The INTROS project, as multi- and interdisciplinary doctoral network, will develop diagnostic and prevention strategies for acute complex wounds that are at risk of infection. Infections represent a significant challenge, as they often require prolonged treatment and may even result in extended hospital stays. All this is associated with considerable burden to clinics and patients as well as financial costs. To address this issue, the doctoral candidates and consortium partners dedicate their efforts in creation of early diagnostic methods that can effectively detect infection and/or facilitate the direct application of advanced antimicrobial dressings and innovative formulations following burn or surgical procedures. Additionally, the (bio)materials will be designed to prevent inflammation, promote healing and regeneration, thereby reducing the risk of infection and its associated complications such as scarring and impairments. The developed systems will consist of innovative nano-/micro-sized delivery systems, biodegradable and-compatible electrical sensors or patches based on hydrogels, bacterial nanocellulose and polyurethanes as well as biologically active extracellular vesicles. This will be supported by extensive biocompatibility and efficacy testing in vitro, in vivo and especially in ex vivo wound models as well as in-depth physicochemical characterisation. Special emphasis will be on the scale-up to industrial levels and manufacturing towards GMP conditions already during the project’s lifetime. INTROS will contribute to bringing forward a new generation of young scientists by creating a research and training network for 8 Doctoral Candidates, equip them with multidisciplinary skills from biomaterials, nanotechnology, pharmaceutical chemistry and technology, biochemistry and material science. Combined with extensive complementary soft/transferable skills, INTROS will enable them to take leading roles in industry and academia in the European community.

To contribute to catalyzing the transition towards a sustainable, circular economCircSyst, presents a series of shared Demonstration Experiences of new technological and societal adaptations to a Circular Economy involving 8 European regions: Valencia (SP), Maribor (SI), Flanders (BE), Gotland (SW), Paijat-Hame-Lahti (FI), Castila la Mancha (SP), Central Macedonia (EL), and Central and East Hungary (HU). The project focuses on three of the priority value chains of the Circular Economy Plan: Water Management, Biowaste, and Plastics and Packaging, as well as in the potential synergies among them. 4 Demonstrators are proposed developing and validating solutions for Water Management: 1 Reuse of industrial treated wastewater through on-demand treatment. 2 Agricultural industry and utilities uses for reclaimed urban water. 3 Smart wastewater management as a structural solution to water scarcity and floods in urban contexts. 4 Validation of a set of Integrated tools and methodologies for smart management of water symbiosis. In the Biowaste field the project will implement 2 Demonstrators dealing with waste from different sources and extracting valuable substances directly applicable in the other addressed value chains: 5 Flexible and intelligent biorefinery for the recovery of materials and components. 6 Valorisation routes of Food Industry Biowastes. In the Plastics and Packaging field, the project tackles main aspects of plastic waste management, including eco-design, cost-effective segregation, and recyclability: 7 Mechanical recycling of mPET. 8 Consumers engagement in plastics segregation 9 Food Packaging value chain redesign towards the substitution of plastics Work Packages on Communication & Dissemination, Knowledge Transfer, and Results Exploitation and Impact, are designed to ensure that that the results adequately reach key stakeholders in governments, private organizations, and civil society with the cooperation of the CCRI Coordination and Support Office.

The main objective of STORY is to show the added value storage can bring for a flexible, secure and sustainable energy system. This will be achieved by showing the inter-relations between technologies and stakeholders as well as the potential and impact of policy and regulation. The future European grid has to serve a diverse and mixed landscape of users in a situation of mixed rules and responsibilities depending on the policy and regulatory choices that will be made. Challenges include high penetration of renewables, bi-directional flows of different energy vectors, growing number of users and requirements for higher security. The European commission wants to strengthen the position of the EU energy industry, including those players active in producing solutions for security of supply, increased share of renewables and grid stability. The advances in ICT technology, intelligent control algorithms, inverter and storage technologies provide strong tools to cope with these challenges. Given this context, STORY focuses on providing relevant and wide-covering demonstrations that serve as input for a thorough and transparent analysis on what the impact of storage can be for the involved stakeholders. Storage is considered as a means, while not neglecting other competing technologies that could provide a similar or complementary functionality. The actions that the 18 members from 9 European countries in STORY consortium are going to take in a 5-year project bring a valuable contribution to turn these challenges into opportunities. They will not only develop the most viable storage and ICT solutions for the demonstration sites, but they will also analyse the impact of large penetration of the technologies through simulations, analyse the effect of policies and regulations to the business opportunities of storage related industry and communicate the findings to wider community through systematic strategies for impact creation.