The SPP Regions project is aimed at promoting strong networking and collaboration at both the European and sub-national regional level on sustainable and innovative procurement (SPP/PPI), to help promote and embed capacity building and knowledge transfer. At the regional level networking will be promoted to build capacities and transfer skills in sustainable and innovative procurement implementation, and to collaborate directly on tendering for eco-innovative solutions. New networks will be established, or existing networks strengthened in 7 European regions (Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Torino, Bristol, Barcelona, West France and Gabrovo). Networking activities will include an intensive capacity building programme and collaboration on at least 6 tenders per region - 42 in total. At the European level a Sustainable Procurement and Innovation Network will be launched, expanding on the existing Procura+ Campaign. In-depth research will be conducted into European best practice relating to a series of key SPP/PPI topics (market engagement, life cycle costing, output/performance-based specifications, circular procurement) by a series of experts in consultation with network participants. A series of European seminars and expert workshops will be organised, together with an ongoing webinar series, and the annual presentation of a PPI award for European best practice.

The EU Biodiversity Strategy (BDS) requires expanding the spatial coverage of marine protected areas to 30%, with 10% strict protection. Achieving the current 14-17% coverage has taken the Baltic Sea region 30 years, and strict protection remains almost non-existent. To meet the BDS target the countries will have to double the coverage in just 8 years. To fully capitalize on the added value of increased coverage, designation, management and measures, including restoration, need to be done in a strategic, ecologically relevant way focusing on areas and measures which enhance the existing network and optimise the possibility to secure positive biodiversity outcomes. There are however substantial challenges facing the region when it comes to leveraging the full potential of upcoming protection and restoration efforts and ultimately, positive biodiversity outcomes, especially in such a tight timeframe. To ensure that the upcoming efforts are both effective and efficient, this transboundary, network level, biogeographical region scale project will: - develop infrastructure for, and ensure long term access to, an unparalleled data driven, ecoregion scale, evidence base to support strategic planning, measures and management; - develop a blue print for, and establish, a data driven, regionally agreed protection framework to improve governance and transboundary cooperation, including politically agreed shared conservation and restoration objectives, targets etc to reach the desired state; - identify the current baseline of protection efforts across the entire sea basin. - cross-reference the desired state with the current baseline to identify gaps in protection and restoration efforts; - provide concrete and replicable support to ensure capacity for the Baltic Sea MS to strategically fill the gaps, harmonise, and achieve the full potential of the protection and restoration efforts.

The ‘IPM Decisions’ project proposed here will accelerate impact from farm Decision Support Systems (DSS) for IPM, as advocated in the Sustainable Use Directive. The impact of DSS in crop protection has been constrained by regional and sectoral fragmentation of actors, inadequate testing of DSS and quantification of their benefits, DSS addressing single pests whilst farmer decisions need to account for multiple pests, and DSS which are insufficiently risk-averse. We will address these constraints and enable innovation by creating a ‘one stop shop’ delivering DSS, data, tools and resources through a pan-European online Platform and an ‘IPM Decisions Network’. The latter forming a community of users and stakeholders. Users will be farmers and advisers, and applied research or industry organisations that deliver or develop DSS. Each type of user will access the Platform via a tailored Dashboard, specific to their requirements. The project consortium brings together multi-actor participants from research, crop protection industry, ICT, meteorological services, policy, farming, advisory and extension organisations. Participants in IPM Decisions are also participants in relevant European projects and networks, enabling efficient engagement and impact. The focus will be on delivering DSS for key pests of major outdoor crops. Integrating key examples of contrasting DSS on the Platform will address urgent needs and demonstrate that the Platform has the functionality required for wide impact. Longevity of the Platform and Dashboards beyond the life of the project will be aided by minimizing the resources required to maintain and update the system, and a realistic business plan. Software, scientific publications and research data will be open access. IPM Decisions addresses all the requirements of part A of SFS-06-2018-2020. The outcomes from this project will support the EU wide demonstration farm network to be established under part B of the call.

PARC is an EU-wide research and innovation partnership programme to support EU and national chemical risk assessment and risk management bodies with new data, knowledge, methods, networks and skills to address current, emerging and novel chemical safety challenges. PARC will facilitate the transition to next generation risk assessment to better protect human health and the environment, in line with the Green Deal?s zero-pollution ambition for a toxic free environment and will be an enabler for the future EU ?Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability?. It builds in part on the work undertaken and experience acquired in past and on-going research and innovation actions, but goes beyond by its vocation to establish an EU-wide risk assessment hub of excellence. To contribute to several expected impacts of destination 2 ?Living and working in a health-promoting environment?, PARC will organise the activities to reach three specific objectives: - An EU-wide sustainable cross-disciplinary network to identify and agree on research and innovation needs and to support research uptake into regulatory chemical risk assessment. - Joint EU research and innovation activities responding to identified priorities in support of current regulatory risk assessment processes for chemical substances and to emerging challenges. - Strengthening existing capacities and building new transdisciplinary platforms to support chemical risk assessment. The Partnership brings together Ministries and national public health and risk assessment agencies, as well as research organisations and academia from almost all of EU Member States. Representatives of Directorates-General of the EC and EU agencies involved in the monitoring of chemicals and the assessment of risks are also participating. PARC will meet the needs of risk assessment agencies to better anticipate emerging risks and respond to the challenges and priorities of the new European policies.

The vision of EU-ToxRisk is to drive a paradigm shift in toxicology towards an animal-free, mechanism-based integrated approach to chemical safety assessment. The project will unite all relevant disciplines and stakeholders to establish: i) pragmatic, solid read-across procedures incorporating mechanistic and toxicokinetic knowledge; and ii) ab initio hazard and risk assessment strategies of chemicals with little background information. The project will focus on repeated dose systemic toxicity (liver, kidney, lung and nervous system) as well as developmental/reproduction toxicity. Different human tiered test systems are integrated to balance speed, cost and biological complexity. EU-ToxRisk extensively integrates the adverse outcome pathway (AOP)-based toxicity testing concept. Therefore, advanced technologies, including high throughput transcriptomics, RNA interference, and high throughput microscopy, will provide quantitative and mechanistic underpinning of AOPs and key events (KE). The project combines in silico tools and in vitro assays by computational modelling approaches to provide quantitative data on the activation of KE of AOP. This information, together with detailed toxicokinetics data, and in vitro-in vivo extrapolation algorithms forms the basis for improved hazard and risk assessment. The EU-ToxRisk work plan is structured along a broad spectrum of case studies, driven by the cosmetics, (agro)-chemical, pharma industry together with regulators. The approach involves iterative training, testing, optimization and validation phases to establish fit-for-purpose integrated approaches to testing and assessment with key EU-ToxRisk methodologies. The test systems will be combined to a flexible service package for exploitation and continued impact across industry sectors and regulatory application. The proof-of-concept for the new mechanism-based testing strategy will make EU-ToxRisk the flagship in Europe for animal-free chemical safety assessment.