and use to disposal, and compares the footprint against conventional petro-based alternatives.

A compostable pouch for ready-touse therapeutic foods, for example, is measured against the multilayer plastics currently used. These analyses provide evidence that bio-based alternatives are not only “greener” in theory but deliver measurable benefits in practice.

“It’s one thing to say that a technology fits humanitarian needs, but another to sit with a community and ask if they actually want to use it.” mandate. As project coordinator, Andrea Motola notes, “the mission is to save lives.

Waste solutions need extra funding that organisations don’t usually have.”

Bio4HUMAN began with a solid-waste management needs assessment in two SubSaharan locations, led by humanitarian partners.

Interviews, field observations and basic audits identified what accumulates, how it is handled and where the gaps are. Those findings then guided a scan of the bioeconomy solutions that would address this challenge: about 70 biobased solutions and technologies from projects, industry and fairs, ranging from compostable packaging to biogas digesters and black soldier fly units. The list has been narrowed down to 27 solutions, aiming to end the project with around 10, filtered by cost, technology readiness and end-of-life performance. “It’s not enough that something looks good on paper,” says Andrea, “Aid agencies will not be interested in solutions that are costly.”

Assessing the selection in the toughest settings Finding a promising solution is only half the challenge. The real question is whether it works where humanitarian organisations operate. That’s why Bio4HUMAN’s case work focuses on two complex contexts, the DRC and South Sudan, and on multiple settings within them: smaller municipalities and rural communities, large urban centres, and displacement camps. Both countries face protracted crises, weak infrastructure, and ongoing insecurity. They also host large numbers of displaced people living in camps or scattered host communities, where aid generates high volumes of waste, but formal waste management systems are lacking. By working in these particularly challenging environments, the consortium hopes to

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show that solutions proven viable can inspire confidence in their ability to succeed in other settings worldwide.

Fieldwork is carried out by Bio4HUMAN’s humanitarian partners, People in Need and Polish Humanitarian Action, who already have long-standing operations and trust within local communities. Their teams have conducted needs assessments, interviews, and landfill observations, documenting what kinds of solid waste is being accumulated.

They also explore issues, such as the absence of guidelines for tracking where humanitarian waste actually ends up.

Community acceptance is a critical test. Options that seem simple on paper, such as PLA water bottles, compostable pouches for therapeutic foods, or biobased sanitary pads, still raise practical and cultural questions. Would families or villages be willing to use them? Do local regulations allow their use? Could they create new jobs or businesses, or, on the contrary, might they take away opportunities or exclude certain groups? These are the kinds of conversations happening now on the ground.

“It’s one thing to say that a technology fits humanitarian needs, but another to sit with a community and ask if they actually want to use it,” explains Andrea.

From field tests to policy and markets The work in the DRC and South Sudan will feed into a set of Bio4HUMAN guidelines and recommendations aimed at three audiences: humanitarian practitioners who make procurement decisions, European policymakers who shape the rules that govern them, and bioeconomy actors for whom humanitarian operations represent a new and significant market for their products and technologies. A mid-term policy brief has already highlighted the biggest implementation challenges: financing and coordination, followed by weak policy frameworks and enforcement. Recommendations range from green procurement criteria and

better monitoring systems to capacity building and local partnerships.

Importantly, Bio4HUMAN speaks directly to the bioeconomy community. For many providers of compostable packaging, hygiene products, and organic waste treatments, humanitarian aid has never been considered as a market. The project is opening that door, showing innovators that their products could be deployed in places they may never have imagined. For aid agencies, the message is equally clear: sustainable alternatives already exist, and some can be considered for procurement today.

Beyond the end of the project, it’s lasting value is more than just a shortlist of biobased solutions. Bio4HUMAN expects longer-term gains: healthier environments and hygiene in aid-receiving regions; livelihood opportunities around safe recycling and organic-waste treatment; and stronger community involvement in shaping what gets deployed. Economically, the work should open a new market lane for the bioeconomy, supporting jobs and entrepreneurship while giving beneficiary countries the tools needed to move towards a greener economy. Scientifically, the project aims to leave transferable guidelines and spur interdisciplinary research across materials, environment, and development studies. Environmentally, its results are designed to support EU goals on climate neutrality, circularity and zero pollution, aligning with the European Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan.

Bio4HUMAN’s value is practical. It turns field evidence into choices that buyers and policymakers can act on. Some shifts will take time, especially where local supply for bio-based packaging is limited. Others can begin sooner through communitylevel treatments, better data, and clearer procurement. The point is not to promise substitution everywhere, but to set out what is feasible now, what needs building up, and who needs to be involved.

Bio4HUMAN Life Cycle Assessment for Innovative Bio-Based Solutions in Humanitarian Settings

Project Objectives

Bio4HUMAN aims to identify and assess innovative bio-based solutions for solid waste management in humanitarian settings, providing practical tools, LCA methodologies, and policy guidelines to support implementation, scale-up, and replication across diverse contexts.

Project Funding

The Bio4HUMAN project is funded by the European Union, Grant agreement No. 101135144.

Project Partners

• Enspire Science Ltd • Instituto Tecnologico del Embalaje • Transporte y Logistica • Universidad de Cantabria • Fundacja Edukacji i Dialogu Spolecznego Pro Civis • Človek v tísni Ops • WeLOOP • Irish Bioeconomy Foundation • olska Akcja Humanitarna Fundacja • AIMPLAS - Asociacion de Investigacion de Materiales Plasticos y Conexas • BioEast Hub CR, z. u.

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Enspire Science HaKatif 5, Rehovot 7632845 Israel E: inquiry@bio4human.eu W: https://bio4human.eu/

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Andrea Motola

Andrea Motola is an experienced coordinator of EU-funded projects for Enspire, such as Bio4HUMAN, and also acts as a consultant for Horizon Europe research and innovation collaborative funding. She focuses on impact-driven, cross-disciplinary project design and implementation, and holds an MA in International Relations from Masaryk University in Brno.

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Roots and Circuits: Rethinking Wood Innovation Across the Danube Region We spoke with Dr. Ivan Ambroš, CEO of the Croatian Competence Centre Ltd., about DRWO4.0, a transnational effort supporting small wood and forestry companies across the Danube Region in their transition to Industry 4.0. Through pilot environments that unite clusters, universities and local enterprises, the project brings digital transformation closer to rural economies.

Across the Danube Region, the forest-based economy carries both legacy and potential. Oak forests stretch for miles, but the small companies that depend on them, from family-run sawmills to local carpenters and traditional workshops, are often left behind by the pace of digital change. While large manufacturers can afford to modernise, most small and micro enterprises still rely on inherited tools, outdated machinery, and intuition instead of data. DRWO4.0 steps into this gap. Rather than speaking of Industry 4.0 as an abstract policy term, the project translates it into something tangible, a set of concrete actions that small wood and forestry companies can understand, test, and adopt.

Turning policy into practice Led by Croatia’s Competence Centre for Research and Development, DRWO4.0 brings together clusters, universities, and innovation agencies from across eleven countries in the Danube Region. Their shared goal is to build a transnational model for digital transformation in the forest-based sector, one that can be applied, modified, and replicated long after the project ends.

At its core lies a simple but ambitious idea: to connect the entire value chain, from the

tree in the forest to the finished product, and to show that the forest economy can be both high-tech and deeply rooted in place.

The project’s approach is deliberately hands-on. Instead of large-scale strategies, it creates Pilot Environments, collaborative spaces where companies, researchers, and consultants test solutions together, from energy-efficient mechatronics to non-destructive testing of wood, lean production, and digital design. The goal is not to overwhelm small companies with complexity, but to help them see where they stand, what they could improve, and how to take those first steps without major investment.

“We work in regions that are rich in natural resources but poor in economic opportunity,” says Dr. Ambroš. “In these small communities, you will often find workshops that have been run by the same families for generations. They are hardworking people who know their craft, but they rarely have time or money to think about innovation.

When we speak about Industry 4.0, we cannot come up with complicated language or expensive tools. We have to show them practical steps that make sense in their everyday work. Sometimes it starts with something as simple as reducing energy use,

introducing basic software, or reorganising the production flow. Our role is to meet them where they are and make sure that digitalisation becomes an opportunity, not a burden. Large firms can afford consultants and advanced systems, but we are here to make that journey possible for micro, small and medium companies.”

Local roots, shared learning Each Pilot Environment functions like a living laboratory. Rather than a static framework, it is a place where local realities shape the pace of innovation. The Danube Region is too diverse for a single formula, so the project unfolds through three interconnected hubs: South, East, and West. In the southern group, partners from Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina work with local clusters to test how small sawmills and wood processors can digitalise the simplest parts of their operations and save energy in production. The eastern group, which includes Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine, focuses on skills and readiness. Many companies here are still at the very beginning of their digital journey, and the emphasis is on awareness and gradual transition.

In the western group, where partners from Slovenia, Austria, and

BJELIN Ogulin Transformation Model preparation: “Cheaper, better, environmentally friendly”

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the Czech Republic are active, the attention shifts toward design, construction, and new materials that can increase the value of wood-based products.

The point is not to create three separate projects, but one ecosystem where learning travels easily across borders. Companies visit one another, see examples that work, and discuss what can be replicated or adapted. Workshops and study visits replace conferences and reports. Instead of explaining Industry 4.0 in theory, the partners show it in practice: how a sensor saves material waste, how a new layout shortens the production line, how digital design tools open access to different markets.

As Dr. Ambroš explains, the Pilot Environments are as much about people as they are about technology. “We try to connect those who have never really worked together,” he says. “The forester who manages the trees, the carpenter who shapes the material, the engineer who designs the machinery, the designer who creates the product, they all depend on one another, but the system rarely makes them meet. What we are doing here is building bridges across that value chain, so that each person sees the whole picture. Once they start seeing it, they start changing it.”

about itself. What started as local training sessions and small technical upgrades grew into a regional conversation about the future of the forest-based economy in Central and Eastern Europe.

