The renal tract (kidneys, the ureters, bladder) is a complex organ system crucial for maintaining the body homeostasis. This organ system arises from different precursor pools through a complex program of patterning, differentiation and morphogenesis in embryonic development. Alteration of this program leads to renal tract malformations (RTM) that are incompatible with a healthy life. While some of these RTM can be surgically corrected, others develop into chronic entities that may lead to renal failure; the burden for the patients and for the socio-economic impact for the health systems is immense. Although congenital RTM are amongst the most frequent human birth defects, the different programs that direct normal and pathological development have remained poorly understood. The RENALTRACT training network aims to address these deficits and provide a better understanding of the programs that underlie RTM and provide solutions to clinical problems. This shall be achieved by using a multidisciplinary team approach with partners working in complementary disciplines (developmental biology, renal physiology, Omics, clinical medicine). RENALTRACT has unique and distinguishing features by uniting studies on components of the urinary tract, by building a bridge between basic and clinician scientists and by combining state of the art methods from a number of complementary fields in a variety of animal models. RENALTRACT aims to establish a first class multidisciplinary training program for outstanding Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) to provide a group of young scientists with expert knowledge to envision and embark on novel therapies of renal tract malformations in the future. ESRs will benefit from an excellent working environment with state-of-the-art technologies and supervision by international leaders in the field and an inter-disciplinary approach. This will be complemented by intersectoral exposure and exchange between the RENALTRACT public and private participants.

Hearing loss is the most common sensory deficit in the elderly, and it is becoming a severe social as well as a health problem. Across the whole lifespan, from new-borns to the elderly, hearing loss impairs the exchange of information, thus significantly impacting everyday life, causing loneliness, isolation, dependence, frustration and communication disorders. Cochlear implants (CIs) are hearing prosthetics that stimulate the auditory nerve with electrodes placed inside the cochlea. CIs are gradually being implanted in subjects retaining low-frequency residual hearing. In general, these subjects obtain large benefits in speech perception from electric acoustic stimulation, although large variability exists and some subjects do not benefit. Therefore, it is highly desirable to create objective diagnostics to assess acoustic low-frequency hearing to indicate cochlear implantation, to monitor and preserve hearing during the implantation procedure and to understand the mechanisms related to electric acoustic stimulation benefits. The ground-breaking nature of the READIHEAR project is to investigate the fundamental interaction mechanisms between electric and acoustic stimulation across the auditory pathway, from the cochlea up to the auditory cortex. The fundamental understanding will set the basis for a new generation of diagnostic devices of hearing loss that combine for the first time minimally invasive electric acoustic stimulation. Moreover, READIHEAR will assay a novel auditory prosthetic that makes use of the interaction mechanisms between acoustic and electric stimulation delivered through minimally invasive electrodes. These developments will be beneficial for a large population suffering from hearing loss across the whole lifespan, from young children who will benefit from improved hearing diagnostics to the elderly population who will benefit from minimally invasive electric acoustic stimulation technology as the treatment for age-related hearing loss.

