The EU and the USA have highly-productive, immensely-innovative and excellence-driven research and innovation systems. Acknowledging the particular strengths of each landscape, a balanced transatlantic STI partnership of equals bears great potential and contributes to the ultimate goal of tackling societal challenges and boost economic competitiveness. International cooperation between power nodes results in a constant knowledge exchange and more efficient use of STI investment. BILAT USA 4.0’s targeted transatlantic activities work towards: i) Strategic priority setting for EU-US cooperation through identifying emerging STI fields with a high benefit and added value from cooperation, thus providing evidence-based input for policy decision-making ii) Stronger interaction between EU and US researchers through thematic events promoting funding opportunities on both sides and thus strengthening the quality and quantity of partnerships between STI actors in EU MS/AC and the USA iii) Establishing optimal framework conditions through proposing concrete solutions for eliminating cooperation obstacles deriving from researchers’ and innovators’ feedback, thus, creating an environment that favors joint solutions for global challenges iv) Enhanced coordination and synergies between different policies through analyzing EU, MS/AC and US programmes and detection of duplications, thus, contributing to a greater coherence, joint ownership and resource efficiency v) Ensuring close synergies with calls launched in H2020 and their int. dimension through screening of US-targeted actions in H2020 and liaising with relevant (ERA) projects to guarantee a consistent information exchange Ensuring sustainability, project activities build on former and liaise with existing initiatives. Relevance and exploitation of project actions will be assured by a close coordination with the EC. The project will pursue a targeted communication connecting the diverse range of EU-US STI stakeholders.

Accelerating the transition from animal-based to alternative dietary proteins – the dietary shift – is key to reducing the footprint of our food system in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), energy, water and land use, and other relevant environmental impacts, and for improving the health and well-being of people, animals and the planet. GIANT LEAPS delivers the strategic innovations, methodologies, and open-access datasets to speed up this dietary shift, in line with the Farm-to-Fork strategy and contributing to the Green Deal target of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. Achieving the dietary shift in practice is inherently complex due to the diverse set of actors involved and further hindered by major knowledge gaps, scattered across the various alternative protein sources and the domains of health (safety, allergenicity and digestibility), environment (GHGs and other environmental and climate impacts, biodiversity, circularity), and/or barriers to adoption (technological, sensory, and consumer acceptance). The GIANT LEAPS consortium consists of the key actors and spans all expertise to address relevant knowledge gaps and proactively engages to arrive at optimized future diets based on alternative proteins that are broadly accepted across stakeholder groups. In order to deliver required insights for short-, mid- and long-term decision making and impact, GIANT LEAPS protein sources have been selected for either targeted or full assessment based on their current level of specification. The innovations and improved methods combined with accessible and comprehensive information, generated for a wide collection of alternative proteins, will enable policymakers to prioritise changes in the food system towards the dietary shift based on desired impact, value chain actors to make strategic scientific, business and investment choices, and the general public to make more sustainable and healthy dietary choices.

Restoring Ecosystems to Stop the Threat Of (Re-)Emerging Infectious Diseases: There is a growing body of evidence that landscape degradation is linked to zoonotic spillover risk. Large scale restoration is increasingly being touted as an effective solution for mitigating against a range of anthropogenic impacts and is also hypothesised to protect against zoonotic disease spillover. However, little is known about the mechanisms with which restoration may provide this protection. It is commonly assumed that restoration mirrors in reverse the processes that occur during degradation; however, it is likely that this relationship is in fact asymmetric. Rarely can restored landscapes be returned to a state similar to that of pristine ecosystems, and often restored landscapes need to fulfil a range of environmental and socioeconomic requirements that inherently prevent them from doing so. Additionally, the spatiotemporal scale necessary to effect positive change is context dependent, and the type of restoration necessary to protect against zoonotic spillover is currently unknown. Ecosystem restoration can vary widely in type, scale and context and can also change how humans interact with their environment, which may have unexpected consequences for zoonotic disease spillover. Given the complexity of these interactions and their effect on disease, it is vital that we understand how restoration specifically might impact wildlife disease and emergent spillover risk.

MY-WAY aims at enhancing and improving the collaboration and efforts of web entrepreneurship initiatives (hubs, projects, accelerator networks, contests, etc.), web/business experts (accelerators, mentors, etc.), educational actors (business teachers and trainers) and the young adults as the final beneficiaries (through student networks, their alumni and student entrepreneurship centres, the student support centres). This coordination will create synergies and find ways to embed flexible services based on the existing best practices to be sustained by the student support centres in any European country at low cost. The social network of young adults across Europe will enable a wide spread of information, discovery of synergies and linkages between the actors and their services. The active engagement of student support centres and connecting them with business networks within the web entrepreneurship ecosystem and its activities, e.g. the development of the support services (training, mentoring, access to funding, regulation, policy, etc.) will strengthen the ecosystem and will also increase the visibility and impact of the web entrepreneurship initiatives and services. A network of student support centres will act as multipliers and successfully represent the targeted young adults boosting web entrepreneurship in the long term. Primary, secondary as well as emerging web entrepreneurship hubs will be involved across Europe into the project activities. The project partnership contains representatives from across the support chain for web entrepreneurs with adequate expertise and network infrastructure to successfully engage the critical mass of stakeholders. The project will implement support actions boosting the entrepreneurial spirit, especially changing the mindset, confidence and readiness of young people for starting their own business. Special attention will be paid to female web entrepreneurship and social web entrepreneurship support.