<< Background >>The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Out of the SDG goals the project mainly target these goals: 4 Quality Education, 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, 17 Partnerships for the Goals. The advancement of the circular economy is driven by three major trends: - changing consumer needs, -scarce resources, -the emergence of technological breakthroughs. It is essential to treat sustainability as three closely connecting areas: the economy, the society and the natural environment. In the interests of sustainability, these three areas must exist in symbiosis without adversely affecting each other. Since we are a network of universities in European Capital of Culture (ECoC) and we want to promote sustainable development through cultural events (activities at ECoC events) it is important to stress the culture as the 4th pillar of sustainable development. (UNESCO, The 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions; UCLG, 2015, Agenda 21: Actions. Commitments on the role of culture in sustainable cities.)The Urban Agenda for the EU also contributes to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, notably Goal 11 ‘Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ .The EU reinforces Youth dialogue on European themes: greener thinking and lifestyle – a desired activity in the context of the European debate on the future of Europe, aiming to build a fair, green and digital future Europe. Being the next generation of consumers, employees, and owners/managers of companies, there is a strong need for appropriate education, attitude shaping about green issues. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have the responsibility of educating young adults, furthermore the HEIs have a widespread and active cooperation with their catchment area (including a wide range of public and private stakeholders). The power of youth’s voices, young influencers are more effective in the targeted group. Although sustainability, green practices are widely acknowledged, there is a need to develop new innovative and creative solutions. Yet the several aspect of green (not just in ecological perspective) is still missing. We need to have a more holistic view in that. Technological developments, and also changed conditions for education enabled to establish new solutions for knowledge transfer. During the COVID period everything was online, communication and interaction skilled were mastered. Though coming back to the offline, social world we need to implement these communication skills in a positive way to influence each other. Our aim is to challenge youth communication influencing power for a greater good for society. Youth have their voice and online it was listened to. They have the power to influence anyway, so why not in a green way. Up till then most of the European projects (by filtering the Erasmus Research Platform) lacked of the relevance of reversed dialogue and learning curve. This means the policy makers, teachers, lecturers and trainers investigating the needs and skills of youth and developed materials to teach them. This project aims to target the niche of the reverse attitude, namely what educators, policy makers can learn from young influencers and how young influencing communication methods can be transferred from the online world to the offline platform and thought to university students. Throughout the project we will work with these influencers. With this project we would like to cooperate with them on competences and topics that are vital today and teach others with a snowball method how to influence the society with green ideas (sustainable festival, art, consumption).<< Objectives >>The general goal of the project is to develop environmental awareness among university students and to spread the thought of sustainable development among the widest possible age groups at events that attract large audience. There is a aim hierarchy, which means partners regard the GreenCool project as the next jigsaw in their strategic framework to reach continuality in the filed of university students' skill development. Therefore we committed to develop an innovative online course material and to mainstream sustainable development in all curricula for higher education students. Recognizing the convincing power of young influencers, the project aims to reach out to all age groups of audience at cultural events and festivals in the various European Capitals of Culture to encourage environmentally conscious activity and to be active members and beneficiaries of sustainable development. Furthermore our goal is to equip students with communication tools and sustainable attitude to become effective advocates for advancing EU green economy and culture.Message: To teach as many people as possible to think greener, to believe in sustainable development not only in environmental, but also in the social, cultural and economic spheres.The 20th century concept was to “think globally and act locally”. We believe in the idea of “thinking local, acting globally’ is the 21st century phenomenon, as influencer can blog an idea in their room in front of the computer and have a huge global effect in quick time! The place where we are living is not just about the environment but rather the way of life. Local values remain where you live. This approach is in harmony with the value of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) as well.TARGET GROUPSPrimary:-lecturers-university students from several majors and international students will be ‘ambassadors’Secondary:-influencers-high school students-young adults-festival audience<< Implementation >>The goals of the project can only be achieved if we are aware of the communication techniques we can use to influence the target group on the topic to be developed. We will conduct a comprehensive research, according to the following process:1Desktop research, including literature review and best practices, case studies collection2Questionnaire survey with students and influencers partly based on previous studies and desk top research, and developed by researchers