For Dr. Ambroš, this wider perspective is essential. “We cannot talk about innovation in isolation,” he says. “If a region wants to keep its people and create new opportunities, it has to link knowledge, policy, and business in one ecosystem. The forest is our starting point, but it is also our bridge. It connects rural areas, cities, industries, and universities. The more we understand those connections, the stronger our capacity for change becomes.”

Through its network of clusters and institutions, the project builds exactly that kind of ecosystem. It gives policymakers a clearer picture of where gaps remain, helps universities translate research into practice, and enables small businesses to find partners beyond their local borders. The Danube Region may be geographically diverse, yet within DRWO4.0 its stakeholders work as one landscape.

The change will not be measured only in numbers or reports, but in the networks that remain active and the people who keep collaborating long after the funding period ends. For a sector often divided

“The forest is our starting point, but it is also our bridge.

It connects rural areas, cities, industries, and universities. The more we understand those connections, the stronger our capacity for change becomes.”

The lessons gathered from these collaborations will ultimately shape a practical transformation model for the entire region. Instead of a technical manual, the consortium will publish a guide written in clear language, meant for those who do not speak the language of automation or artificial intelligence. It will help companies assess where they stand, identify low-cost improvements, and map the knowledge and support already available in their surroundings. The goal is simple: to leave behind something that any small business can actually use.

While the practical outputs may appear modest, their value lies in how they connect. A single pilot may change how one workshop works, but when dozens of such examples are shared across countries, they begin to outline a common path forward.

This is where DRWO4.0 moves beyond the level of individual companies and begins to influence the way the entire sector thinks

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between policy and practice, DRWO4.0 demonstrates what happens when every part of the value chain moves in the same direction. It shows that innovation in the forest-based economy does not have to mean large-scale industrialisation; it can start with awareness, dialogue, and a willingness to experiment.

The forests of the Danube Region have always been a source of life and work.

With DRWO4.0, they are also becoming a source of knowledge. By bringing together craftsmen, engineers, researchers, and policymakers, the project proves that transformation is not only about technology, but about vision and trust. As Dr. Ambroš puts it, “If we want to save our forests and enable our companies to grow, we have to be more sustainable and more efficient, we must go towards industry 4.0. We have the people, we have the skills, and we have valuable raw material. What we need is to connect the dots, and we are doing it!”

DRWO4.0 Danube Region Wood Industry Transformation Model towards Industry 4.0

Project Objectives

To enhance the forest-based industry of the Danube Region by developing a practical, adaptable, and replicable Industry 4.0 transformation model that supports underdeveloped regions, fosters crossborder cooperation, strengthens SME capacity, and closes gaps in digitalisation, competitiveness, and high-value-added wood production.

Project Funding

Funded by the Interreg Danube Transnational Programme.

Project Partners

https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/ drwo40/about-us

Contact Details

Ivan Ambroš, CEO E: ambros@cekom.hr Danijela Šarić Bartolović, DRWO4.0 Project Coordinator, E: bartolovic@cekom.hr Competence Centre Ltd. for research and development Ambarine 8, Poslovna zona Ambarine, 32273 Gradište, Croatia T: +385 32 200 867 E: cekom@cekom.hr : https://www.linkedin.com/ company/11279622/admin/dashboard/ : https://www.facebook.com/drwo4.0 W: https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/ drwo40 W: https://www.cekom.hr/

Dr. Ivan Ambroš

Dr. Ivan Ambroš is the CEO and founder of the Croatian Competence Centre Ltd. for Research and Development from Vinkovci. With a background in organisation, management, electrical engineering and computer science he has held leadership roles leading teams for green transition and digital transformation across Croatian and European wood, forestry and regional development sectors and serves on many national and international professional bodies.

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Toward Pesticide-Free Grapevines in Europe Across Europe’s vineyards, climate change and fungal diseases are threatening one of the continent’s most iconic crops. The Horizon Europe project Shield4Grape is developing innovative breeding and pest management strategies to cut pesticide use and safeguard viticulture’s heritage. We spoke with Dr. Giorgio Gambino, project coordinator, about the vision and approach.

Europe’s vineyards are more than a cornerstone of agriculture – they are symbols of heritage, culture, and identity. From the rolling landscapes of Piedmont to the steep terraces of the Douro Valley, grapevines have shaped the economies and traditions of entire regions. Yet, behind the romance of wine lies a pressing challenge: viticulture is one of the most pesticide-dependent forms of agriculture in the world. Grapevines are highly vulnerable to fungal diseases such as powdery and downy mildews, and controlling them requires large volumes of chemical treatments.

This reliance on agrochemicals comes at a cost. The health of farmers and rural populations, the safety of consumers, and the balance of fragile ecosystems are all under strain. Climate change only intensifies these problems, creating conditions where pests spread more aggressively and unpredictably.

For Europe, where wine is not just an economic driver but a cultural emblem, the stakes could not be higher.

It is within this urgent context that the EU-funded Shield4Grape project is stepping forward. Coordinated by Dr. Giorgio Gambino and the “Functional Genomics and Ecophysiology” research group of the National Research Council of Italy (CNRIPSP), the project is pioneering innovative breeding and pest management strategies to reduce viticulture’s dependence on chemical pesticides. With an ambitious, multidisciplinary consortium and demonstration fields across the most important European wine regions, Shield4Grape promises not only to protect vineyards, but to safeguard the communities, biodiversity, and cultural heritage that surround them.

Grapevines under pressure The European Green Deal sets ambitious priorities for agriculture, from protecting biodiversity and ecosystems to reducing air, water, and soil pollution, moving towards a circular economy, and improving waste management to ensure long-term sustainability.

Within this framework, the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 outlines a comprehensive and long-term plan to preserve nature and reverse ecosystem degradation, responding

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Somatic embryo of grapevine after genome editing.

crops,” explains Dr. Gambino. “If we want to protect our vineyards for the future, we need solutions that combine innovation with tradition – approaches that reduce pesticide use while preserving the quality and identity of our wines.”

The vision

to strong social demand for environmental and health protection. Grapevines make these goals especially relevant. With 3.2 million hectares of vines in the EU, representing 45% of the world’s wine-growing area, viticulture is both a cornerstone of Europe’s agro-industrial economy and a cultural symbol.

Powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator) and downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola) are the two most destructive pathogens of grapevines, capable of reducing yields dramatically and severely affecting grape quality. Powdery mildew, first introduced to Europe from North America in the 19th century, thrives on

Shield4Grape brings together leading research institutions, universities, SMEs, and viticultural stakeholders across Europe with a clear aim: to strengthen the resilience of the grapevine agri-food system against pest diseases in the face of climate change, while reducing reliance on chemical pesticides. The project achieves this through three interconnected strategies – exploiting grapevine biodiversity by screening diverse varieties and rootstocks for natural resilience traits, breeding with new genomic techniques to develop diseasetolerant plants while preserving the identity of elite wine varieties, and applying Integrated Pest Management (IPM) that combines resistant genotypes with eco-friendly vineyard practices, tested in demonstration fields across Europe’s major wine regions.

“The Shield4Grape project is pioneering innovative breeding and pest management strategies to reduce viticulture’s dependence on chemical pesticides.” the leaves and fruit, coating them in a white fungal growth that weakens the plant and compromises wine flavors. Downy mildew, caused by a water mould, attacks the underside of leaves and bunches, leaving yellow oil spots and eventually destroying tissue. Both diseases spread quickly under the warmer, wetter, and more unpredictable conditions brought on by climate change, meaning that even a few days of favourable weather can trigger a devastating outbreak. Furthermore, “Grapevine Trunk Diseases”, i.e. diseases associated with fungal pathogens that colonize the grapevine woody tissues with limited availability of effective protection strategies, have emerged in recent years as a significant threat, with increasing incidence potentially linked to climate change.

“The grapevine is a symbol of European agriculture, but also one of its most vulnerable

By weaving these approaches together, Shield4Grape is creating a framework where farmers, researchers, advisors, and policymakers can share knowledge and best practices, delivering not only scientific innovation but also socio-economic resilience that empowers vineyard communities to thrive in a changing climate.

At the heart of Shield4Grape are groundbreaking advances in grapevine genetics. Conventional breeding in grapevines is notoriously slow, hampered by the plant’s long reproductive cycle and the strong consumer’s preference for traditional cultivars. To overcome these barriers, researchers are harnessing New Genomics Techniques (NGTs), such as genome editing.

One breakthrough, recently reported by Dr. Gambino’s team, involves lipofectamine-

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mediated delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoproteins to grapevine protoplasts (doi: 10.1111/tpj.16770). This pioneering method enabled the successful editing and regeneration of plants from the elite, but notoriously “recalcitrant,” Nebbiolo variety – a grape used in iconic Italian wines like Barolo and Barbaresco.

The achievement marks one of the first times that genome editing has been applied effectively in such challenging wine grape genotypes.

CRISPR, short for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats,” is a revolutionary gene-editing tool that allows scientists to make precise, targeted changes in DNA. Often described as “molecular scissors,” it enables researchers to switch off, modify, or replace specific genes, offering a powerful yet highly accurate way to improve crops without altering their overall genetic identity. Building on this powerful technology, Shield4Grape researchers are now applying CRISPR directly to grapevines, targeting genes that play a central role in disease susceptibility.

Another advance comes from CRISPR-based editing of key susceptibility genes (doi: 10.1111/ tpj.17204). By targeting three specific genes, researchers have been able to unlock new levels of resistance in grapevines. The first two, MLO67, belong to a family of so-called “susceptibility genes” that normally make plants vulnerable to powdery mildew; disabling them prevents the pathogen from establishing infection, effectively giving the plant immunity. The third, NPR3, is part of the plant’s immune regulation system.

Under normal circumstances, NPR3 acts as a brake on defence responses, but when edited, it releases that brake and allows the plant to mount a stronger and broader defence. As a result, MLO6-7 editing produced plants resistant to powdery mildew, while NPR3 editing enhanced tolerance to both powdery and downy mildews.

