The proposed Knowledge Alliance (KA) aims at competencies needed for a sustainable socio-economic development and for sustainability driven enterprises. We want to change the EU landscape of HEIs towards a stronger accentuation on new inter- and transdisciplinary ways of teaching and learning, sustainable entrepreneurial education and increasing university-business cooperation in the context of a “green economy”. This shall be achieved through the framework and basic elements of a new Joint Master Program on “Sustainability Driven Entrepreneurship, Policies and Innovation” for European universities. The framework is based on four educational modules focussing on: 1) Sustainable socio-economic development 2) Sustainability driven enterprises 3) Eco innovations and environmental management and 4) Environmental policies and networks. Each module could also be used as “stand-alone” to offer universities substantial support and guidance.The structure of every module is aiming at acquirement of skills and competences via using inter- and transdisciplinary methods and tools in teaching and learning, focusing university business cooperation and project work and implementation aiming at entrepreneurial education and founding new sustainability driven enterprises.5 regional pilots which form an inter-university course with more than 25 service learning projects (and 25 service learning partners / enterprises) will test and optimise the modules while providing various best practice examples of university-business cooperation.At the end of the proposed project, an open access knowledge platform will provide the four modules and shall account and enable European universities for the implementation of the Joint Master and for their own curricula building processes. This knowledge platform will be linked with and supported by global multipliers such as the UNU / global RCE network or the COPERNICUS Alliance in order to sustain the activities and partnership of the proposed KA

SMARTER TOGETHER’s overarching vision is to find the right balance between smart technologies and organizational/ governance dimensions in order to deliver smart and inclusive solutions and to improve citizen’s quality of life. SMARTER TOGETHER gather the European Lighthouse cities Lyon, Munich, Vienna, the Follower cities Santiago de Compostela, Sofia, Venice and Kyiv and Yokohama as observer cities bringing the perspective of East Europe and Asia. The cities are complemented by business partners from energy, mobility and ICT sectors, leading European research and academia organizations, european city network. From the various combinations of the different selected Light House areas, multiples opportunities to learn are offering. SMARTER TOGETHER delivers 5 clusters of co-created, smart and integrated solutions: (1) Living labs for citizen engagement, (2) District heating and RES for low energy districts, (3) Holistic refurbishment for low energy districts addressing public and private housing, (4) Smart Data management platform and smart services (5) E-mobility solutions for sustainable mobility. Expected results are: 1) >151,800 m2 of refurbished buildings, primarily housing estate with a 50-60 % average energy and CO2 reduction; 2) 14.6 MW of newly installed renewable capacity; 3) 10/15new e-mobility solutions for passengers and freight); 4) 1400 created jobs, 130 M€ investments, all deployed with support of integrated ICT solutions and in dialogue with the inhabitants. Large-scale replication will be prepared; 1) in the Lighthouse cities; 2) the Follower cities, which already selected their target area; 3) A Club of 15-20 cities, associate to intensify its roll-out, ensuring a broad geographical and climate coverage. Commercial exploitation is enhanced by the development of new business models for widespread use by the stakeholders. Contributions to open data are expected to create business opportunities as well as inputs to standardization work.