The project focused on the training and building up the capacity of management and governance in order to improve the higher education sector in the involved countries so that it can face the new challenges brought by globalization and the knowledge society. The aim is not only to increase higher education quality and accountability, but also to close the gap with developed and emerging countries. This challenge needs creative and innovative approaches to higher education institutions but also highly motivated, trained and dedicated managers at HEIs. The general objective of the project is to to contribute to the modernization and reform of the management system within HEIs in three Asian countries (MN, VT, CB) and to strengthen the competencies of top and middle managers of these institutions. More specifically, the project aims at introducing Information Management Systems (IMS), upskilling human resource (HR) and financial management staff and facilitating administration and student enrolment processes. Likewise, the project will establish project management offices as an approach to change management through a strategy that addresses the unique challenges of each HEI.The project redefines effective change leadership and management for HEIs where it requires leaders who can facilitate a complex process of transformation – not only in the core higher education activities of learning and teaching, research and engagement but also in how the university operates, in its culture, governance, structure and how it positions itself and supports staff and students. The project will serve as a reference in the country for inclusive leadership education . The project helps to integrate the efforts of a wide variety of players at every level from academia, operations and administration, and help reshape unsupportive or unaligned systems, structures, funding mechanisms, leadership roles and performance indicators.

The main objective of BAANG is to stimulate the scientific excellence and innovation capacity of the involved partners in the field of smart aviation with a positive impact on the environment. BAANG creates the scientific strategy that connects 4 disciplines - aeronautics, mechatronics, mechanics of materials and additive technologies. Through a broad portfolio of twinning activities, it brings scientific and technological innovation leading to the design of an aircraft structure changing its morphology. Current aircraft have limited ability to adapt the wings aerodynamic shape to adapt to critical flight conditions. That restricts the possibilities of minimizing the aircrafts drag according to the actual wing load or suppressing adverse aeroelastic effects such as gust loading. The new wing design uses 3D printed metamaterials and advanced simulation techniques leading to efficient wing adaptation. In addition, the integration of intelligent sensing materials ensures an advanced aircraft design that is capable of self-inspection operation, such as detecting structural defects. The successful introduction of shape changing, self-actuating structures in aviation aims to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, reduce material waste in manufacturing, save significant maintenance costs and improve structural health monitoring. The main objective will be achieved by creating a network of collaborating academics from three leading research institutions - TU Delft, ICL and TU Wien, with the widening BUT institutions and industry representatives. Intensive involvement of 9 young researchers from BUT and 2 young researchers from TU Wien and linking them with top scientific teams for a period of 3 to 6 months. We expect a 60% increase in the number of international project submissions. In addition, there will be greater visibility of scientific results - the H-index of the involved early stage BUT researchers will double in period after the project.

CELTA: Convergence of Electronics and Photonics Technologies for Enabling Terahertz Applications aims to produce the next generation of researchers who will enable Europe to take a leading role in the multidisciplinary area of utilizing Terahertz technology for applications involving components and complete systems for sensing, instrumentation, imaging, spectroscopy, and communications. All these technologies are key to tackle important solutions in a large number of focus areas relevant for the societal challenges identified in the Horizon2020 work programme. To achieve this objective, CELTA is comprised of eleven leading research institutions and assembled a comprehensive research training programme for all the fifteen early stage researchers (ESRs). CELTA integrates multidisciplinary scientific expertise, complementary skills, and experience working in academia and industry to empower ESRs to work in interdisciplinary teams, integrate their activities, share expertise, and promote a vision of a converged co-design and common engineering language between electronics and photonics for Terahertz technologies. Therefore, CELTA will introduce the strategy of converged electronics and photonics co-design in its research program and makes a special effort on establishing a common engineering language in its training program across the electronics, photonics and applications disciplines. We believe this common engineering language and converged co-design is mandatory to make the next logical step towards efficient and innovation solutions that can reach the market. The detailed compendium of lectures on state-of-the art technology, soft skills and entrepreneurship is accompanied by a research programme that focuses on THz key technologies. CELTA ESRs will develop three demonstrators: beam steering technology for communication applications, a photonic vector analyser for spectroscopy and materials characterization, and a THz imager for sensing applications.

The project idea is focusing on AI-augmented automation supporting modeling, coding, testing, and monitoring as part of a continuous development in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). The growing complexity of CPS poses several challenges throughout all software development and analysis phases, but also during their usage and maintenance. Many leading companies have started envisaging the automation of tomorrow to be brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tech. While the number of companies that invest significant resources in software development is constantly increasing, the use of AI in the development and design techniques is still immature. The project targets the development of a model-based framework to support teams during the automated continuous development of CPSs by means of integrated AI-augmented solutions. The overall AIDOaRT infrastructure will work with existing data sources, including traditional IT monitoring, log events, along with software models and measurements. The infrastructure is intended to operate within the DevOps process combining software development and information technology (IT) operations. Moreover, AI technological innovations have to ensure that systems are designed responsibly and contribute to our trust in their behaviour (i.e., requiring both accountability and explainability). AIDOaRT aims to impact organizations where continuous deployment and operations management are standard operating procedures. DevOps teams may use the AIDOaRT framework to analyze event streams in real-time and historical data, extract meaningful insights from events for continuous improvement, drive faster deployments and better collaboration, and reduce downtime with proactive detection.

The necessity to meet the rising global demand for mobility and energy supply and, at the same time, the urgency to minimize the carbon footprint, leads to the challenging scientific question of the fatigue resistance of emerging eco-efficient concretes. Since existing knowledge of the traditional Portland-clinker-based binders is largely empirical, it cannot be directly transferred to new binder systems, exhibiting complex chemical and mechanical interactions within the heterogeneous material structure. In contrast to the well-established insight into the high-cycle fatigue of metals, a complete understanding of the fatigue degradation processes in concretes is still lacking. In this research, we are committed to pioneering an innovative approach that establishes a universally applicable link between the chemical/microstructural composition of novel concrete materials and their fatigue resistance. To create an interdisciplinary methodology for the scientific analysis of fatigue-resistant eco-efficient concretes, complementary competences of a multidisciplinary research team will be combined in a concerted application of physico-chemical modeling approaches of hydration processes and advanced methods of multiscale and multifield computational mechanics supported by machine learning and accompanied by a rigorous experimental validation program. The developed coherent methodical framework will include innovative theoretical and numerical as well as tailored experimental approaches covering all relevant spatial and temporal scales to enable realistic predictions of the fatigue behavior of existing and future eco-efficient concrete formulations. This is necessary to give design engineers confidence in the new materials, and to enable design concepts, optimally satisfying requirements for sustainable, economical, and reliable future transportation and energy infrastructure.