Together, these genetic strategies represent a major step toward resilient vines that require far fewer chemical treatments.

Impacts beyond the vineyard Science alone cannot transform agriculture. That is why Shield4Grape places equal emphasis on knowledge exchange and farmers’ engagement.

Demonstration fields established in key wineproducing regions – from France and Italy to Spain and beyond – serve as testing grounds for integrated pest management protocols. Farmers are directly involved, seeing first-hand how new resistant genotypes and eco-friendly strategies perform in real vineyard conditions.

The expected impacts are far-reaching.

Chemical treatments are expected to be reduced by at least 50%, significantly cutting costs for farmers and lowering exposure to harmful substances. Environmental health will improve as reduced pesticide use protects biodiversity and supports beneficial organisms in vineyard ecosystems. Consumers will benefit from safer food and healthier communities, while the economic resilience of Europe’s wine sector will be reinforced. By bridging cuttingedge science with practical implementation, Shield4Grape ensures that its innovations do not remain confined to the laboratory but become living solutions for European viticulture.

The stakes are high. Climate change is already altering the geography of wine, shifting production zones northward and exposing traditional regions to new pests and diseases.

For vineyards with centuries-old traditions, these changes threaten not only harvests but cultural identity.

Projects like Shield4Grape demonstrate that science and tradition do not need to be in conflict. By leveraging genomic tools, biodiversity, and eco-friendly practices, Europe can protect its vineyards while meeting sustainability goals.

Resilient genotypes selected in Shield4Grape in vineyard.

S4G field training: demonstration field in Piedmont (Italy) with farmers where tolerant genotypes and eco-friendly strategies are tested under real vineyard conditions.

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Shield4Grape

Breeding and integrated pest management strategies to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides in grapevines

Project Objectives

Shield4Grape works to strengthen the resilience of Europe’s grapevine agri-food systems against pest and disease pressures in a changing climate. By combining innovative breeding and genome-editing techniques with integrated pest management, the project promotes sustainable viticulture that protects biodiversity, safeguards human health, and ensures the long-term vitality of vineyard landscapes across Europe.

Project Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101135088.Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.

Project Partners

https://Shield4Grape.eu/partners/

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Giorgio Gambino Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection (IPSP), National Research Council of Italy (CNR) Strada delle Cacce 73 10135 Turin (Italy) T: +39 011 397 7927 E: giorgio.gambino@cnr.it W: https://Shield4Grape.eu/ Gambino G, Nuzzo F, Moine A, Chitarra W, Pagliarani C, Petrelli A, Boccacci P, Delliri A,Velasco R, Nerva L, Perrone I. Genome editing of a recalcitrant wine grape genotype by lipofectaminemediated delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoproteins to protoplasts. Plant J. 2024 Jul;119(1):404-412. doi: 10.1111/ tpj.16770. Epub 2024 Apr 22. PMID: 38646817.

Moffa L, Mannino G, Bevilacqua I, Gambino G, Perrone I, Pagliarani C, Bertea CM, Spada A, Narduzzo A, Zizzamia E,Velasco R, Chitarra W, Nerva L. CRISPR/Cas9-driven double modification of grapevine MLO6-7 imparts powdery mildew resistance, while editing of NPR3 augments powdery and downy mildew tolerance.

Plant J. 2025 Apr;122(2):e17204. doi: 10.1111/tpj.17204. Epub 2024 Dec 8. PMID: 39645650; PMCID: PMC12034322.

Giorgio Gambino

Giorgio Gambino, coordinator of the Horizon Europe project Shield4Grape, is Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IPSP). He leads the Functional Genomics and EcoPhysiology group, focusing on grapevine genetics, adaptation, and resilience through transformation and genome editing.

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A measure of quality for the grain market Current methods of assessing grain quality rely on manual skills and are highly timeconsuming, leading milling companies to look for a faster, more standardised process. We spoke to Ernest van Wijk and Eduard van Wijk about their work in developing a new technology to assess grain quality, and how it can help increase post-harvest productivity.

The grain-flour supply chain starts with the production of wheat by farmers, before it is transported to a wholesaler, then a mill, and finally to a bakery. Milling companies typically use long-established protocols to assess the quality of this wheat, as Ernest van Wijk, Business Development Manager at Meluna Research in the Netherlands, explains. “Milling companies use three different protocols to assess the Falling Number, Gluten Index, Gluten Quantity, Protein Content, Moisture Content, and Sedimentation value of wheat”. These assessments are typically performed manually, and the outcome largely depends on the approach of the individual conducting the test. “One staff member may evaluate the wheat differently than another, and assessing wheat quality in this way is very time-consuming,” continues Ernest. “In addition, there may be a shortage of staff available to carry out these assessments, while many trucks are waiting to unload wheat — and as the trucks wait, the quality of the wheat is likely to decrease.”

GRaiNNOVATE project This adds up to a powerful set of reasons for automating the grain assessment process, a topic at the heart of Ernest’s work in the EU-backed GRaiNNOVATE project.

Alongside Meluna Research, the project brings together several SMEs and research organisations from across Holland and Germany, with the shared goal of developing a new, faster method of reliably assessing grain quality. “We want to optimise the measurement of grain quality parameters,” explains Ernest. The project team are developing the SMS4Grain technology for this purpose, using photonics, AI and spectroscopic methods. “The solution is based on four well-known optical sensors.

We integrate them and use a sensor fusion process, with the use of AI technology,” says Eduard van Wijk, Research Director at Meluna. “We are able to determine the physical features of a grain by combining information from different optical measurements. This combined information improves the reliability of the results.”

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Unloading wheat at the milling company (AI generated). © MikkiOrso | Dreamstime.com

The solution is intended for wheat used in producing bread, biscuits, cakes and other baked products, to assess quality at an early stage of the supply chain and improve efficiency further down the line, helping reduce wastage. In Germany around 820,000 tonnes of grain are thought to be lost every year in post-harvest losses, and Ernest believes the project’s work can have a big impact in this respect. “We

“We want to take these measurements at an early stage in the supply chain.”

This will help improve resource efficiency, as while a load of grain may not necessarily meet the quality standards required to produce bread, it could be used in other ways, for example in the Malting Industry or as livestock feed. The sooner the quality of grain is assessed, the more likely it is that it can be directed to the appropriate destination. “If

“We believe we can make the grain supply chain more efficient through early-stage optimisation and increased automation. With the SMS4Grain device, key grain quality parameters can be predicted in less then 9 minutes.” believe we can make the grain supply chain more efficient through early-stage optimisation and increased automation,” he says. Currently between 12-15 different instruments are used to assess grain quality; the SMS4Grain device by contrast would be significantly simpler and faster. “With the SMS4Grain device we can predict the most important grain quality parameters (including Falling Number, Gluten Index and Germination Capacity) in less than 9 minutes, and specialist expertise is not required to operate it,” continues Ernest.

the quality of grain is only determined when it gets to a milling company, it’s often too late to then use it in other areas,” explains Ernest. This is a major factor behind current high levels of post-harvest losses, something that the project team aim to help reduce by providing a more efficient and reliable way of assessing grain quality. “If we can optimise this supply chain in an early stage, we foresee that we can have a big impact on this postharvest loss,” continues Ernest. “The system that we are developing in the project can be used at different stages of the supply chain.”

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The primary focus in the project however is the milling companies, who want to automate the grain quality assessment process so that they are less dependent on the manual skills used in current measurement methods. The project team are collaborating closely with milling companies, looking towards the eventual application of the SMS4Grain device. “In one part of the project we’re searching for essentially the optimal market strategy, looking at how to adapt to the market,” outlines Ernest. A lot of wheat is produced in the southern part of Germany, yet most of the larger milling facilities are located in the West, while smaller milling companies would also benefit from automated assessments. “Some of the smaller milling companies share laboratory facilities, occupied by up to five people, and the working conditions are often not ideal.

With the SMS4Grain device you would need only one member of staff to perform these measurements,” says Ernest.

Prototype SMS4Grain – containing multiple photonic sensors

Towards a sustainable grain supply chain

Project Objectives

The GRaiNNOVATE project develops the SMS4Grain device into a market-ready solution for grain quality measurement. By combining photonics and AI, it strengthens research and innovation capacity in the agrifood sector, supports advanced technology adoption, reduces food waste, improves efficiency, and enhances cross-border competitiveness within the programme region.

Project Funding

The total project budget is €1,914,453.10. The project partners will contribute €826,665.91, while funding from the Interreg VI programme amounts to €1,087,787.19. This funding is cofinanced by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the provinces of Gelderland and North Brabant.

Project Partners

• Meluna Research B.V. • Rheinland Technologie GmbH• Plange GmbH • Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS)• Aspectus Technology GmbH

Project Funders

Sustainability This solution will also have a positive impact in meeting the sustainable development goals set out by the UN in 2015, both by minimising wheat losses, and also limiting the need to transport it. The project’s work could greatly improve logistical efficiency in the supply chain, which Eduard says is an important consideration.

“If we can minimise the need to transport wheat then this will lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions,” he points out. This work has attracted a lot of interest from the commercial sector, and a second prototype of the device has now been developed, while the project team are still striving to improve it further.

“We take measurements based on photonic sensors, and we are going to add imaging analysis in future,” says Ernest. “We are trying to integrate data on more aspects of the grain, including external characteristics. The solution

GRaiNNOVATE

is open to the addition of more sensors, which could further improve reliability.”

The long-term aim is to bring this solution to practical application and optimize the grain supply chain, which will ultimately benefit consumers. The technology could also be used to assess other types of seeds, potentially leading to wider improvements, and Ernest says he and his colleagues at Meluna Research are keen to share their knowledge and invite interested readers to reach out if they would like to learn more. “We have been developing these techniques for the last 15 years or so, and we are ready to share our expertise,” he says.

