Despite the fact that the World's 10 largest rivers drain almost one fifth of the global continental land area and deliver about one third of the terrestrial sediment supplied to oceans, we know relatively little about how such large rivers function. This is both surprising and problematic given that they impact directly on a wide range of environmental, social and economic issues (e.g. flooding, bank erosion, loss of land and infrastructure collapse) and ultimately create deposits that host some of the World's most lucrative mineral and fossil fuel reserves. Present understanding of large rivers is based almost entirely upon the findings of studies conducted in small channels. However, recent research gives us good reason to expect that transferring this knowledge to large rivers may not be straight-forward. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop an improved quantitative understanding of the interactions between river processes, channel morphology and subsurface sedimentology in the World's largest rivers. Addressing this knowledge gap represents a significant challenge because it involves developing methods that can be used to investigate process-product relationships that operate across a wide range of time and space scales (from decimetres/minutes up to kilometres/millennia). This research will bring together a multi-disciplinary team of leading UK and overseas researchers in order to achieve this goal. In this project we will investigate one of the World's largest rivers, the Paraná-Paraguay in Argentina to understand: (1) what controls water and sediment movement and river channel changes over time; and (2) what this means for the formation and preservation of river sedimentary deposits. We will address these issues by implementing a research strategy that involves three key elements. First, we will use state-of-the-art field instrumentation to map river bed morphology and its evolution through time, and measure the three-dimensional patterns of water and sediment movement around and over channel bars. Second, we will take advantage of recent developments in Ground Penetrating Radar technology to map the three-dimensional sedimentary structure of braid-bar deposits, both within the current river and in formerly active areas that have been abandoned over the past few thousand years. Third, we will develop new numerical modelling approaches to investigate and quantify the interactions between water and sediment transport processes, bar formation, evolution of channel morphology and the subsurface sedimentology of deposits. The latter will involve combining, for the first time, Computational Fluid Dynamics models that provide a sophisticated representation of the physics governing water and sediment movement, with innovative Reduced-Complexity models capable of simulating how these processes interact to determine channel evolution and deposit sedimentology over periods of centuries to millennia. The result of this work will be the World's first comprehensive database on how the morphology of a large river changes through time, obtained concurrently with data on what drives those changes and what this means for the formation of sedimentary deposits. This will allow us to develop new models of how these rivers work and to use these models to address practical questions concerning large river resources and their management.

Sand-bed rivers dominate the drainage of the Earth's surface. For example, the world's 10 largest rivers, that drain almost 20% of global continental land & deliver 33% of the terrestrial sediment supplied to the oceans, are all sand-bed channels. Many river catchments, in which sand-bed channels are present, are subject to anthropogenic activities such as dam construction, water abstraction, river engineering, or deforestation. As a result, the rivers in these catchments can experience sudden and catastrophic environmental problems such as major bank retreat that promotes building collapse, river bed aggradation and flooding, and channel shifting that leads to habitat degradation. Despite the environmental, social and economic significance of these rivers, we have struggled to produce robust models of how sand-bed rivers work, how they transport their sediment, how rivers change over decades and centuries, how they produce the variety of channel patterns we see in the world, and how rivers respond to a change in environmental drivers such as climate, erosion rates and human interference. Very recent research indicates that the morphology, functioning and pattern of sand-bed rivers is strongly dependent upon whether the sand that they carry is transported in suspension (i.e. carried in the water column) or as bedload (moving in contact with the bed). In addition, theory suggests that, over the range of sediment sizes and flow conditions that are typical of sand-bed rivers, there is a dramatic shift from bedload to suspension-dominated sand transport. However, the physical mechanisms that control the link between how sand is transported and the resulting river morphology remain largely unexplained. This project will develop new models and quantitative understanding of the role of sediment suspension as a control on the morphology of sand-bed rivers. We will do this by implementing a research strategy that involves three key elements: First, we will apply an innovative image acquisition technique to obtain datasets that quantify river bed morphology at very high spatial resolutions (cm) over large areas (km) and multiple timescales (days to years). Second, we will use state-of-the-art field instrumentation to obtain concurrent measurements of flow and sediment transport processes and their relationship to river morphology over a range of discharges. Third, we will develop and apply two- and three-dimensional numerical models to quantify the interactions between riverine processes and channel morphology at bedform, bar and whole river scales. We will use field datasets to test our models in sand-bed rivers of different sizes and with contrasting flow regimes and bed sediment texture. Once validated, our models will provide robust new tools, which we will release as open-source code to the scientific community, for predicting and understanding how sand-bed rivers respond to environmental change. This research will also have significant end-user and educational benefits, which we will realise by working closely with project partner HR Wallingford, and by producing a collection of high-quality learning materials and teaching resources aimed at the Geography A-level curriculum, and released via national organisations with a strong commitment to educational outreach.