This Erasmus+ project entitled “MIX IT” funded 126 students of all fields of study from twelve partner universities who carried out Erasmus+ internships in all of the program countries. In order to support students from wide-range of academic disciplines, the internships were specifically designed to meet the students’ scholastic needs, individual interests, and career goals. Further specific measures were taken to ensure that the internship is of high quality. The departmental advisors of the sending universities worked closely together with the students and the host organizations in determining the content of the internship as well as in providing advisory support and academic recognition of the internships. Each participant demonstrated good foreign language skills and an intercultural preparation prior to receiving an Erasmus grant. The internships took place in enterprises, in particular in SMEs, as well as in a wide variety of cultural, social and research institutions. A large number of the host organizations have cooperated in earlier Erasmus and Leonardo Mobility projects.Additionally, this Erasmus+ “MIX IT” project funded 9 Staff Mobility Exchanges (STT). All staff members of the partner universities undertook training activities and/or job shadowing periods at enterprises, institutions or organizations abroad in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain and UK. These mobility activities transpired congruent to existing Staff Mobility activities at each partner university.The EU Liaison Office assisted students and university staff in finding suitable internships and training programs by means of its online database comprised of more than 900 offers from companies and organizations throughout Europe. Moreover, the EU Liaison Office is active in numerous national and international networks that can offer new contacts for internships abroad, support services, and assistance in finding housing. All of the host organizations were required to follow the Erasmus Quality Charter, the “MIX IT” Consortia Project Quality Requirements and to offer participants formal written certification upon completion. The project website also provided the participants with extensive information on the countries of destination, suggestions for finding and organizing internships abroad as well as information on the prerequisites for participation and all necessary documents to apply for an Erasmus grant. In addition, the EU Liaison Office has an online discussion forum that facilitated communication between prospective participants and current and/or former and Erasmus participants.The project coordinator together with the representatives at each partner university ensured that the content of the internships met the quality criteria of the project as well as all of the formal criteria of the Erasmus+ program. The proposed internship had to clearly indicate that the student will pursue a well-defined strategy to further his/her academic and professional qualifications. The content quality of the internship and the support services serve to improve the knowledge, abilities and competency levels of all participants. Upon completion, the students received academic recognition as well as certification from the host organization and an Erasmus+ Certificate from the EU Liaison Office at the Leibniz University Hannover. Together these documents confirm the student’s practical work experience, personal development and acquired skills and competences, and later prove to be advantageous for opening up future career opportunities.Furthermore, this project significantly contributed to the internationalization strategies of all partner institutions. Internships abroad generated an influx of experience in enterprises and organizations throughout Europe that not only raised the participants’ awareness and understanding of other cultures, but also benefited the universities and enterprises. These Internships and Staff Exchanges can facilitate an expansion of the partner universities’ and host organizations international networks and create new synergies that will foster transnational exchanges of knowledge and praxis. This can lead to improvements in business practices as well as in university teaching. All stakeholders will be sensitized to the importance of lifelong learning in an intercultural context and of the freedom of movement throughout Europe. In effect, participating students and staff members acted as intercultural mediators between universities and enterprises and organizations throughout Europe, thus in effect, they contributed to greater transparency in higher education in Europe and support the development of an EU-labor market.

Hepatitis D is by far the most severe form of chronic viral hepatitis frequently leading to liver failure, hepatocellular carcinoma and death. Hepatitis D is caused by coinfection of hepatitis B patients with the hepatitis D virus (HDV). Up to 20 Million individuals are infected with HDV worldwide including about 250.000 patients in the European Union. There is very limited knowledge on disease pathophysiology and host-virus interactions explaining the large interindividual variability in the course of hepatitis D. It is in particular unknown why 20-50% are spontaneously able to control HDV replication, why the majority but not all patients progress to advanced stages of liver disease and why only some patients show off-treatment responses to antiviral treatment with either pegylated interferon alpha or the novel HBV/HDV entry inhibitor bulevirtide. As HDV is an orphan disease, no multicenter cohorts of HDV infected patients are available with appropriate biobanking. There is also no reliable animal model available allowing to study host responses. Thus, there is an urgent clinical, social and economic need to better understand individual factors determining the outcome of infection and to identify subjects benefitting from currently available treatments. Hepatitis D is a protype infection which could hugely benefit from a novel individualized infectious medicine approach. We here aim to perform an unbiased screening of a large multicenter cohort of well-defined HDV-infected patients followed by mechanistic studies to determine the functional role of distinct molecules. Identified specific parameters could have an immediate impact on the personalized surveillance strategies and antiviral treatment approaches. D-SOLVE aims to reduce disease burden, improve patient?s quality of life and safe direct and indirect costs caused by HDV infection by combining exceptional clinical, immunological, bioinformatical and virological expertise from leading centers in Europe.