“The GRaiNNOVATE project is a joint effort between data scientists, hardware developers and software developers, and we want the SMS4Grain device to be applied in industry.”

• Interreg VI-programma DeutschlandNederland • Nederlandse Ministerie van Economische Zaken (EZK)• MWIKE NRW• Provincie Gelderland • Provincie Noord-Brabant

Contact Details

Ernest van Wijk Meluna Research, Lead partner Business & Science Park Wageningen, Agro Business Park 10 6708 PW Wageningen The Netherlands T: +31 (0) 6 41 077 394 E: ernest.vanwijk@melunaresearch.nl W: https://www.grainnovate.eu SMS4Grain Introduction : https://youtu.be/4M0z5kyTlP0

Ernest van Wijk

Ernest van Wijk is Business Development Manager at Meluna Research, project leader of GRaiNNOVATE, and lecturer in Business Development and Innovation at Fontys University. With expertise in marketing, change management, the agri sector, and AI developments, he connects education, research, and innovation to drive sustainable growth in the food and milling industry.

The international project team, including quality specialists, lab technicians, data scientists, and engineers from the participating organisations.

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Putting watermills in the energy mix Large numbers of watermills and other hydraulic structures can be found on European rivers, which could provide a valuable source of renewable energy. The team behind the Renewat project aim to show how renovating and repowering watermills can support the green transition towards a more sustainable energy model, as Stephen Midgley, Linas Jurevičius and Eliana Colzani explain.

There are large numbers of watermills, dams and hydraulic structures dotted across Europe’s rivers, but over time many have been neglected and fallen into disrepair.

Renovating these watermills could provide a valuable source of renewable energy and support the green transition towards a more sustainable energy model, an issue central to the work of the Renewat project, an initiative backed by the EU under the Interreg programme. “We’re looking to show how watermills can be a valuable part of the energy transition,” says project manager Stephen Midgley. This work brings together nine partners from eight countries, each facing different challenges in terms of repowering watermills, who will share their experience and knowledge over the course of the project. “Our partners are looking at the policy background, and at how local policies can be changed to enhance the capabilities of each region to use watermills,” continues Midgley.

Conserving biodiversity This must be balanced with wider European goals around conserving biodiversity and protecting natural habitats. The EU Nature Restoration Law came into force in 2024, while the Water Framework Directive aims to protect the ecological status of rivers, leading in many cases to calls to remove watermills and dams and allow rivers to flow more naturally. “Obstacles like watermills can affect the ecological status of rivers, for example in preventing salmon migration and limiting the flow of sediment. The European Commission wants to re-naturalise rivers across the continent,” explains Midgley. This might seem to run counter to the goal of renovating and repowering watermills to generate renewable energy, an issue that Midgley and his colleagues are addressing in the project. “Can we come to a compromise? Can we tackle these issues at a departmental or regional level, where we can actually come to some form of agreement?” he outlines.

The heritage value of these watermills and other structures is another important consideration in the project. Some of these watermills pre-date the industrial revolution

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Lithuanian mill.

and so hold great historic interest, which many of the project partners are keen to protect. “Our partners from the Italian region of Molise have some fantastic examples of watermills which are valued for their cultural heritage, providing us with a fascinating link to our past,” says Midgley.

The emphasis for project partners Syndicat Energies Haute-Vienne in France meanwhile is more on the potential for generating

manage electricity on a very small scale. Via the renovation of watermills, we want to help communities assess how much energy they are consuming and how much they can produce,” he says.

A watermill makes a fairly small contribution at the scale of the national energy mix, but it can help shift perspectives by empowering local people and giving them more of a sense of ownership over their energy supply. Within the fluctuating energy market it can sometimes be challenging to develop renewable energy projects, so some additional support may be required to ensure they are financially viable in the wider marketplace. “One of our goals is to attract support from government, we want to highlight the value of watermills” outlines Linas Jurevičius, a researcher at VDU University in Kaunas, Lithuania, one of the partners in the project.

“We’re looking to show how watermills can be a valuable part of the energy transition. Our partners are looking at how local policies can be adapted to enhance the capabilities of each region to use watermills.” electricity on a small scale, often working at the level of a rural village, and establishing local energy communities. “We’re looking at watermills in the micropower range, which can potentially generate somewhere between 25-500 kilowatts of electricity,” explains Midgley. “This can help shift the balance in many local communities towards the goal of being ‘energy positive’.”

Many policies have been put in place around Europe to encourage communities to be energy-positive, and Midgley says the project is contributing to this wider goal.

“Local organisations produce, consume and

Beaufort Mill, France.

RENEWAT project The RENEWAT team are nearing the end of the territorial analysis work in assessing rivers and watermills across the different regions, then the next step will be to address questions around the type of turbine to be used and technical renovation aspects. The partners face a variety of different challenges in terms of re-powering watermills, so it’s been difficult to follow an entirely harmonised approach, yet Midgley believes they have now reached a deeper understanding. “Conversations between the partners and their local stakeholders are much more rich and detailed now,” he says.

This provides a solid foundation for partners to share knowledge and expertise at the European level and within their regions. Meetings have been held regularly within the project, which help partners learn collaboratively and share experience.

“Our next planned meeting is in the Croatian municipality of Martijanec. We will spend the first day sharing information

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and expertise and then on the second day we go out and visit watermills, learn about what is possible from real examples and the problems and constraints at particular sites,” continues Midgley.

This is an integral aspect of the Interreg programme, with financial support allowing partners to travel and share knowledge, which they can then bring to bear on their own local challenges. The project team plan to create documentation, such as good practice guides and policy learning briefs, which will provide valuable insights for others looking at renovating watermills.

“Through the support of Interreg Europe we hope to take the documents that we’ve shared between the partners to a Europewide scale,” says Midgley. The RENEWAT project team aims to promote watermills as a source of renewable energy, with the hope that local communities can put plans in place and produce electricity at a local scale.

“By targeting the regional policy in place that allows communities to do that, we hope that the renovation of watermills will continue beyond the life of RENEWAT. We are giving tools to local communities to take on board projects to renovate a watermill and put a turbine in place,” outlines Midgley.

Even in the short timeframe of the RENEWAT project, the partners hope to be able to demonstrate the value of watermills in the green transition, while at the same time taking into account the local ecology and cultural context. Smaller dams and hydraulic structures are common across many European rivers, in some cases they can be found every few kilometres, and Jurevičius believes they can be utilised more

Govc Vršnik mill, Slovenia.

Rogovilc mill, Slovenia.

RENEWAT Renewable Energies in European Water Mills

Project Objectives

RENEWAT aims to enhance the skills of local and regional stakeholders in repowering historical watermills, ensuring that this form of renewable energy is effectively integrated and supported within regional and national energy policies.

Project Funding

RENEWAT is an Interreg research project co-financed by the EU. Project ID: 02C0498 - RENEWAT

Project Partners

effectively. “The focus is more on using the infrastructure that we already have in rivers rather than building new dams,” he says. A watermill can provide a focal point in a town or community, and renovating it not only enables the generation of renewable energy but also provides a visible reminder of local heritage, which is an important consideration in the project. “Many communities were built around watermills, and they are part of local history, so it’s important to protect and maintain them,” stresses Eliana Colzani, from the Energy Agency of Savinjska, Saleska and Koroska Region in Slovenia, one of the project partners.

• Syndicate Energy Haute Vienne (SEHV) (FR) • Energy Agency of Savinjska, Saleska and Koroska Region (SI) • Fédération des Moulins de France (FR) • Martijanec Municipality (HR) • Molise toward 2000 (IT) • Rzeszow Regional Development Agency (PL) • Vytautas Magnus University (LT) • Udhetim i Lire - Liberi di Viaggiare (AL) • Lviv City Council (UA)

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Stephen Midgley Syndicate Energy Haute Vienne (SEHV) 8 rue d’Anguernaud, ZA Le Chatenet 87410 LE PALAIS-SUR-VIENNE, France T: +33 6 0342 2036 E: stephen.midgley@sehv.fr W: https://www.interregeurope.eu/renewat

Stephen Midgley

Eliana Colzani

Stephen Midgley is an experienced project manager in river basin and marine management. He brings his appreciation of multi sectoral issues in the environmental and sustainable development fields to the work of the project.

Eliana Colzani is experienced in graphic design and visual arts, she graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. She has worked within the field of communication with international teams on diverse projects across Europe and Latin America.

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A platform for precise irrigation While plants need water to support their growth, too much can have detrimental effects, for example in washing away essential nutrients like nitrogen from the soil. We spoke to Jan Ellenberger and Youri Timmermans about their work in developing a new sensor platform that will help farmers identify the precise water needs of plants, ensuring that they grow in the optimal way.

Plants need water to support their growth and development, yet excessive watering can also have adverse effects.

Over-watering of plants can lead to the leakage of nutrients from the soil, in particular nitrogen, that can then affect the wider environment. “Nitrogen can seep into groundwater bodies and then cause wider problems,” explains Jan Ellenberger, a researcher at the Institute for Crop Science and Resource Conservation at Bonn University, Germany. Identifying the precise water needs of plants would enable farmers and growers to avoid over-watering and save resources, an issue central to Ellenberger’s work in the EU-backed Irristaud 2.0 project, which brings together six partners from across the Netherlands and Germany. “In the project we’re bringing together information from different sensors and developing a decision-support tool for farmers, to help them assess when to water plants and how much,” he says.

Thermal images give insights into plant water status.

Irristaud 2.0 project The project is primarily focused at this stage on blueberries and certain types of ornamental plants, such as hostas, which are cultivated in different ways and have varying water needs. While blueberries are typically grown out in fields, in soil, ornamental plants are usually cultivated in pots. “They are usually grown in pots of varying sizes, and that comes with certain challenges,” says Ellenberger. Soil sensors will be used to gather information on the substrate water status, which will be combined with standard soil measurements and other sources of data to provide a fuller picture of their water needs. “These sensors are simply placed in the soil, and they then measure soil moisture. Our partner Forschungszentrum Jülich uses a field phenotyping platform, integrated with different sensors, which positions automatically over the plants to provide a detailed picture of plant functioning,” continues Ellenberger.

