TERRE aims to develop novel geo-technologies to address the competitiveness challenge of the European construction industry in a low carbon agenda. It will be delivered through an inter-sectoral and intra-European coordinated PhD programme focused on carbon-efficient design of geotechnical infrastructure. Industry and Research in the construction sector have been investing significantly in recent years to produce innovative low-carbon technologies. However, little innovation has been created in the geo-infrastructure industry, which is lagging behind other construction industry sectors. TERRE aims to close this gap through a network-wide training programme carried out by a close collaboration of eleven Universities and Research Centres and three SMEs. It is structured to provide a balanced combination of fundamental and applied research and will eventually develop operational tools such as software for low-carbon geotechnical design and a Decision Support System for infrastructure project appraisal. The research fellows will be involved in inter-sectoral and intra-European projects via enrolment in 8 ‘Joint-Awards’ and 7 ‘Industrial’ PhDs. The research fellows will be trained in low-carbon design by developing novel design concepts including eco-reinforced geomaterials, ‘engineered’ vegetation, engineered soil-atmosphere interfaces, biofilms, shallow geothermal energy and soil carbon sequestration. Distinctive features of TERRE are the supervision by an inter-sectoral team and the orientation of the research towards technological applications. Training at the Network level includes the development of entrepreneurial skills via a special programme on ‘Pathways to Research Enterprise’ to support the research fellows in establishing and leading spin-out companies after the end of the project.

The aim of the DR-BOB project is to demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of demand response in blocks of buildings for the different key actors required to bring it to market. To achieve its aim the DR-BOB project will: • Integrate existing technologies to form the DR-BOB Demand Response Energy Management solution for blocks-of-buildings with a potential ROI of 5 years or less. • Demonstrate the DR-BOB integrated solution at 4 sites operating under different energy market and climatic conditions in the UK, France, Italy and Romania with blocks-of-buildings covering a total of 274,665 m2, a total of 47,600 occupants over a period of at least 12 months. • Realise up to 11% saving in energy demand, up to 35% saving in electricity demand and a 30% reduction in the difference between peak power demand and minimum night time demand for building owners and facilities managers at the demonstration. • Provide and validate a method of assessing at least 3 levels of technology readiness (1-no capability, 2-some capability, 3-full capability) related to the technologies required for consumers’ facilities managers, buildings and the local energy infrastructure to participate in the Demand Response Energy Management solution at any given site. • Identify revenue sources with at least a 5% profit margin to underpin business models for each of the different types of stakeholders required to bring demand response in the blocks-of-buildings to market in different local and national contexts. • Engage with at least 2,000 companies involved in the supply chain for demand response in blocks of buildings across the EU to disseminate the projects goals and findings.

EVENT will develop, demonstrate and validate a cost effective, high energy efficient, low CO2 emissions, replicable, low intrusive, systemic approach for retrofitting of residential and commercial buildings, able to achieve NZEB retrofit standard levels, through the integration of an innovative adaptive ventilated façade system, including: • Embedded, breakthrough smart modular heat recovery units, which allow thermal storage mode • High efficient photovoltaic generation capability units • Cost-effective, easy to install, high performance adapted products for external thermal insulation • Energy efficient HVAC systems The developed technologies will be integrated in the ventilated façade, and a real time intelligent façade management system will control operation of the system based on meteorological prediction methods for forecasting in advance the decentralised electricity production and the energy (electrical and thermal) demand of the building enabling maximum RE usage. It will inter-operate with existing or latest state-of-the-art Building Energy Management System, to achieve optimum energy efficiency by reducing primary energy needs, CO2 emissions and peak loads, assuring at least the same comfort levels required by Member States Building Codes, at an affordable price. Foreseen impact will be: • Energy savings of more than 40%, by the holistic use of the ventilated façade, the heat recovery of ventilation air • At least a reduction of 40% of CO2 emissions, as a consequence of the achieved primary energy savings • Reduced thermal and electrical peak loads • Typical performance target of less than 25 kWh/m 2 year (excluding appliances) Use of heat recovery units, number of photovoltaic cells, natural lighting strategies, and insulation thickness; are variable depending on the characteristics of the building to be retrofitted. Therefore EVENT retrofitting system can be adaptable to different types of buildings and climates, which makes the system versatile.

OptEEmAL aims to develop an Optimised Energy Efficient Design Platform for refurbishment at district level, which will deliver an optimised, integrated and systemic design based on an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach for building and district retrofitting projects, reducing time delivery and uncertainties, resulting in improved solutions when compared to business-as-usual practices. This main objective will be deployed through the following key objectives: 1. Development of a holistic and effective services platform for District Energy Efficient Retrofitting Design integrating interoperable modules and tools able to provide services for diagnosis, scenarios generation (according to stakeholders priorities), energy/ cost/ environment/ social evaluation, scenarios optimisation and data export. 2. Reinforcement of the presence of all involved stakeholders through an Integrated Project Delivery approach that will allow them being articulated through a collaborative and value-based process to deliver high-quality outcomes. 3. Development of an integrated ontology-based District Data Model that will contain key information in the fields of energy, comfort, environment (LCA), economic, social wellbeing and urban morphology. 4. Development of an Energy Conservation Measures catalogue (ECM) including technical, operational, maintenance and cost information giving valuable and consistent outputs to the design and district operation and maintenance stages. 5. Development of a bio-inspired optimization module based on Evolutionary computing with the aim to automate the decision making process to obtain the optimal design for an energy efficient retrofitting plan at district level. 6. Development of external connections of the OptEEmAL Platform to external entities (i.e. existing tools enabling the calculation of indicators to generate and optimise the retrofitting scenarios) 7. Strong disseminations, training, exploitation and market deployment strategies.