Successful previous LA and EU HE cooperation revealed differences between HESystems, academic recognition principles and practices. A long path is still ahead in terms of streamlined mobility recognition with fair credit transfer and grade conversion. Most LA countries have no credit system nationally applying to HEIs and the majority has regulations to frame mobility abroad, but handles recognition on individual basis and equivalence without grading is very common, negatively impacting students. RecMat joins partners from AR, BR and EU with the core aim of contributing to promote mobility between EU and LA, by reducing barriers related to academic recognition and building LA HEIs capacity to implement a fairer recognition process. Partners will work at two levels, linking the policy and practical dimensions behind academic recognition. Unlike previous initiatives, RecMat targets not only International Officers, but teachers who are the main decision makers in LA HEIs in what recognition is concerned, who are distant from Bologna rationale and usually show high resistance to recognition. This will be achieved by involving teachers in blended-training and in piloting concrete case studies, to evidence practical successful processes. Through a peer-to-peer approach, RecMat will raise teachers’ awareness about the importance of ensuring full recognition and stimulating fair grade conversion. RecMat activities will capacitate HEIs to formally frame recognition and build a linkage with IT teams by providing training to IT staff and enabling LA HEIs to outline concrete technical solutions to ease recognition. Through the organisation of public (inter-)national events and policy forums, RecMat will bring the topic to wide discussion, encouraging a high number of HEIs to adopt similar processes and sharing with them the project's innovative outcomes (MOOC, Digital Compendium and Conclusions Paper) towards the improvement and transparency of academic recognition processes.

<< Objectives >>SMARTER develops smart supply chain knowledge competences as well as transversal skills through experiential learning applications. 7 universities from Spain, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Croatia, Romania and Argentina as well as 2 business development organisations (IRE, ESP) deliver digital learning material, innovation created in industry-university collaboration, as well as formative assessment tools for sustainable learning methods realising the 'Internationalisation at home' principle.<< Implementation >>University students will conduct a digital maturity gap analysis within the target businesses to create the framework for the core learning activity - the SMARTER Student Challenge, organised in Ireland in April 2024. Work packages 4-6 will prepare the Smart Material, Money, and Info flow to support the student challenge by using simulations, serious gaming, webinars and online workshops. The in-person workshop will be realised as a collaborative industry-university knowledge creation event.<< Results >>The final conference in Croatia in June 2025 will present the research publication of the digital maturity gap analysis, smart supply chain learning material, the experiential learning tools, the best practices learned from the student challenge, and feedback and reflection documents from student, educators and target group representatives as well as formal curricula integration opportunities. SMARTER achievements are also published in Social Media throughout the progress of the SMARTER project.

By initiating a Latin American-European cooperation on innovation and entrepreneurship, the LISTO project adresses the LA universities' need to keep developing their capacities in connecting with the wider economic and social environment. The project has identified three target areas. 1.) University-industry relations; 2.) Teachings entrepreneurship skills; 3.) entrepreneurial universities. LISTO will establish an exchange of methods for matching researchers with industry R&D staff (AIMday), develop an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship skills module and train teachers in delivering an international classroom, and work on strategies for fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and innovation governance. There will be an open access ebook (in English, Spanish and Portuguese) summarizing the results and the teaching methods.