These sensors can record the reflection of light in specific wavelengths and measure the chlorophyll fluorescence signal, a proxy for photosynthesis. This provides valuable information about the health of plants,

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Collection of crop-specific yield data.

Discussions and feedback from farmers and crop advisors.

Rooting density varies depending on irrigation levels.

therefore having the potential to be an early indicator of drought stress. The project team are also harnessing other sources of data. “Hochschule Rhein-Waal collects and processes data from drones, including both data visible to the human eye and invisible data,” says Youri Timmermans, a crop advisor at Compas Agro and the leader of the project team. Individual project partners are responsible for different types of monitoring, which taken together will provide a more detailed picture. “We are using soil sensors, mobile sensors and drones to gather information about plants,” explains Timmermans. “Our partner Yookr provides the soil sensors and a weather station, which gathers data on factors like precipitation and wind speed, which affect plant growth and water demand. Data on some other variables are imported from other sources.”

Above mentioned sensor data and field data collected at the Compas Agro Trial Fields at the Brightlands Campus in Venlo, will be brought together in a dashboard by Yookr, which will open up deeper insights into the health of a plant, for example if they lack water or nutrients. This will be highly valuable to farmers, helping them provide the right level of water to their plants at the right time, so that they can keep them healthy and productive and reduce water use.

“With hostas and blueberries, it’s important to not give them too much water, as that can lead them to die. Hostas are grown in such small pots that there isn’t much of a buffer, there’s very little margin,” explains Timmermans. The aim in the project is to develop a practical, useful tool that can be applied in the field. Therefore, the project team are also working closely with farmers and growers, gathering their feedback and assessing their needs. “We’ve established a co-creation group, bringing together blueberry farmers from the Netherlands with crop advisors from Germany and the Netherlands,” outlines Ellenberger.

Researchers have been able to share ideas with practitioners, present the sensor platform, and gauge the views of farmers and growers on how it should operate and how it could be improved. This will help ensure

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that the dashboard is tailored to the practical needs of farmers. “We want to provide useful information to farmers that informs their decisions on the ground,” stresses Ellenberger. This might mean decisions on whether to irrigate a field immediately in some cases, while Ellenberger says the project’s work will also help farmers look ahead and forecast future needs. “With the dashboard we can predict whether there will be a water deficit. We can anticipate how much water will be needed and irrigate exactly that amount, maybe even multiple times in a day,” he continues. “In the future we expect that with the effects of climate change there will be more prolonged hot and dry periods during European summers.

This will make controlled irrigation of plants even more important.”

IRRISTAUD 2.0 Data-based control of irrigation and nutrient supply in the commercial production of horticultural crops

Project Objectives

The project team at the start of the project.

weather station and soil sensors on the ground. Over the coming winter we plan to work on building the dashboard, then we will look to optimise it,” says Timmermans. “We will try to forge links with another project developing a method of precision irrigation.

This is designed to deliver water in the right quantities to specific locations.”

“In the project we’re bringing together information from different sensors and developing a decision-support tool for farmers, to help them assess when to water plants and how much.”

Wider potential This is the case not just with blueberries and hostas, but also other plants, and so the project team are keen to explore the wider potential of their research. A number of parallel initiatives are pursuing broadly similar research on tree nurseries alongside Irristaud 2.0, and Ellenberger is looking to widen the scope of the project’s work. “We believe that our findings are also relevant to other crops, beyond ornamental plants and blueberries,” he stresses. The project still has more than two years of its funding term to go however, and at this stage the priority is more to improve the dashboard.

“We have gathered data from drones, from a wheeled sensor platform, and from the

A more precise method of watering would limit losses of nutrients from the soil, while also protecting precious water resources, underlining the wider importance of the project’s work. In future, these kinds of platforms could be used to monitor fields, allowing farmers to irrigate plants at the right time with the right amount of water.

“Sometimes you might need to water a group of plants in a field but not another.

We aim to find the optimum watering level, taking the condition of plants into account,” continues Timmermans. “We also want to extend our work with potted plants to tree nurseries, and are exploring the possibility of collaborating with tree growers in the Dutch province of Gelderland.”

The FieldWeasel from Forschungszentrum Jülich during data collection.

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We use modern sensors to monitor water and nutrient needs of crops in real time, enabling precise irrigation control and clear data visualization. By working closely with horticultural advisors and practitioners in Germany and the Netherlands, we ensure practical, cross-border solutions that support sustainable perennial plant production.

Project Funding

The Irristaud 2.0 project is being carried out as part of the Interreg VI A Germany– Netherlands programme and is co-funded with €1.392 million by the European Union, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the MWIKE NRW, and the Province of Limburg.

Project Partners

https://irristaud.eu/team/

Contact Details

Communication & Outreach Dr. Jan Ellenberger Horticultural Department Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation University of Bonn Auf dem Hügel 6 53121 Bonn T: +49 1520 8054524 E: ellenberger@uni-bonn.de W: https://irristaud.eu/ W: www.compas-agro.nl

Jan Ellenberger

Youri Timmermans

Jan Ellenberger leads the communication and outreach work package within Irristaud, which includes writing publications about the project’s work. He is an agronomist by training, and holds a doctorate from the University of Bonn.

Youri Timmermans is leader of the Irristaud project team. He is involved in various innovation projects with his company Agrovation and is active as a crop advisor for field crops.

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An enterprising future built on AI Artificial Intelligence tools are becoming an increasingly common feature of the commercial landscape, and the challenge for SMEs is working out how to use them effectively. We spoke to Renáta Csabai and Balázs Barta about how the BrAIn project will help companies across the Danube region capitalise on the full potential of new technologies.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is having a dramatic impact on many areas of industry, and companies across a variety of sectors are investigating how new technology can help them improve efficiency and drive growth. As project coordinator at the Pannon Business Network (PBN), Renáta Csabai is part of the team behind the EU-backed BrAIn project, which aims to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the Danube region harness the potential of AI. “We aim to bring AI to SMEs across this very heterogenous region,” she says. The project brings together partners in ten countries, with the shared goal of helping SMEs get the most out of AI technologies and prepare for the coming changes, which starts from analysis of the current situation. “In each of the ten participating countries we created a mapping and status quo analysis, and we also conducted some research into the AI adaptation trends that we see.”

Artificial intelligence A lot of the media coverage and publicity around AI focuses on its likely disruptive impact and the potential in future for new technology to fulfil roles currently performed by human staff. However, to a large extent the technology is already here and being applied in everyday life, so the challenge for SMEs is more to work out how they can use it effectively. “It’s not necessarily the case that AI will replace

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BrAIn project demo case: applying artificial intelligence in precision farming.

conventional staff and companies, but rather the people and businesses who are using AI effectively will replace those that aren’t. The aim is to be among those companies who are using AI in a smart way,” stresses Balázs Barta, Managing Director of PBN. This goal lies at the core of BrAIn, with Csabai and her colleagues working to deliver AI solutions that will support sustained growth across the region, focusing specifically on three main sectors.

“We are working to deliver tailored, effective AI solutions for the healthcare, agrifood and manufacturing sectors,” she says.

The project team are developing innovative, AI-based solutions or demo cases to some of the key challenges facing these three sectors, which form an important part of the regional economy. This work is being led by technology owners, partners in the BrAIn project from three different countries, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia. “For example, here at PBN we are developing and testing physical social robots, or humanoids.” These robots hold rich potential across both social and manufacturing applications, now researchers are looking to improve them further. “In the project we are working on a trans-national basis, using knowledge from other countries and adapting it to the countries in which the demo cases are based, in our case Hungary. In our demo case we are trying to incorporate knowledge from our partners in the Czech Republic, as they have a lot of experience in different sensor build solutions.”

This work involves developing a physical robot, based on the most advanced social humanoid robot currently available, which the project team have purchased and are now adapting. The robot will be connected to large language models to enhance its comprehension skills, and Barta plans to explore its wider potential. “We will use it to test, demonstrate and promote humanoid robot applications in the healthcare sector,” he outlines. The other demo cases in the project are centered on the agrifood and manufacturing sectors. “Our demo case in the agrifood sector involves using

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BrAIn Bringing Artificial Intelligence towards SMEs

Project Objectives

BrAIn project team at the Kick-off meeting of the project in Budapest, on 22nd January 2024.

robotic technologies and drones to automate fieldwork as much as possible, it combines elements of computer science and data analytics,” says Csabai. “The manufacturing demo case by our partners in Serbia is an industry 5.0 development, which is about optimising the capabilities of human staff, in collaboration with optimised machines.”

The focus here is on the human rather than the machine, and in helping staff work efficiently and effectively through the application of neuroergonomic techniques.

One example is using electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor brain activity in staff. “We can monitor the electrical activity of machine operators, and if there are signs that they

which will contribute to the long-term legacy of BrAIn, beyond the conclusion of the project.

“We will share policy papers and strategies, and plan to hold a final event in Stuttgart next year. We hope this project will have a longterm impact,” stresses Csabai. As part of this wider aim, PBN have established an office in Stuttgart while they also lead an AI working group in the Danube region, building on the progress that has been made in the project.

“BrAIn is not an isolated project, and we have also defined potential next steps,” says Barta.

“We’ve got long-established relationships with many of the partners in BrAIn, and they can help spread the knowledge that we have gained over the course of the project.”

“The people and businesses who are using AI effectively will replace those that aren’t. The aim is to be among those companies who are using AI in a smart way.” are losing focus, then further stimulation can be provided to support them in their work,” explains Barta. These different solutions are not yet ready for widespread adoption, but AI is becoming an increasingly integral part of the commercial landscape, and Barta says companies need to put plans in place.

