Maritime transport represents the centre of global trade with about 90% of the goods’ volumes and values worldwide. Nowadays, containerships are built with the same basic design principles as the older smaller container ships, without accounting for possible consequences that could impact safety. Cargo fires represents one of the most important threats of this kind of ships (also for ferries with container on the truck). On one hand, fire causes large losses of humans and/or cargoes, on the other hand fire is impacting coastal zone and marine protected areas. Currently, there are no requirements for the installation of fixed fire detection systems above the weather deck of a container ship. Innovative strategies for containership fires prevention and management (OVERHEAT) main goal is to prevent and manage, in case of occurrence fire accidents on board of containerships. OVERHEAT brings novel fire management solutions for Prevention, Early Detection and Response which are key aspects to assure safety of people and the protection of the environment. The development of a Digital Solution (DS) will provide the overall situational picture on board and surrounding the vessel. Furthermore, integration of IoT sensors (fixed and mobile) and UAS will provide the ad-hoc system for the prevention, early detection and rapid response of fire. Best practice and assessment of safety culture will be conducted to prevent fire and understand how people perceive safety. Hence, OVERHEAT prepares a truly new generation of digital fire management solutions: complete, seamless, real time and in line with IMO regulations (integrated in the vessel IT infrastructure). The impact of the proposed solution will be initially evaluated by performing validation activities in simulated environment and then executing demonstration activities in a real environment, with use cases that will be identified, described and detailed during the research activities, to prove the feasibility and benefits.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as powerful tools for sustainable environmental monitoring, playing a vital role in comprehending the diverse effects of climate change on ecosystems. The integration of state of the art techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) with UAV technology has introduced innovative pathways for various environmental applications. However, their full potential remains to be explored. ACCELERATE proposes the development of a fertile inter-discipline and inter-sectoral ecosystem that aims to radically contribute towards enhancing UAV technology to enable the sustainable environmental management. The specific objectives of the project are to: a) Create a continuously updated ecosystem with UAV datasets suitable for environmental studies and climate change impact assessment, b) promote methodological advances in the field of UAVs technology, by exploiting the unique capabilities of those data with state-of-the-art techniques and c) establish clear guidelines and homogenized protocols for the characterization of the exploitation of UAVs in specific application domains. Experimental analysis will also be carried to showcase the practical use of the project outputs via four carefully selected and innovative Use Cases, that will serve as Key Performance Indicators of the project. ACCELERATE brings together enthusiastic staff from academia and industry via a series of carefully-designed secondments, establishing a unique fertile collaborative research and innovation environment to promote pioneering research in environmental and socioeconomic studies implementation within urban, natural and agricultural environments. A strong inter-sectoral experienced research team of 17 partners from 9 countries, of 8 academic and 8 industrial partners coming from Greece (2), Romania (3), Italy (2), Cyprus (1), United Kingdom (4), North Macedonia (1), France (1), Germany (1) and Portugal (1) constitute the project’s Consortium.

The MED region includes more than 25 million hectares of forests and about 50 million hectares of other wooded lands. Climatic and socio-economic changes in this region could have serious consequences for forests, potentially resulting in the loss of ecosystem services and causing a wide range of economic, social, and environmental issues. The low competitiveness of the forest-wood supply chain in European Mediterranean (EUMED) countries is currently amplified by the missing or limited access of forest managers and companies to current and new digital technologies which appear to be out of date in certain key areas or fail to address some of the most pressing difficulties that the industry is expected to be confronting in the next decades. This rationale calls for the urgent implementation of a multi-actor approach to digitalization, starting from recognizing stakeholders’ needs and subsequently defining joint actions. To this end DigiMedFor's overall goal is to transform the technological landscape of the Mediterranean forest-wood supply chain by increasing its competitiveness, thus allowing the different stakeholders to better manage and supply multiple forest ecosystem services, including the traceability of wood origin from forests to end-users. In line with the EU forest strategy and the EU digital strategy, DigiMedFor will employ advanced and innovative digital solutions to improve the monitoring and management of forest resources along the supply chain from their origin up to the wood industry, optimising both the sustainability of wood production and traceability and delivery of ecosystem services. DigiMedFor will address the synergetic use of geo-spatial, AI, and modelling technologies, combining them with ICT.

The DREAMS project aims at contributing to the definition of the European UTM Aeronautical Information Management operational concept by exploring need for and feasibility of new processes, services and solutions for the drone aeronautical information management within the new UTM concept. The UTM is seen as the key enabling concept for safe integration of drones within VLL airspace, tailored on the needs of UAS operations. The study put together the knowledge of mission needs and operational requirements of drones commercial operators that want to make their operations safer and cost effective (BVLOS) with the knowledge of operating modes and procedures currently adopted by airlines and aircrew, general aviation associations and pilots, leisure/sport aeronautical activity associations and pilots, accessed information services, required data quality, resolution, temporality and services costs. The study will be focused not only to the needs of drones operators but will addressed the aeronautical information sharing requirements coming from the several stakeholders involved for different purposes in the drones VLL operation concept. The DREAMS study and its methodology are based on a deep competence in systems and technologies, currently used in the management of all types of air traffics, for flight planning, static and dynamic aeronautical Information and for airspace design and management. Operational and technical aspects, environmental scenarios, technologies, safety and security impact will be analysed in order to identify possible UTM data service providers (e.g. airspace structure, terrain, obstacles and weather,..) and facilities and the way this data service need to be tailored for UTM management service provision in order to allow quality and resilient information and airspace services.

The rising number of UASs (drones) led to the introduction of additional specific rules and procedures for their use (i.e., EU regulatory package 2021/664 U-space) where UASs are expected to operate alongside sport/ultralight and General aviation (GA) aircrafts. For this class of aircrafts and UASs there is no certified component capable of ensuring a positioning information trustable enough as evidential value from a legal perspective. In response to this need, CERTIFLIGHT project proposes a new U-space service for the legal certification of tracks generated by UASs and aircrafts flights, through the introduction of a new disruptive EGNSS-IoT digital system. CERTIFLIGHT features a software platform that offers to its customers (UAS Operators, GA Pilots) a digital service for the generation of certified reports of flight tracks and the flight logs of UASs and GA aircrafts, especially for safety related and commercially valuable applications, paving the way for a new class of U-space business services that include the activation of Smart Contracts (i.e. contracts activated when specific conditions are met as flying specific routes for drone parcel delivery). In addition, the recorded tracks may be useful for enforcement (i.e., sanctions for airspace infringement) as well as for possible accident or incident investigations. The core of the system is a digital EGNSS/IoT device installed on UASs and GA manned aircraft, equipped with an OSNMA Galileo/EGNOS enabled receiver, capable to guarantee the authenticity of their position information at the origin, without the possibility to be counterfeited or spoofed. Tracking information is cyphered for transmission to CERTIFLIGHT platform in real time and permanently stored to a private Blockchain node, unalterable once stored. Galileo OSNMA service acts as unique global enabler for this service, ensuring the authenticity of positioning data at the origin.