The joint and cross-borderPOSIDON pre-commercial public procurement has been a pivotal force in transforming a highly fragmented and innovation-averse sector—environmental remediation of brownfields. Brownfields, sites with limited territorial availability, represent a growing challenge in Europe, where land has become a scarce and valuable resource. The need for sustainable development has intensified the urgency of recovering and reusing these contaminated areas. POSIDON's procurement strategy addresses this by aligning with sustainable growth goals, focusing on in-situ soil decontamination solutions for complex, highly polluted sites. POSIDON PCP is distinguished by its innovative procurement approach, driving the development of breakthrough solutions in areas where no commercially viable options previously existed. Five leading public procurer launched a competitive call for tender to address the decontamination of brownfields polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Two cutting-edge technologies—"Soil-Omic with BIOflushing " and "ERASE"—were selected for pilot testing based on their cost-effectiveness and potential to disrupt the market. These technologies represent a leap forward in environmental remediation, particularly for brownfield where traditional technologies have long application times and high costs. The in-situ approaches were tested in Italy and Spain, ensuring their readiness for large-scale application. This PCP initiative has not only fostered the development of these innovative technologies but has also prepared the ground for widespread adoption and market leadership in the European soil decontamination sector. By aggregating demand across borders and ensuring the harmonization of innovation goals, POSIDON exemplifies a transformative shift toward buying innovation process itself, marking a new era in brownfield remediation.

BIOTraCes develops knowledge, tools and novel approaches that enable transformative changes (TC), necessary for achieving a nature positive society. We aim to contribute to more inclusive, effective and just public policies, local strategies and corporate concerns on biodiversity aligned with the European Green Deal and SDGs. To this end, we will engage with diverse stakeholder networks around 9 transformative biodiversity innovations in high-impact sectors - agriculture & food, forestry, water, and urbanisation. These local case studies across Europe will help understand in context how plural and often marginalized values, identities (intersectionality), and knowledge systems, concerning living with and caring for nature, can shape behaviour. The case studies will create a portfolio of good and failed examples by discerning power lock-ins, leverage opportunities and enabling actors, and by testing co-produced interventions. Also, we will analyse indirect drivers of biodiversity loss: structural factors and lock-ins that constitute barriers to sustainable decisions and behaviour. A Theory of Transformative Change (ToTC) will synthesise our findings, showing steps on the path to biodiversity recovery and informing public and private strategies and approaches for initiating, accelerating and (up)scaling TC. BIOTraCes’ originality is threefold: 1) An approach of transdisciplinary collaboration, based on action research, co-production and co-learning. 2) Operationalising in research and action principles of pluralising (acknowledging variety in values), empowering (enhancing agency of marginalised groups), politicising (unveiling the political dimension of obstacles towards TC) and embedding (bringing TC into the economy, social practices and policy). 3) A focus on achieving impact through a ToTC approach, which led us to establish an Influencer & Stakeholder Board. Close alliance with the science-policy interfaces and interproject collaboration suit our vision well.

POSIDON gathers 5 European procurers facing similar problems in the sites they manage, affected by analogous pollutants (2 front-runners-Trieste, IT and Bilbao, ES-and 3 observers - Spaque, BE; Vitoria Gasteiz, ES; Baja do Tejo, PT), leveraging public demand to identify fit-for-purpose and cost-effective innovative and sustainable solutions to soil contamination. The common challenge faced by the buyers’ group is identifying a new, life-cycle cost-effective technology for soil and groundwater remediation, capable of decontaminating heterogeneous anthropic soils in brownfields with a mixture of industrial waste (blast furnace slags, construction & demolition waste, filling soils polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons) and soils consisting of clays and sands of marine origin, highly polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs and PAHs) and heavy metals (arsenic and lead). Studies on the state of the art, patent analysis, foresight scanning and early market engagement meetings, show that no available technology can meet all identified needs, thus appropriate remediation technologies cannot be acquired through traditional off-the-shelf procurement.With PCP, procurers aim to achieve ambitious improvements in terms of quality and effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of new technology to bring to the market. R&D will be split into three phases: solution design, prototyping, original development and testing of 2 prototypes. Evaluations after each phase progressively identify solutions offering the best value for money. This phased approach allows successful contractors to improve their offers for the next phase based on feedback from procurers. POSIDON intends to create a critical mass through the consolidation of a pan-European network of procurers who, sharing their needs and efforts, can enable the development - through PCP - and subsequent deployment - through a PPI - of novel technologies aimed to cover bigger market challenges in areas of common European interest

Despite urgent calls for “smarter urban vehicle access regulations” in the Urban Mobility Package and other high-level political commitments, very few decision makers are keen on going public with the idea of restricting car access (in time or space) in urban areas. ReVeAL will help to add Urban Vehicle Access Regulations (UVAR) to the standard range of urban mobility transition approaches of cities across Europe. Toward this end, the ReVeAL consortium will combine conceptual work and case study research with hands-on UVAR implementation in six pilot cities and systematic stakeholder interaction and professional communication activities. The pilot cities of Helmond, Jerusalem, London, Padova, Vitoria-Gasteiz and the project leader Bielefeld are committed to developing, implementing, testing and evaluating UVAR measures in one or more of four “Measure Fields”: 1) Zero Emission Zones, 2) Spatial Interventions, 3) Pricing Measures and – through a process called “sandboxing” – 4) some innovate Future Options (C-ITS, geo-fencing etc.). ReVeAL considers the implementation of UVAR measures a necessary part of a wider transition management challenge and therefore ensures comprehensive and coordinated changes to multiple elements of the urban transport system. Most prominently, these aspects fall into four “Transition Areas”: Governance and Financing; User Needs/Acceptance; Mobility Concepts; and System Design/Technology – all of which play a role in any change process. With its built-in mechanisms to accompany, document and analyse the processes and impacts in the six pilot cities, ReVeAL will be able to systematically extract lessons learned and thus support the wider roll-out of smart UVAR approaches across Europe. A key strategy towards this goal is the provision of practical decision support tools and advice on the integration of UVAR in SUMPs. ReVeAL will result in an online Decision Support Tool, which includes a UVAR Readiness Assessment and a UVAR Process Advisor.