“Companies need to think about the impact that AI will have over the next few years, how that will affect their operations, and how they can proactively prepare. We want to help companies see how AI can be useful for them and how they can use it in a smart way.”

Long-term impact This work is currently ongoing, with the project team working to refine the different solutions and finalise the demo cases. A set of policy recommendations are also being prepared,

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There is also potential for the AI solutions to be applied in areas outside the field for which they were originally intended. While the team at PBN are focused primarily on healthcare applications, Csabai believes humanoid robots and some parts of the underlying technology behind them could also be used in other sectors. “Certain elements and technologies could be transferred between sectors, as well as between countries,” she says. The solutions will be demonstrated at the Stuttgart event, which will provide an opportunity to showcase the project’s work and highlight the wider potential of AI. “We will include testimonials from the target groups at the final event, where they will demonstrate how they have applied AI in their operations, and bring together all the different elements of the project’s work,” concludes Barta.

The BrAIn project promotes AI-driven innovation across the Danube Region, tackling shared challenges in manufacturing, agrifood, and healthcare. By fostering crossborder collaboration, piloting sustainable solutions, and aligning with EU Smart Specialization Strategies, BrAIn supports digital transformation and balanced regional growth through knowledge exchange and local ecosystem integration.

Project Funding

The BrAIn project is co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. DRP0200025.

Project Partners

https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/brain/ about-us

Contact Details

Ms. Renáta Csabai, Project Coordinator Dr. Balázs Barta, Managing Director PBN 9700 Szombathely, Zanati út 32-36 T: +36 94 505003 E: barta@pbn.hu : https://www.linkedin.com/company/ brain-interreg-danube-region-programme/ posts/?feedView=all W: https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/brain W: https://www.pbn.hu/

Dr. Balázs Barta

Ms. Renáta Csabai

Dr. Balázs Barta is an economist, graduated from University of Economics in Budapest. He had executive studies in US (UPenn Wharton) and in France (Insead, Paris). He earned his PhD at Sopron University, at the Institute of Engineering.

Barta established PBN in 2006. His key focuses are digitalization and social humanoids.

Ms. Renáta Csabai is an economist, graduated from Corvinus University of Budapest. Over the past 12 years, she has coordinated numerous international projects focusing on innovation and regional development. Her main areas of expertise include SME development and digitalization.

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Turning Fluorinated By-product into Opportunity Luca Pala and his team at FLUORSID are pioneering a new way to recover valuable materials from industrial waste. The LIFE-SYNFLUOR project aims to convert hexafluorosilicic acid, a by-product of the fertiliser industry, into synthetic calcium fluoride (a critical raw material according to the EU definition) and silica, powering greener tyres, circular chemistry, and European self-sufficiency.

Hexafluorosilicic acid (FSA) - a toxic by-product of phosphoric acid production in the fertiliser industry - is produced in massive volumes each year but has few viable uses. In many regions of the world, much of it is neutralised and disposed of at sea or in desert areas, causing both environmental damage and loss of resources. The LIFESYNFLUOR project, coordinated by Luca Pala, Director of R&D at FLUORSID, seeks to change this situation.

Instead of discarding FSA, the project uses it to create acid-grade synthetic calcium fluoride (CaF 2) and amorphous precipitated silica - two high-value materials used in industries ranging from fluorochemicals to sustainable tyre manufacturing. It’s a bold circular economy vision that connects the fertiliser, fluorochemical, and rubber sectors - three markets that until now had no reason to speak to each other.

Closing a Critical Materials Loop Europe imports virtually all of its acid-grade calcium fluoride to produce hydrofluoric acid (HF) - the backbone of fluorochemistry, with applications in pharmaceuticals, refrigerants, electromobility and aluminium production. FLUORSID alone imports over 250,000 tonnes of naturally-sourced CaF 2 annually.

“Our goal is to substitute this imported mineral with a synthetic version sourced

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from waste,” explains Luca Pala. “We’re essentially creating a second life for a discarded by-product, while reducing our dependence on mining and imports.”

The project also aims to produce precipitated silica, which can replace the use of quartz and sand in traditional silica production. These synthetic silicas are vital additives in tyre manufacturing, enabling the production of fuel-efficient ‘green tyres’ with improved wet grip and reduced rolling resistance.

is to perform two large-scale tests using 500 tonnes of CaF2 each, to assess compatibility with existing hydrofluoric acid (HF)-aluminium fluoride (AlF3) production systems and confirm the performance of synthetic materials in real operating environments.”

Unlike many research-based projects that remain in the lab, LIFE-SYNFLUOR is deeply embedded in the industrial reality.

The site in Cagliari is already one of the largest aluminium fluoride (AlF3) production hubs in the world, equipped with multiple

“Safer, cleaner, smarter — that’s how we’ve designed the process.

The transition from natural to synthetic raw materials doesn’t introduce new risks but strengthens safety and sustainability” From Lab Bench to Industrial Scale After over a decade of laboratory research and pilot trials, the LIFE-SYNFLUOR team is now taking a bold step forward: the construction of a full-scale demonstration plant at FLUORSID’s industrial site in Cagliari, Sardinia. This facility is designed to produce 1,000 tonnes of synthetic calcium fluoride (CaF2) and 250 tonnes of precipitated silica, bridging the gap between small-scale experimentation and real-world industrial application.

“We’ve tested the chemistry extensively and now we’re validating it at industrial level,” says Luca Pala, the project coordinator. “The aim

production lines, making it an ideal testing ground for full-scale trials.

The technical challenges of scale-up are significant. While the core chemistry is well known and not inherently complex, the integration of unit operations - synthesis, filtration, drying, and separation - requires precision, coordination, and robust engineering. Each process must operate efficiently and safely under continuous, high-volume conditions. FLUORSID has developed and patented the core chemical process, which involves a two-step transformation of FSA using ammonium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide.

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“Going from grams to hundreds of tonnes isn’t just a matter of scale,” explains Pala. “It involves adapting the equipment, tuning process parameters, and ensuring the final products meet the same or better specifications as natural calcium fluoride and silica. These materials must be tested and validated across multiple performance criteria to gain acceptance from downstream users.”

One of the most important goals of the demonstration phase is to validate the industrial performance of these synthetic materials - especially their role as feedstock for the production of fluoroderivates and reinforcing fillers in rubber. The team is collaborating with Pirelli, project partner and beneficiary, which is looking at the application of the recovered silica in tyre manufacturing, as well as with the University of Milano-Bicocca, which supports detailed silica characterisation.

Circular Chemistry with Industrial Benefits The broader environmental benefit of the LIFE-SYNFLUOR process is the transformation of waste into resources.

Currently, hexafluorosilicic acid is disposed of despite containing valuable fluorine and silica. Instead of extracting them from limited natural resources, the project enables their recovery, moreover using much less energy and producing fewer emissions than traditional methods.

“In the case of silica, we avoid highenergy fusion of quartz,” says Pala. “With our method, the silica is already in solution - it’s just a matter of optimising synthesis and achieving the right properties.”

Furthermore, by integrating previously disconnected sectors, the project lays the foundation for new industrial partnerships, advancing the EU’s strategic goals on critical raw materials and the circular economy.

Strong Demand, Secure Offtake FLUORSID has developed a business plan to scale up production far beyond the demonstration phase. According to Pala, the company can absorb all the synthetic calcium fluoride produced.

“We plan to start by building an industrial plant on two production lines: the first with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes per year, followed by another of the same, to reach 120,000 tonnes per year,” he says. “It’s still less than 50% of our internal needs. So, any industrial partner installing a production unit can be confident that there will be a buyer ready for the entire volume”.

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Safer, Cleaner, Smarter Handling fluorinated materials is not a trivial task. These compounds, although essential for many industrial processes, pose environmental and health challenges that must be managed with the utmost care.

The LIFE-SYNFLUOR project has placed a strong emphasis on ensuring that safety and sustainability go hand in hand.

The entire process is based on the best available technologies and with every step - from synthesis to filtration and drying designed to minimise emissions, reduce environmental impact and meet the highest safety standards. Importantly, the project operates within a closed-loop system.

“Safer, cleaner, smarter - that’s how we’ve designed the process,” explains Luca Pala. “We’ve made sure that the transition from natural to synthetic raw materials does not introduce new risks. The downstream production and handling remain consistent with existing industrial practices, and the circularity of the system doesn’t compromise safety, but improves it.”

Stakeholder Engagement and Future Outlook The LIFE-SYNFLUOR project has already attracted attention in key industry forums, including the upcoming Fluorine Forum, where global producers and users of fluorochemicals gather. This strong stakeholder engagement is vital for the project’s long-term success, and the team is actively looking for industrial partnerships close to fertiliser plants, where hexafluorosilicic acid (FSA) is readily available.

The technology represents a major breakthrough in industrial practice, offering a replicable model for transforming underutilised by-products into strategic raw materials. By fostering cross-sector collaboration between the phosphate, fluorochemical and rubber industries, LIFE-SYNFLUOR is breaking barriers and opening doors to new circular economy pathways.

The project will last until 2028: construction of the demonstration plant will take place in the first year and industrialscale validation is planned in the remaining 24 months. By 2026, the Cagliari plant is expected to be fully operational, producing at scale and ready to inspire the next wave of green industrial innovation across Europe and beyond.

LIFE-SYNFLUOR A technological challenge that through the development of an innovative industrial system will enhance by-products to give them new life in other production cycles

Project Objectives

The LIFE-SYNFLUOR project aims to transform hexafluorosilicic acid, a hazardous fertiliser industry by-product, into high-purity synthetic calcium fluoride and precipitated silica. By replacing mined raw materials with recovered products, the project advances the circular economy, reduces environmental impact, and secures critical resources for the fluorochemical, fertiliser, and rubber industries in Europe. The process will be validated at an industrial demonstration plant at FLUORSID’s site in Cagliari, Sardinia.

Project Funding

This project has been co-funded under the European Union’s LIFE Programme under grant agreement No. 101148346 — LIFE23-ENV-ITLIFE-SYNFLUOR.

