Most of innovative businesses base their success on creating value through better use of intangible assets. Ecosystem Services constitute the most valuable intangible assets on earth and forests are the most precious Natural Capital in Europe. Therefore, ECOSTAR alliance aims to develop entrepreneurship and innovation skills and opportunities among Forest and Environmental Policy and Economics (FEPE) university departments in Europe, specifically targeting Italy, Spain, England and Romania. The project focuses on promoting and fostering the links among high education institutions and businesses operating in the field of Marketing and Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (MEEB). Most of well-known FEPE university departments have developed several methodologies and tools connected with MEEB and in general with nature-based economy. However, universities curricula lack of knowledge transfer initiatives that allow the real commercialization of new processes, methods and services for the development of market-based mechanism for ecosystem services conservation. Therefore, the project aims to make the knowledge triangle a reality in the field of MEEB, providing sustainable business opportunities and real benefits for the environment. ECOSTAR will achieve its goals through the following main actions: - Delivering a series of specialized entrepreneurship and innovation trainings targeted to MEEB through multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning- Facilitate the co-creation of knowledge, through staff and learners mobility, an EU Business Plan Award, lobby and fundraising- Create an EU wide research and enterprise alliance to make a knowledge triangle a reality in the field of MEEBResults will have a strong EU-global dimension and transferability potential, capitalizing on existing wide university-business networks and through the partnership with Ecosystem Marketplace, a leading organization tracking ecosystems markets and tools in US and worldwide.

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a data driven agenda, and the use of Earth Observation (EO) can make the SDG indicators’ monitoring and reporting viable, technically, and financially, and comparable across countries. SDGs-EYES aims at boosting the European capacity for monitoring the SDGs based on Copernicus, building a portfolio of decision-making tools to monitor those SDG indicators related to the environment from an inter-sectoral perspective, aligning with the EU Green Deal priorities and challenges. SDGs-EYES will establish an integrated scientific, technological and user engagement framework overcoming the knowledge and technical barriers that prevent the exploitation, combination and cross-feeding of data and tools from the Copernicus’s six core Services, its space-based and in-situ components, and other platforms and portals. SDGs-EYES considers three interconnected SDGs, on climate (SDG13), ocean (SDG14) and land (SDG15), to demonstrate through four Pilots the Copernicus potential for monitoring six indicators making part of the EU and national assessments: GHG emissions, temperature deviation, ocean acidification, marine eutrophication, forest cover change and soil erosion. Although focusing on the biosphere, these indicators are linked to other SDGs on socio-economic and (geo)political factors (e.g., human health, resources security, poverty, conflicts, displacements). Thus, an additional cross-goals indicator and Pilot will focus on vulnerable communities under cumulative climate extreme hazards. SDGs-EYES seeks to combine the science-informed (top-down) approach with a stakeholder-driven (bottom-up) approach to transfer scientific outcomes into easy-to-understand and easy-to-use actionable information in the context of SDG indicators’ assessment. Decision-making tools delivered by Pilots will be co-designed with users, to offer opportunities to regularly assess and refresh methodologies they adopt for monitoring and reporting.

The megatrends are clear: people living in Europe will be older, more stressed and unhealthy, living in urban areas, and threatened by climate change effects with ever increasing immigration from developing nations. Agriculture, Forestry, Urban Planning and Environmental (AFUE) HEIs need to embed increasing health and social needs into their paradigms, teaching and business models. The health and social sectors also need to avoid the silos approach and adopt holistic thinking in achieving social and health challenges. Green infrastructures, social agriculture and forestry, rural tourism and wellness are some of the emerging business and research sectors that are providing cost-effective solutions to these emerging trends that are having a considerable impact on European policies and economy. The GREEN4C alliance aims at increasing Europe’s innovation capacity among universities and businesses by promoting green and natural approaches to health and social care. It will do so by: • facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge among universities and business coming from two key sectors that often fail to cooperate: the social-health and environmental sectors.• promoting a new, innovative and multidisciplinary global blended training course to embed health and social challenges into Agriculture, Forestry, Urban Planning and Environmental universities. • stimulating an entrepreneurial skills and attitude among students, researchers and young entrepreneurs to provide the public and private sectors with innovative and cost-effective solutions to health and social care by using natural resources. The project will focus on the countries of Italy, Romania, The Netherlands, Ireland and Austria. Results will have a strong EU-global dimension and transferability potential, capitalizing on existing wide university-business networks, the partnership with the University of British Columbia, and the European Forestry Institute an international research and

The megatrends are clear: by 2050, 84% of the European population will live in urban areas, while air pollution and climate change will continue to harm the health of European citizens. Despite minor improvements, pollution levels, that regularly exceed the European Union (EU) limits, and heatwaves, endanger the lives of young and elderly people. Urban forests are effective Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) that help mitigate the effects of climate change while improving air quality, urban temperature and lifestyle of modern cities. Main global cities are setting challenging urban reforestation targets while struggling to face related costs and citizens engagement to meet current changing and future needs. On the other hand, urban planning and forestry sciences have failed to provide interdisciplinary training to engage with innovative public-private urban forestry (UF) initiatives and trends. The UFOREST Alliance aims at promoting Europe’s innovation capacity among universities, cities and businesses to deliver a new approach to UF. It will do so by:• facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge among universities, local authorities, and business coming from 4 key interdisciplinary approaches that often are not cooperating: urban landscape planning, forest ecology, socio-economics and, information and communication technologies;• promoting a new, innovative and multidisciplinary global blended training course on UF for both students and professionals;• stimulating entrepreneurial attitude of students, researchers and professionals to provide public and private sectors with innovative and cost-effective UF solutions. The project will focus on Italy, Spain, Romania, Ireland, Netherlands and Canada. Results will have a strong EU-global dimension and transferability potential, capitalizing on existing national and international networks and through the partnership with the European Forestry Institute, a leading European networking and research instituti

The strategic objective of Small4Good is to enable and activate small-forest owners to safeguard biodiversity and enhance the provision of ecosystem services from Europe's forests through multifunctional and locally adapted management models that are financially supported by PES and implemented with support by of digital- and AI-based solutions. Snall4Good will develop multifunctional management and business models for owners of small forest financially enabled by schemes for PES with focus on biodiversity and carbon farming. The management models are supported by digital and AI solutions to improve the capacity and engagement of small-forests owners. To ensure the long-term impact the models must be aligned with the motivations of the individual owners and the local ecosystem and socioeconomic conditions. Hence, Small4Good focuses on understanding the motivations of small-forest owners and pursues the development of business and management models through a multi-actor living lab approach in four regions across Europe. This follows a co-creation approach that promotes rapid acceptability, prototyping, and implementation to outline realistic locally adapted pathways towards multifunctionality that are aligned with the ambitions outlined in the EU Forest Strategy. The lessons learned will be used to enable small-forest owners across Europe to enter the pathway towards sustainable and multifunctional management as a basis for a fair and inclusive transition towards the bioeconomy. Small4Good is aligned with the work programme by providing outcomes contributing to the policy goals of the European Green Deal including increasing the multifunctional role and resilience needs under climate change and contribution to halting and reversing biodiversity loss. This is achieved through better understanding of the motivations of small-forest owners, local small-scale management models based on implementation of carbon farming and PES.