on this field3Focus-group interviews with influencers to explore influencer tools and techniques.We will conduct a survey among influencers in the partner ECoC cities (on the required competencies) in cooperation with each Partner in each country (PR1). The final Project Result1 is a best practice collection titled Greenfluence Practices Collection.PR2 - The data will be analysed and based on the results we develop an ECoC course material titled ‘Attitude shaping communication techniques and green related topics in the 21st Century’. We will explore and define in a glossary the collected communication techniques and green topics.This is a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) in each language, parallel on Moodle platform and on a public, more interactive platform with extra components. Partners involve experts in order to develop the curriculum. Experts of presentation and communication skill development techniques are working together on various topics. Ecologists, artists and creative professionals and ECoC sustainable program leaders will work together on various topics several times from the Autumn of 2022. We will organize and hold an international, summer camp and workshop with lecturers, experts, students and influencers to try out and finalize the training material (C1 GreenCool Summer Workshop) in June 2023 in Veszprém and at Lake Balaton (Hungary). Through training, we help volunteer university students/influencers how to shape the attitudes of communities towards sustainable development. The MOOC material will be available in two platforms: in Moodle system internally for university students of the project partners to use it in PR3 and PR4 period; an interactive public platform for other European universities, (such as the members University Network of European Capital of Culture), young adults, organizations, associate partners who do not have a Moodle system.After all (September-December 2023) (PR3) Online and offline ECoC course (blended learning: online lessons and offline classroom lessons) at all partner universities (based on the MOOC material, national level and language) will start. The topic is attitude shaping among students, we will teach communication techniques on green topics. The outcome of the course is a participation in an ECoC event/festival in November-December 2023, where students can try and test their knowledge and influence audience offline (E1-4 in all ECoC cities). During the local events we will conduct a survey (feedback questionnaire) among the target groups. Using the feedback of surveys, the research results and the experiences gained from course curriculum we will update/fine-tune the MOOC material.PR4 - From October 2023 - December 2023 we are going to prepare for the international online and offline ECoC course (blended learning), which starts in January 2024 and lasts until June 2024. The course will be launched at all partner universities (based on the MOOC material, with internationally mixed students, in English language). The best 4 students (the best presenters based on course requirements) and 2 lecturers from each university are entitled to be present at the final Greencool ECoC event in Tartu, June 2024: International GreenCool Meet-Up.Stakeholders (lecturers, ECoC experts) will sum up the experiences of the international course in the frames of an online workshop, and summarize them in a guideline titled: ‘How to build developed techniques and sustainable awareness into existing university curricula?’<< Results >>Raising awareness of sustainability, green issues among the youth. Enhancement of deep knowledge and understanding of sustainability among the involved target groups’ (among them HEI students). Establishment of learning material (MOOC) available for a wide range of potential audience. Increased cooperation of HEIs with their environment. Integrating technological development into knowledge transfer linked to sustainability, green practices.The expected outcome of the project is to inspire mainly university students to become greenfluencer ambassadors in all aspect of green let it be environment, culture, literature, food and drink, way of life etc. The other expected outcome is when youth, expert in green topics and communication by developing a MOOC material have different views which creates a more interactive course cooperation community. Furthermore the national and international ECoC events give a tremendous opportunity to these youth to make their voice heard offline on green topics through diverse influencing techniques. The following intellectual outputs are aimed to be reached: PR1: - GREENFLUENCE PRACTICES COLLECTION AND RESEARCH: methodological framework for implementation by exploring influencer tools and techniques and communication channels through youth can be approached in the 21st centuryPR2: DEVELOPING THE MASSIVE ONLINE OPEN COURSE (MOOC), Course curriculum-design and development of material in two platforms. An international, summer camp and workshop with lecturers, experts, students and influencers to develop the training material (C1 GreenCool Summer Workshop) in June 2023 in Veszprém and at Lake Balaton (Hungary).PR3: BLENDED ECOC GREENFLUENCER PILOT COURSE ON NATIONAL LEVEL at all partner universities at national level (based on the MOOC material, national level and language). The outcome of the course is a participation in an ECoC event/festival in November-December 2023, where students can try and test their knowledge and influence audience offline (E1-4 in all ECoC cities).PR4: BLENDED ECOC GREENFLUENCER INTERNATIONAL COURSE at all partner universities at international level. The best 4 students (the best presenters based on course requirements) and 2 lecturers from each university are entitled to be present at the final Greencool ECoC event in Tartu, June 2024: International GreenCool MeetUp (C2). PROFESSIONAL CONTENT AND GUIDELINES for international online workshop for stakeholders to give suggestions how to integrate these techniques into subjects from any disciplines in order to provide the knowledge for any universities.