Project Partners

https://www.lifesynfluor.com/en/partner/

Contact Details

Luca Pala Director of Research & Development FLUORSID Cagliari, Italy Area Industriale di Cagliari 2a Strada Macchiareddu 09032 Assemini (CA) T: +39 070 246 321 E: luca.pala@fluorsid.com W: https://www.lifesynfluor.com/en/ W: https://fluorsid.com/

Luca Pala

Luca Pala holds a Master’s degree and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cagliari.

He joined FLUORSID in 2006 as Manager of the Quality Control Laboratory. He established the R&D division, promoting partnerships with several universities and focusing on innovation and research. With over 18 years of experience in inorganic fluorochemicals, he is the inventor of the process and serves as the project coordinator, overseeing workflows and ensuring that objectives are achieved on time and within budget.

Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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On board the shuttle towards more sustainable transport Public transport services are often inadequate outside peak hours, and if convenient alternatives are lacking then night-time workers may turn to their cars to get to work. The team behind the LIFE Moonset project is developing a new transport solution for night-time workers, designed to reduce the number of cars on the road and promote sustainability, as project lead Mr Vincent Neumayer explains.

Background photograph: Credit Yavor Michev

Many nighttime or shift workers use their own vehicles to get to work, rather than rely on public transport. While many cities’ public transport networks operate at night, including trams, buses and underground trains, services may be intermittent and not match people’s working patterns, in which case they tend to turn to their cars.

“If you have to be right on time for your job, and the only bus or tram gets you there 30 minutes early, then people may decide this is too inconvenient. By contrast the car is convenient, available and on-time, at least during night hours,” points out Mr. Vincent Neumayer, Mobility Choice Manager at Wiener Linien, an organisation which runs the public transport network in Vienna.

As part of the team behind the EU-backed LIFE Moonset project, Mr. Neumayer is now developing a new transport solution for nighttime workers, which is designed to help get cars off the road, reduce CO2 emissions and boost the attractiveness of Wiener Linien – as well as other project participants – as an employer. “We are looking to develop a high-quality, on-demand pooling transport service in the project,” he says.

LIFE Moonset project This work involves adapting demandresponsive transport (DRT) software to specific target groups in three cities,

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namely Vienna, Lisbon and the Bulgarian city of Ruse. In Vienna, the target group is employees of Wiener Linien, the driver and operator crews who keep the public transport network running at night. “We aim to provide a pooled transport solution, a nighttime shuttle, to get people from lower Austria and under-served districts in the outskirts of Vienna to two main workplaces in the city. One is a tram depot and one is a bus garage, from which hundreds of vehicles operate daily,” outlines Mr. Neumayer.

In Lisbon, the project team is looking at transport options to the city’s airport, which is a major local employer. “We’re looking at providing a nighttime shuttle in Lisbon, which will be promoted by ANA (Aeroportos de Portugal) and supported

by TML (Transportes Metropolitanos de Lisboa). It will probably not be operated as a door-to-door service, rather as a service from central pick-up points to the airport

itself,” continues Mr. Neumayer. “TML will play a crucial role in identifying demand in certain areas, potentially resulting in the creation of new service lines that meet the identified needs, and permanently strengthening operations.”

In Ruse, the municipal transport operator would like to help their employees get to work during nighttime hours. A key issue here is the degree of inconvenience that people are willing to tolerate in getting to their workplace. While many of us claim to be environmentally conscious, in reality we’re not always willing to walk to a pick-up point or wait for a bus when we know we can use a car, an issue that Mr. Neumayer and his colleagues are probing in the project. “We’re asking people questions like; how long are you willing to wait for a shuttle bus? How far are you willing to walk towards a pick-up point? Would you be willing to pay?” he outlines. Most people say they would accept some inconvenience in getting to work at night; the plan now is to dig a bit deeper and see if they will actually behave in the same way. “We will do stated preference and revealed preference surveys with the target group. We will give them some specific journey planning exercises, where they may have to wait or arrive early, and ask; is this still a service you would consider?” says Mr. Neumayer.

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The revealed preferences can then guide the development of the transport services in each of the three cities. Providing an efficient, reliable and convenient means of getting to work can help employers retain - and attract - staff without access to a car, which Mr. Neumayer says is a major motivating factor behind Wiener Linien’s work in the project, particularly given high turnover levels in the workforce. “We see today that many drivers work at Wiener Linien for a few years then decide to move on,” he outlines. Various services have been put in place to help nighttime staff get to work from within Vienna; Mr. Neumayer believes the shuttle will provide an attractive option for people coming from further afield. “This service has been tailored for people coming into Vienna from the outskirts and outside the core municipal area,” he says. “In future we could also extend this shuttle service to other garages and depots.”

at nearby industrial complexes, an extension of the approach in Lisbon and Vienna. “We have different target groups in Ruse, with different communication patterns and survey requirements,” continues Mr. Neumayer.

This contributes to the wider goal of demonstrating that the solutions developed in the project are feasible, affordable and acceptable to users, which could encourage other service providers and cities to adopt a similar approach.

A knowledge hub will be developed as part of the project, which Mr. Neumayer hopes will prove to be a valuable resource for other cities considering how they can provide more sustainable nighttime transport options. “We will share documents and insights about how to set up a DRT service for employees and shift workers, and how to approach service design,” he says. This will provide a solid foundation for development, and help cities assess likely levels of demand. “Quite a lot of material is already

“We are looking to develop a high-quality, on-demand pooling transport service in the LIFE Moonset project” Replication action

IMplementing a NOcturnal, EcOFrieNdly, and Integrated SharEd Transportation Concept

Project Objectives

The project develops and tests an ondemand passenger pooling service for employees with nighttime shifts in Lisbon (PT),Vienna (AT) and Ruse (BG). It aims to replace private car use with flexible, efficient,and safe shared transport – featuring optimized routes, dynamic scheduling, and extended operating hours tailored to employees’ commuting needs.

Project Funding

Co-funded by the European Union under the LIFE Programme – Grant Agreement No. 101157953.

Project Partners

Consortium: • L ead Partner: Wiener Linien GmbH & Co KG Project Partners: • Via Technologies Europe B.V. (NL) • TML – Transportes Metropolitanos de Lisboa, EMT, S.A. (PT) • Centre for Mobility Change, represented

by Universität Innsbruck (AT) • ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, S.A. (PT) • Obshinski Transport Ruse Ead (BG)

Contact Details

Project Lead,Vincent Neumayer Wiener Linien GmbH & Co KG Erdbergstraße 202, 1030 Wien E: vincent.neumayer@wienerlinien.at W: https://www.lifemoonset.com/ Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”

Vincent Neumayer

© Perez

The project’s work in Vienna and Lisbon will also hold valuable insights for the public transport authorities in Ruse, who will be able to build on the experience and service design lessons from the Austrian and Portuguese capitals. Ruse is significantly smaller than Lisbon and Vienna, exclusively relying on buses, and the project team is looking to demonstrate that these kinds of solutions can also be applied in smaller urban areas. “Ruse can be thought of as a replication action. We want to show that these transport solutions can also be effective in medium-sized cities,” says Mr. Neumayer. In Ruse, the project team is looking to provide a shuttle service for both transport operator crews and people working

available, so transport organisations can quickly move towards assessing whether this solution would be feasible,” continues Mr. Neumayer.

“The project is highly valuable in terms of understanding the behavioural mindset of our target groups.”

The project is currently just over a year into its three-year funding term, and good progress is being made in the service design, with Mr. Neumayer and his team planning to start the pilot actions soon.

The ultimate aim is to provide realistic, affordable solutions that meet the needs of users, and can then be adopted by other cities, reducing the environmental impact of the transport sector as a whole. “We want our solutions to be picked up by other cities,” says Mr. Neumayer.

LIFE MOONSET

Vincent Neumayer is a mobility expert with dual degrees and 10+ years in international PM. Since 2017, he contributes to multimodal mobility innovation & strategy at Wiener Linien, shaping Vienna’s future mobility.

Wiener Linien / Credit: Robert Peres

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Breaking Barriers in Danube Transport The DANOVA NEXT project is transforming transport accessibility across the Danube region. Project coordinator Hrvoje Spremić, alongside partners Marica Mirić and Magdalena Guzalić, explains how airports, ports, and urban transport systems are working together with organisations of persons with disabilities to create digital and physical solutions for passengers with reduced mobility.

Despite progress in recent decades, accessible transport across Europe remains far from universal. For many persons with disabilities, simple acts such as boarding a bus, navigating an airport terminal, or transferring between transport modes can be exhausting, frustrating, or even impossible. The absence of consistent standards means that while some hubs have invested in inclusive infrastructure, others lag behind, leaving travelers facing uncertainty every time they embark on a journey.

The scale of the challenge is immense.

According to the World Health Organization and the European Disability Forum, more than 100 million people in the EU live with some form of disability - rising to 135 million across the wider European region. The airport association ACI Europe highlights that one in four adults in the EU experiences some kind of disability, underlining the urgent need for more inclusive mobility.

The Danube region-stretching across countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia-is particularly affected by this lack of harmonised accessibility. While the European Accessibility Act sets a broad framework, gaps remain-especially in transport services, where obligations are often unclear or unevenly applied. A recent European Commission study assessing 125 digital travel information tools found that 41% provided no data for passengers with reduced mobility (PRM), and only 16% met most accessibility requirements. This shortfall demonstrates why a comprehensive,

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harmonised approach to accessible digital travel services is urgently needed-a gap DANOVA NEXT is working to fill.

Recognising this challenge, the DANOVA project was launched to improve accessibility for blind and partially sighted passengers.

Building on its success, DANOVA NEXT broadened its mission to support persons with reduced mobility and deaf and hardof-hearing passengers. Coordinated by Dubrovnik Airport, the project brings together 16 partners from eleven countries,

approach across countries. DANOVA NEXT provides a common framework to address these gaps - developing solutions shaped directly by the users themselves.”

