Our project ABEIL is responding to the call GOVERNANCE-20-2020 « International dimension of Open Innovation » of the societal challenge 6. ABEIL (African Booster Euro-african Innovations Landing) will consist in: 1/ Encouraging innovations at the stage of economical concept validation or at the stage of development, incubated or supported by a Structure of Support to Innovative Entrepreneurship (SAEI) in Europe or Africa, in order to expand market opportunities to Sub-Saharian Africa; 2/ Promoting cooperation and know-how exchange between European and African SAEI 3/ Bridging African and European SAEI with institutions of higher education, in Africa with a certain amount of services provided to innovators in order to facilitate research & development cooperation, maturation, transfer and internationalisation of technologies. These objectives will be achieved thanks to a project structure around 2 aspects (offering a wide range of services): Aspect 1: ABEIL EXPLORE: creation and management of a network of welcome centres of innovators in Africa, in order to facilitate entrepreneurship mobilities between Europe and Africa, with a soft landing offer. This offer will be based on the network and facilities of SAEI partners , an online platform of mobilities management (online reservation of work spaces, travelling organisation tools, access to facilities...), and a support of entrepreneurs through internationalisation workshops. Aspect 2: ABEIL CONNECT: thematic meetings to support these innovators allowing them to access to scientific and technical ressources available in the targeted countries. These meetings will be hosted and organised alternatively in SAEI or in the institutions of higher education partners. They will integrate adapted formats and sequences to facilitate professionals datings, scientific and technological exchanges, co-construction of projects and partnerships of Reearch & Development: meetings BtoB entrepreneurs/researchers, seminars and technical presentation, pitchs from entrepreneurs and science - ie: My thesis in 180 seconds- ideation and co-construction workshops. This aspect will also support in the monitoring and contractualisation of projects. The proposed activities will gather a wide range of services for the european and african actors of innovation (start-ups, SME) : - with an objective of soft-landing in the country partners - the creation of an ecosystem of actors in the conuntry partners - the connection with local actors of innovation, and notably in the field of sciences, technologies with universities and higher education institutions, in order to develop Research & Development partnerships, the support towards transfer, adaptation and internationalisation of validated technologies and their know-how (from and to the targeted regions). ABEIL will work as well in raising external fundings from private and public investors in order to sustain the activities of the network. These partners will also have access to the support to entrepreneurs and innovative projects. The project will also integrate a scientific analysis of its implementation and its development in order to reinforce knowledge on these subjects of governance and organisation of such an international network: how to keep activities sustainable? how to measure their impact? what type of indicators can be implemented to monitor and measure the satisfaction of the final beneficiaries.

There is an increasing need for broadband wireless Satellite connection to Internet services in public transportations, like buses, aircrafts and high-speed trains. To offer such connections with a high quality of service, innovative, low-cost and compact antenna platforms must be invented and developed. Nowadays, it is possible to establish a radio link between a satellite and a mobile terminal, for instance for Internet connection of aircraft passengers, using nearly-omnidirectionnal antennas in L-band. In this case, due to the very narrow allocated frequency band, the data rate is extremely low. To offer broadband services for “IP on the move” applications, it is required to operate at higher frequencies, especially in Ku band (from 10.5 to 14.5 GHz) in linear polarisation, and later in Ka-band (in circular polarisation). As a consequence, directive antennas with high EIRP must be designed. In addition, the main beam direction of the antenna must coincide with the satellite positioning, whatever the location of the mobile is. For instance, to cover all Europe area, the corresponding antennas must be able to scan the beam over a 360° angular range in the horizontal plane, and between 20° and 60° angular range in the vertical plane. In addition, for double-deck high speed trains, there are a few centimetres available to accommodate the antenna platforms due to the height of the train cars and the tunnels. To conclude, there is no antenna solution today complying with the needs mentioned above. The ultimate objective of this collaborative project is to invent new concepts of antenna platforms for “IP on the move applications” where very thin, directive, low cost and beam steering antennas are needed. To this end, a consortium gathering 5 partners has been built. It consists of one end-user (Thales Alenia Space – expert in base stations and user terminals for satellite applications), two SMEs (Ixmotion – expert in advanced mechanical platforms for beam scanning antennas; Innovative Business Partners – expert in the analysis of mobile communication services), and two academic partners (Institut d’Electronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes, UMR CNRS 6164 – expert in antenna design; LabSTICC / Telecom Bretagne expert in power amplifications). This project is coordinated by IETR.

The objective of the CO2-DISSOLVED project is to assess the technical-economic feasibility of a novel CCS concept integrating (1) an innovative post-combustion deep-well CO2 capture and dissolution technology, (2) injection of dissolved CO2 instead of supercritical, and (3) combined geothermal heat recovery in the extracted brine via a doublet/surface heat exchanger system. This approach combines several objectives including renewable energy production, greenhouse gas reduction, and the assessment of a novel, low cost capture and storage method. Further, the proposed use of dissolved CO2 versus injection in a supercritical phase offers substantial benefits in terms of lower brine displacement risks, lower CO2 escape risks, lower to none pressure buildup in the storage aquifer, and the potential for more rapid mineralization. As another contributing novel factor, this proposal targets low to medium range CO2-emitters (10-100 kt/yr), that could be compatible with a single doublet installation. Unlike the standard approach which focuses on very large regional emitters (1-5 Mt/yr), the proposed CO2-DISSOLVED concept opens new potential opportunities for local storage solutions dedicated to low emitters such as food, paper, or glass industry, building materials makers, etc. Since it is intended to be a local solution, the costs related to CO2 transport would then be dramatically reduced, provided that the local underground geology is favourable. On the other hand, the heat recovered could benefit directly to the industrial emitters for their own heating and/or process needs and possibly for heating other collective buildings close to the storage facility. This project is divided in four main technical tasks addressing the following points: - Task 1: Applicability of the Aqueous-based CO2 Capture and Dissolution Facility technology, - Task 2: Efficiency of the Coupled CO2 Injection/Geothermal Heat Extraction System, - Task 3: Monitoring and Risk assessment, - Task 4: Integrated Technical-Financial Feasibility Analysis Applied to two Test-cases (France, Germany). Though being mainly a feasibility study relying on engineering methodologies, the achievement of this project will also have to rely on ambitious research work in order to address the following points: - Standard monitoring and risk analysis approaches need be revisited as a function of the new features and constraints of the CO2-DISSOLVED approach. Innovative geochemical and geophysical monitoring solutions are intended to be evaluated and tested, both on-field and in-lab. A new risk analysis methodology will be specifically designed and applied in accordance with the modelled and observed properties of the whole system. - The potential acidified brine reactivity will now be delivered out of the injection well, unlike the standard supercritical approach where the acid front followed the extension of the CO2 plume. Specific work, focusing on the near-well area and relying on both new experimental and modelling approaches will be carried out in this project. A new experimental facility will be available for future experiments involving injection of dissolved CO2. - The association of CCS to geothermal heat production, applied locally to small CO2-emitters, makes partly obsolete previous conceptual economic models. New models will then have to be developed, validated, and applied to two application test-cases (one in France, one in Germany). The expected results will permit to have at our disposal a complete portfolio of innovative technologies associated with adapted experimental and theoretical tools, so that in case of positive conclusions on the feasibility of this concept, promising industrial applications could be envisaged on the short term by the end of this 30 month project.