The project's main purpose is to prepare highly qualified and motivated specialists with developed smart specialisation skills who are able to develop and implement regional Smart Specialisation Strategies and development strategies of territorial communities based on the study of leading experience and best practices of the EU. The methodology and cases of EU Smart Specialisation will be studied by 45 young motivated students of the second (master's) level of higher education in management specialties, who will successfully complete the elective course “Smart Specialisation: Spreading Experience of European Regions and Communities”, which will be implemented three times in the Dnipro University of Technology.An information and advisory platform and regional “community of S3 practitioners: will be created to spread information about the advantages of the European Smart Specialisation approach and to develop the capacity of regions and communities in Ukraine. Network communication will be developed both on the existing resources of the Dnipro University of Technology, which already have more than 10,000 subscribers, and through the creation of project pages in social networks.The project provides for active informational and educational work through interaction with 3 territorial communities (information and advisory webinars for 50-75 participants), online scientific and communicative events: a Regional online round table (50 participants) and a Scientific and Practical online conference with international participation (100 participants), scientific publications, dissemination of information beyond the academic community through social and professional networks.The results of the project will contribute to updating the Development Strategy of the Dnipropetrovsk region based on the European approach to determining the smart specialisation of the region. The joining of the Dnipropetrovsk region to the EC Smart Specialisation Platform will be also accelerated.

"The project of the master's discipline ""Critical raw materials provision in the European Union (CRMPEU)"" aims to provide current information among students of higher education about the importance of rational use of critical raw materials, which is the basis for the sustainable functioning of technological sectors of the European economy and the World as a whole. The implementation of the project is possible due to the cooperation of DUT with other higher education institutions (HEIs) of Ukraine and industrial enterprises for the training of experts of a new generation in the field of production and processing of critical raw materials. The Project discipline is expected at the development of interdisciplinary openness of future experts in ""Surface Mining"", ""Earth sciences"" and ""Environmental protection technologies"", which allows for a systematic and in-depth understanding of the technological and environmental problems of the critical raw materials development. Objectives of the Project are response the EU Policy (European Commission, Brussels, Communication COM (2020), 474 final, Critical Raw Materials Resilience: Charting a Path towards greater Security and Sustainability), as well as the European Green Deal, Industry 4.0, etc. Taking into account the experience of the EU countries, their modern requirements for environmental protection, national technological, economic and ecological standards and trends in practical implementation will be developed the Practical manual ""CRMPEU""; educational materials for conducting advanced training courses for teachers of HEIs of Ukraine and industry representatives. Target groups: potential applicants, students, teachers and staff, industry representatives and employers, graduates. Project will allow attracting students from remote mining and depressed regions, including those moving to the war zone, and increase their level of education, thereby providing them with the qualifications required on the European labor market."

The goal of the proposed project is based on the integration of the best practices of the European Union in the field of environmental rehabilitation of lands affected by the mining industry. This topic is very actual for Ukraine which faces upcoming challenges related to the closure of coal mines in Western Donbas and relevant development of the surface mining industry. Along the life cycle of mining enterprises, the adjacent lands accept the powerful environmental impact in the form of contamination by heavy metals. There is an urgent need to establish prerequisites for training a new generation of young researchers and experts to cope with these problems by accepting the best available technologies used in the EU. The project includes the development of a comprehensive academic Module “Environmental Rehabilitation of Mining Lands” (ERML) for students that consists of 3 Master courses based on directives and standards of the European Union in the field of Land management, environmental impact assessment (EIA) and ecological engineering technologies in mining. The project tasks are conceived as the logical stages of transferring advanced knowledge and the best existing practices in the field of ERML, EIA from EU to Ukraine via academic courses, research work, and dissemination activities, and included the following: 1. To develop the comprehensive academic Module “Environmental Rehabilitation of Mining Lands” (ERML) consisting of 3 substantially revised Master courses for young specialties and experts in the field of Ecology and Environmental Engineering; 2. To launch research work focused on EU approaches and strategies in the field of Environment, Sustainability the ERML issues; 3. To facilitate the propagation of EU standards through collaboration with EU partner Universities, Ukrainian industries, local authorities, and the public sector.The ERML Module will become a bridge between DUT and European universities extending principles of lifelong education, diversity, and partnership.