Inclusive Partnership What makes DANOVA NEXT unique is its commitment to equal partnership. Alongside technical institutions and infrastructure providers, three organisations of persons with disabilities play a central role: the Austrian Federation of the Blind and Partially

“Transport is freedom. Without accessibility, persons with disabilities are excluded from work, travel, and everyday life.

With DANOVA NEXT, we are opening doors - not only in the Danube region, but across Europe.” spanning airports, ports, urban transport providers, universities, research centers, and organisations of persons with disabilities. Its preparation was closely aligned with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and major EU strategies, including the EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030, the Territorial Agenda 2030, the European Green Deal, and the EU Strategy for the Danube Region.

As Hrvoje Spremić, Assistant General Manager at Dubrovnik Airport and coordinator of DANOVA NEXT, puts it: “We identified a critical gap in accessible transport. The Danube region lacked both barrier-free services and a harmonised

Sighted (BSVÖ), the Romanian National Association of the Deaf (ANSR), and the Croatian Union of Associations of Persons with Disabilities (SOIH).

“This project is not about creating solutions for persons with disabilities-it is about creating solutions with them,” stresses Marica Mirić, who represents SOIH. “For the first time, organisations of persons with disabilities are included as equal partners, not just stakeholders. This ensures that nothing is done without the people directly affected.”

That commitment has translated into wide user involvement across the region.

Live workshops held in all partner countries brought together 227 participants, including

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PRM users and policymakers, to identify gaps in infrastructure and digital services.

In parallel, an online survey collected 623 responses from passengers with disabilities, assessing their satisfaction with air, urban, and water transport. Another 55 transport service providers took part in a separate survey on the maturity of their digital travel information systems. All of these insights feed directly into the project’s design and ensure that DANOVA NEXT responds to real-world needs.

Magdalena Guzalić, who manages communication and dissemination, adds that workshops, focus groups, and surveys across partner countries are central to this approach: “From the beginning, we gathered feedback through questionnaires, focus groups, and workshops. Every pilot, strategy, or app is tested with real users, so that what we deliver is not theoretical but practical and usable.”

Digital Innovation A key achievement of the project is its selfassessment accessibility toolkit, already available online. This interactive tool allows infrastructure providers to assess their current accessibility levels through 60 questions. Based on the results, the toolkit generates tailored recommendations for improvements, helping airports, ports, and public transport providers benchmark their progress.

Another milestone is the development of a digital travel information application, which was released on 3rd December, on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

The app provides all passengers with disabilities with accessible, real-time travel information across the Danube region.

“This app is crucial,” explains Spremić. “Every journey starts with information. If passengers cannot access real-time travel data, the rest of the journey becomes impossible. That is why digital services are just as important as physical infrastructure improvements.”

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The application has already undergone rigorous testing with organisations of persons with disabilities before being rolled out publicly. Users were able to provide feedback at multiple stages, ensuring that the final product is both functional and inclusive.

Infrastructure Upgrades Alongside digital solutions, DANOVA NEXT is also making visible changes to the physical environment of transport hubs. In airports, passengers will soon find dedicated PRM information totems and corners, offering clearer guidance and support. Seating and resting areas are being redesigned with accessibility and comfort in mind, while specialised mobility equipment is being introduced-from plastic wheelchairs that can pass through security checks to smaller chairs designed for boarding aircraft, as well as electric vehicles that help passengers navigate large terminals with ease.

Other innovations include PRM climbing chairs, which act as mechanical lifts to assist travelers in moving between floors, and a wide range of sensory enhancements such as tactile walking surfaces, braille signage, and hearing loop devices. Flight information displays are also being adapted to better serve passengers with hearing impairments, while voice announcements are enhanced for passengers with visual impairments ensuring that vital travel updates are accessible to everyone.

Beyond airports, urban public transport systems are undergoing upgrades too. New equipment will make bus boarding easier, and tactile maps are being introduced at key transport locations. Budapest, meanwhile, is expanding its pioneering indoor navigation app for blind and partially sighted users, guiding them through complex terminal spaces with sensor-based technology. “These measures are not abstract ideas-they are being installed and tested now,” notes Spremić. “By 2026, all pilot actions will be complete.”

Coordinating Complexity Managing 16 partners across eleven countries and three different transport modes is no small feat. Yet the DANOVA NEXT consortium has shown how collaboration can overcome complexity.

“It was not easy to coordinate such a diverse group,” admits Spremić. “But from the beginning, we involved partners in shaping activities based on their expertise. Universities led research, organisations of persons with disabilities guided accessibility standards, and transport providers delivered the pilots.

Regular online meetings and workshops ensured that everyone remained aligned.”

The diversity of the Danube region adds to the challenge. Some countries-such as Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Croatia-have already invested significantly in accessible transport infrastructure. Others, including Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Moldova, are still lagging behind. The result is a patchwork of provision, with passengers facing a different experience depending on the country they travel through.

As Mirić points out, the project also serves as a case study in how to coordinate multiple stakeholders across borders. “We want DANOVA NEXT to be a model-not only for accessibility, but for how transport operators and organisations of persons with disabilities can work together.”

Overcoming Challenges Not everything has been smooth. One of the project’s toughest challenges has been the development of the digital application, requiring technical expertise and coordination across different transport modes.

“There are moments when you think it is impossible,” admits Guzalić. “But the motivation comes from knowing the impact this will have. Many persons with disabilities

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DANOVA NEXT

“We are not just delivering outputs; we are building a movement,” says Spremić.

“Even after the project ends, the network will continue, and the app can be expanded with new partners.”

Marica Mirić echoes this long-term vision: “Accessibility is finally on the agenda. We are showing that inclusive transport is possiblephysically and digitally. And we are proving that the best solutions come when persons with disabilities are at the centre of decision-making.”

Smart Transport Network for the accessibility of Passengers with disabilities and reduced mobility in the Danube Region through innovative services

Project Objectives

DANOVA NEXT aims to improve transport accessibility across the Danube Region by addressing gaps in services and digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. Through innovative pilot actions, a Smart Transport Network, and accessible digital travel tools, the project promotes barrier-free mobility in air, water, and urban transport, reducing inequalities and fostering regional integration.

A Model for Europe

Project Funding

DANOVA NEXT is an Interreg Danube Region Programme project co-funded by the European Union. The content of this paper reflects the opinion of their authors and does not in any way represent opinions of the European Union.

Project Partners

The project consortium consists of 16 partners and 2 associated partners: 5 airports (Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Airports of Montenegro, Budapest, State Enterprise Chisinau airport), 2 seaports (Pula and Kotor), 3 urban public transports (Municipality of Maribor, Public transport Company of Bratislava and Czech Smart City Cluster), 3 technical partners (Romanian National Association of the Deaf, Austrian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted, Croatian Union of Associations of Persons with Disabilities), 3 research partners (University of Maribor,Vienna University of Economics and Business, Bulgarian Association for Transfer of Technology and Innovation - BATTI) and 2 associated partners (Ombudsman for persons with disabilities Croatia and the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs of Montenegro)

Contact Details

Communication Manager The Croatian Union of Associations of Persons with Disabilities (SOIH) Savska cesta 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia T: +00385 9166 04673 E: soih@soih.hr W: https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/danova-next

Marica Mirić, Magdalena Guzalić, and Hrvoje Spremić (left to right)

Marica Mirić is the President of SOIH and a Transport Engineer. She has extensive experience in disability rights advocacy and leads numerous national and EU projects and initiatives promoting accessibility and social inclusion, serving as Project Coordinator for SOIH on the DANOVA NEXT project.

Magdalena Guzalić is a Senior Associate at SOIH. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Policy and works on projects promoting accessibility, inclusion, and equal opportunities for persons with disabilities, serving as Project Assistant on the DANOVA NEXT project.

Hrvoje Spremić is Assistant General Manager at Dubrovnik Airport Ltd. He is responsible for the preparation, implementation and management of EU-funded projects, and also conducts internal audits.

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currently avoid travel altogether because it is simply too difficult. If we can make the system easier, we change lives.”

Another challenge lies in the diversity of infrastructure across the Danube region. Some countries have more advanced accessibility standards than others, making harmonisation complex. However, this diversity also makes the project more valuable: it provides a blueprint for cooperation across different levels of readiness.

Looking Ahead DANOVA NEXT is scheduled to conclude in mid-2026, with pilot actions finalised by early that year. The coming months will focus on testing solutions with users, refining the application, and disseminating results through transnational labs and communication campaigns.

Perhaps the most significant legacy will be the creation of a Smart Transport Network for PRM accessibility. All partners have signed commitments to remain part of this network after the project ends, ensuring sustainability and inviting new institutions to join. By pooling data and expertise, the network will allow ongoing harmonisation and support the longterm vision of a truly inclusive transport system.

With its combination of infrastructure upgrades, digital innovation, and inclusive governance, DANOVA NEXT is more than a regional initiative-it is a model for how Europe can rethink mobility in the 21st century. The project demonstrates that accessibility is not simply a technical fix or a box-ticking exercise, but a fundamental human right that must be embedded into the very fabric of transport systems.

By involving organisations of persons with disabilities as equal partners, DANOVA NEXT has shown how inclusive governance can lead to practical solutions that truly meet users’ needs. The self-assessment toolkit and digital travel information app offer scalable models that could be adopted well beyond the Danube, while the physical improvements to airports, ports, and urban transport highlight what is possible when infrastructure providers commit to change.

The ambition is clear: to ensure that accessible mobility is not the exception, but the rule. Replication packages developed by the consortium are designed to make adoption easier for other regions, providing a roadmap for policymakers, transport operators, and civic organisations who wish to follow in their footsteps.

As Guzalić concludes “Transport is freedom. Without accessibility, persons with disabilities are excluded from work, travel, and everyday life. With DANOVA NEXT, we are opening doors-not only in the Danube region, but across Europe.”

EU Research