Understanding citizen acceptance of the Energy Union, responsiveness to socioeconomic incentives for increased ownership, and prosumerism requires a multidisciplinary understanding of social systems and inclusiveness and robustness of policymaking depends on having empirically and theoretically grounded methodological tools to assess and adapt policy strategies. SMARTEES addresses this need by an iterative process: (1) integration of theories and methodologies of social innovation and agent-based socio-economic simulation in a comprehensive, flexible framework; (2) unprecedented data collection and integration in five trans-European case clusters in the domains of consumer-driven regenerative energy production, energy efficiency in buildings, low-carbon regional transport and consumer empowerment; (3) dynamic, multilevel agent-based models of successful innovation transfer; which ultimately lead to (4) a policy sandbox which allows a realistic prospective analysis of existing and future policy and market incentive scenarios. Each case cluster addresses a particular social innovation and consists of two reference cases and 4-5 followers. This enables SMARTEES to study the upscaling and replicability in different contexts. The policy sandbox is developed in a co-constructive process with users on the case level and in policymakers workshops on the European level. By doing this, SMARTEES contributes to robust and adaptive future policymaking, understanding of barriers and sources of resistance, the effects of the Energy Union on vulnerable consumer groups, genders and cultures. Furthermore, SMARTEES substantially drives advancement of social innovation and social simulation research by dynamic modelling of supply chains, companies, social groups, cities and neighbourhoods. In addition to making all modelling code and findings publically available, SMARTEES also ensures long term impact of the project by developing a commercialized version of the policy sandbox tool.

PHENOCYCLES is addressing the environmental concern derived from agro-industrial wastes proposing their exploitation for obtaining important bioactive molecules (polyphenolic compounds: PP), to be utilized for different purposes, with a typical circular economy approach. PHENOCYCLES aims at exploring innovative uses of PP and at validating methods for their extraction with a green chemistry approach. PP extracted from agro-industrial wastes (grape, apple, berry pomaces) and herbs with therapeutic value will be purified/fractionated with pilot-scale nano/ultrafiltration membranes to recover different PP fractions, to be employed in four distinct sectors: • human health: synthesis of substances for photodynamic therapy (PDT) and drug delivery (DD), development of innovative phytocarrier systems, formulation of PP loaded micro/nano-scale systems, development of new food supplements (nutraceutics), and hypoallergenic cosmetics. • plant production: PP-based nanomaterials for plant protection against soil-borne pests, to increase plant resistance to stresses, impacting on plant-organisms’ trophic interactions. • environment protection: use of PP as sensitizer or intermediate in the synthesis of materials for water disinfection and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). • material sciences: synthesis of metal based oxide nanostructures useful for photocatalytic applications. To foster future exploitation of the innovations, a thorough assessment of the stakeholders’ perception of their adoptability will be performed applying a participatory approach together with several innovative dissemination activities based on visual media. The interdisciplinary exchanges planned in PHENOCYCLES are thus expected to increase the knowledge of researchers, particularly young ones, on the different methods utilized by the partners fostering further developments in medicine, pharmacology, crop protection, food preservatives, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and other industrial applications.