The project’s primary goal was building partner organizations’ capacities for working with youth struggling from forced migration and involving them into local communities. Although we came up with the project’s idea almost 4 years ago, throughout the project’s lifetime, its topic has been still sharp and crucial. In feeling the project’s topicality for future years, despite COVID restrictions and fatal obstacles the project team faced, we worked hard in order to satisfy a youth need of better social adaptation while being migrants. We did it by introducing a new methodology allowing mixed non-formal and formal education into our partner organizations’ every day work. The tools for migrant youth involvement we were equipped with as we started the project were lacking a cross-sector methodology for NGOs-universities networks. Partner NGOs and academic bodies were not guided on ways of putting mutual efforts into adaptation of young migrants from the perspective of social communication and career pathway. Thus, in following our planned activities and taking decisions about their changes under the pressure of the pandemic, we managed to shape a strong network of youth organizations (NGOs + university) for involving migrant youth across Europe and countries of Eastern partnership. We strongly believe that after the project, the established network of organizations and activists provide necessary assistance and keep young migrants safe from the risk of radicalization and wrong life choices. This belief rests on the project’s direct fit with the objectives of participating organizations. In embracing now about 3,000 young migrants, the university partner seeked to mix formal education methods with non-formal tools provided by NGOs. The project gathered experienced representatives with various professional backgrounds working for NGOs and the university who launched intercultural dialogue, created migrant-focused sustainable youth networks and developed relevant methodology underpinned by a mix of non-formal and formal education tools. All this enhanced their personal and organizational capacities for better involvement of migrant youth into local communities. It is worth mentioning here that the project participants have made a true difference for themselves due to intercultural communication between young migrants and social activists.The most important outcome of the project maybe identified as shaping new friendly and tolerant environment for young migrants to be involved into local communities by helping some of them to avoid fears and believe in positive future in new society, training local youth activists to continue changing environment for better migrants’ adaptation and shaping a network ready to operate effectively. This main outcome could be produced by all the project participants due to the fact that we obeyed principles of innovative project methodology introduced as a pillar of all activities. Giving hope and support to hundreds of young migrants as a result of successful stories about new life shared by youngsters via the inspirational portal is also one of the main project outcomes. Unusual youth contributions across countries in “YOUth-to-YOUth” communication manner evoked faith and optimism about young migrants’ social activity, finding friends and following good career paths in other countries.Finally the project taught us to act under complete uncertainty and irresistible force. 3 years of projects instead of planned 2 because of the COVID pressure brought positive results. We learnt how to make fast changes with minimum losses and be resilient to challenges.

The interdisciplinary WrightBros neXt project is designed as an extension, both in terms of the scope and the Consortium composition, of the “collaborative factory of the flight simulators branch of RISE” which was funded under H2020 programme and successfully completed as a WrightBroS project. Based on its results, the new concept of research on projectors-free flight simulators is proposed as an answer to challenges which occur when novel eXtended Reality (XR) technologies are applied to professional training of pilots. The goal of the new project is to: - develop innovative, projectors-free, flight simulators by using various XR technologies, and - compare the influence on human perception of various XR technologies used in these projectors-free flight simulators vs. classical setup with projector-generated scenery. The wide range of visualization setups developed in a collaboration between the Coordinator: Silesian University of Technology (SUT), Poland, flight simulators manufacturer: Virtual Reality Media (VRM), Slovakia, and software developer: LG Nexera (NXR), Austria, will be then tested by pilots during experimental sessions in Virtual Flight Laboratory at SUT. In such sessions the pilots will wear mobile EEG device capturing data about the influence of a given display system used in the flight simulator on a cognitive load and other brain activities. The assessment of the cognitive load, as a measure of the mental effort required to complete a task, will be made by SUT scientists in an interdisciplinary collaboration with the researchers from Psychology Department of University of Zadar (UOZ), Croatia. The EEG signals will be also analyzed by secondees from Dnipro University of Technology (DUT), Ukraine, hosted by SUT specialists experienced in signal processing and machine learning. The results will be used to predict real-time performance, fatigue, and stress levels of pilots testing particular XR visualization system used in the flight simulator.