<< Background >>EQ-WOOD project-European Quality qualifications for the Woodwork and furniture industry-aims to contribute to the development of innovation capacity and competitiveness of the European wood and furniture industry, by designing and providing the Curriculum of a new vocational profile, Innovation Advisor. The curriculum is offered both as a Full Qualification, aimed primarily at young people, and as a set of independent learning modules aimed at the continuous professional development of workers.<< Objectives >>EQ-WOOD aims to boost the innovation and the competitiveness of the traditional woodworking and furniture sector at Eu level, facing the skill mismatching and the progressive ageing of the workforce. A new training path and an online platform have been developed to train young students, workers and unemployed people, able to generate innovative, sellable and production effective new products. At the same time, EQ-WOOD aims to create a sound sectoral network to exchange good practices.<< Implementation >>After a deep analysis of the sectoral training needs , a new Curriculum has been developed, identifying the KSCs, required to the new professional profile of the Innovation Advisor for the furniture sector. The Curriculum consists of 5 interactive learning units, tested by approximately 270 workers and students and promoted trough several Country events and through a final conference with institutional representatives and innovation experts. The training course is online, free and attractive.<< Results >>The new CV of the Innovation Advisor for the wood and furniture sector. The curriculum consists of 5 units useful for training the new figure who will manage innovation within companies. The e-learning platform and the innovative training course are available to everyone, free and without barriers. The course is entirely online with multimedia content and accessible insights. The project has created a stable network that will continue to cooperate in the future to develop other new training path

HarWASTing aims to develop innovative business models based on circular economy (CE) principles to promote bioeconomy in rural areas, by implementing a set of scalable and replicable technological solutions to efficiently exploit underutilised biomass from forestry and agriculture to develop innovative and high-value products. These models will support sustainable management practices and will promote an efficient use of natural resources, reducing overall waste generation and post-harvest losses by implementing valorisation processes and fostering CE principles. To this end, a methodology will be implemented to collect, treat and revalorize biomass from forest and agricultural harvest, pruning waste and bioethanol process side-streams, respecting the cascade principle for biomass use. A one-fits-all technology, Hydrothermal Carbonization, for a higher energy efficient treatment of lignocellulosic biomass residues will be combined with Pressurized Hot Water Extraction and innovative post-treatment technologies, to develop high-value added products and avoid any non-valorised side-stream. The whole concept will be demonstrated at small-scale pilot, built-upon existing wood, food and bioenergy value chains to further strengthen their economic and environmental sustainability through synergistic interlinkages between them. Mediterranean, Boreal and Continental bioregions will be studied. The holistic concept is based on the central valorisation route of Hydrothermal Carbonizationand its solid product, hydrochar, that is converted into hybrid wood-hydrochar panels with less than 10% of bio-adhesive for special applications such as fire protection or electromagnetic shielding. A novel support AI-based digital tool for forecasting agroforest feedstock availability will be developed. Innovative digital passports will help to commercialize the panels and bioadhesives. The hydrochar will be offered on a new digital platform which also serves for networking and for publishing of best-practices.

NARRATE-HOP-ON broadens the scope of market disruption signal analysis in NARRATE project, and incorporates strategic advisory components for market positioning, encompassing assessment of systemic risks associated with import reliance on geopolitically competitive economies. NARRATE-HOP-ON introduces detailed mapping of global supply and demand at the detailed product group level, guiding firms towards markets with the most potential for boosting sales, exports, and market share. Incorporating these additional perspectives helps to identify additional supply chain vulnerabilities, demand disruptions and opportunities, boosting resilience and efficiency of the EU manufacturing industries. Three new demonstrators are developed: (1) Smart advisor for alleviation of critical import dependencies, (2) Smart advisor for the identification of export opportunities and (3) The predictive market analysis and early warning tool as an enhancement of the tool under development in NARRATE. The first two are additional tools integrated into the NARRATE eco-system. The integration of the additional partner enriches the original NARRATE project’s methodology by deepening the understanding of market structures, trade relationships, geopolitical risks, and economic dependencies. By incorporating these advanced capabilities, this approach not only improves operational efficiency but also strengthens the strategic positioning of European manufacturers in the global market, ultimately contributing to the increased economic growth and resilience. The new partner will also broaden the project's reach, particularly within Estonia, the Baltics and Nordics. Additional participatory activities and policy engagements are foreseen. At the same time, the new partner will benefit from the expertise of the leading partners behind the NARRATE project.

The transition towards a more sustainable, digital, and inclusive economy in Europe requires a human-centred approach that combines digital and industrial technologies and which has an eye for spatial dynamics. However, there is a lack of integration between different disciplines and initiatives, resulting in missed opportunities for this transition. FABRIX aims to address this challenge by adopting an integrated approach to local and regenerative urban manufacturing, combining spatial design, developing opportunities for industrial symbiosis and circular manufacturing, and by value chain analysis and management. FABRIX will develop an innovative and interactive platform (MANTEL) that supports local value-chain management for more circular and regenerative urban manufacturing. FABRIX focuses on the textile and clothing sector (T&C) in Athens (Greece) and Rotterdam (The Netherlands). T&C is one of the most environmentally and socially unsustainable sectors. It is a priority in the European Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan, and the Industrial Strategy. The core innovation of FABRIX’s research design and implementation is the entanglement of spatial and relational perspectives; perspectives that cannot be seen apart, but that in practice are mostly dealt with separately in policy and research, thus hampering significant progress. FABRIX allows for a pro-active co-created implementation and change of the observed suboptimal reality. FABRIX’s focus on the T&C sector, its innovative mix of research methods, its interactive, open-source digital platform of tools, and its capacity-building FABRIX Academy, will ensure the transferability during and beyond the research and innovation action to other places and other sectors dealing with similar suboptimization.