Water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) are interconnected, comprising a coherent system (nexus) dominated by complexity and modulated by climatic and socio-economic drivers. Resource constraints, and their interconnectedness could hamper economic development, including optimal trade, market and policy solutions. Moreover, policy objectives tend to be developed with little consideration to multiple sectors, and policy implementation may change nexus characteristics, in turn affecting actor behaviour and policy formulation. NEXOGENESIS will develop and validate: (a) a coherent cross-sectoral policy-making framework at different scales addressing climate and socio-economic change, as well as stakeholder behaviour and transboundary (diplomacy) issues, developed for and validated by stakeholders, policy makers, and academics; (b) a Self-Learning Nexus Assessment Engine (SLNAE) exploiting reinforcement learning, and supporting streamlining water-related policies into the WEFE nexus; (c) a WEFE Nexus Footprint, accompanying the SLNAE. NEXOGENESIS will apply its approach to four European and one case study in southern Africa. Through the case studies, strong stakeholder engagement and validation of output, NEXOGENESIS will improve policies and policy making processes to enhance cooperation and help the EU achieve targets related to the Water Framework Directive, the greener CAP, Green Deal ambitions, as well as ambitions on water diplomacy. NEXOGENESIS outcomes, both during and after the project, will have a major impact on advancing nexus understanding and governance, resulting in a more innovative and more competitive European Union regarding nexus policy-making, backed up by state-of-the-art evidence. NEXOGENESIS will continue to drive impact after the end of the funding period through dedicated outscaling and exploitation objectives to maximise future impacts and will bring project results to extended group of users via an innovative stakeholder engagement process.

“Making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning” is one of the 3 macro - objectives of the Communication on the Digital Education Action Plan, released in 2018 by the European Union. The year after, the Center for European Policy Studies conducted an analysis detecting “significant differences across member states in terms of the capacity to take up the opportunities of digital learning”, with a great difference between northern countries (the best positioned) and the southern countries, with Italy, Greece and Slovenia in particular ranked close to the end of the list. Then, at the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic event upset the world, with enormous consequences also in the worldwide and European educational systems. As a response, when decision makers realized that the educational system was too slow in facing the necessary shift from a fully-traditional educational structure to a partly-digital didactic, many efforts has been performed for the digitalization of curricular educational activities, but less efforts had been dedicated to extra-curricular activities, such as dual education. Acting in the field of dual education in order to digitize processes and tools also means a change of methodologies: traditional dual education schemes, where students are asked to perform mechanical tasks with equipments and machines, are no longer replicable on distance and a new approaches in planning experiences and assessing competence must be developed and tested.For these reasons, the SEED project created an international partnership composed by training and vocational education institutions as well as technological and scientific knowledge providers located in Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Greece to design and test innovative creative-base methodologies (SEED Toolkit) for teachers and trainers of the high schools and vocational schools (15-18 years old) using problem-solving approaches to deliver ready-to-use solution based on real-business cases in order to ensure the continuity in performing extra-curricular activities also on distance. SEED specific objectives are: => To recognize the importance of creativity as a crucial transversal skill for students in order to better face the increasing request of innovation in all sectors of the labour market; => To improve the use of “dual training” as a fundamental pillar for a faster and more profitable access of students in the labour market, especially by ensuring more digitalized and creativity-based methodologies; => To equip vocational education institutions staff with the necessary digital skills to manage on distance dual training experiences based on creative-led methodologies; => To contribute to the empowerment of the EU educational policies by testing and delivering a new creativity-based and digital solution, aligned with EPALE and School Education Gateway.Starting from a specific methodology (Contamination Labs) designed and implemented by Ca Foscari Foundation in Italy, where the connection between schools and enterprises is guaranteed by local labs where students of different level of education are asked to solve problems through creativity-based techniques by releasing “project works” (very close to business plans), the above mentioned objectives will be achieved by an intense cooperation of 24 months between the SEED partners, based on a first activity of baseline study (IO1) aiming at the identification of the starting points in terms of dual education systems actually active in PP countries (IO1.1), creative-based methodologies applied to work-school experiences (IO2) and digital solutions for on distance dual education experiences (IO1.3). The last action of IO1 is the definition of a first draft of the SEED Toolkit (IO1.4), to be then assessed and integrated with local Co-Design Labs (IO2.1) performed in all countries with the involvement of the 3 key stakeholders (teachers, tutors, mentors): this action will pave the way for the definition of the digital supportive technology (IO2.2) enabling the application of the SEED creative-based methodology on distance and leading to the Final SEED Toolkit (IO2.3). Once ready, the SEED Toolkit will be transferred first to internal trainers through a joint international training action (IO3.1 and C1) and then the knowledge will be transferred at local level to local SEED Communities in each of the 4 countries (IO3.2), in order to prepare the field for the User - Testing Experimentation (IO3.3), where the Toolkit will be tested in real dual education experiences (4 countries, 20 teachers, 20 companies and 100 students involved). The feedback collected during the ET Experimentations will drive to the SEED Handbook for on distance Creativity-Based Dual Education. SEED partners will be deeply involved in dissemination and raising awareness activities, in particular by means of 4 multipliers events (2 national and 2 international) to be organized after the release of the SEED Toolkit.

Collaborative Collisions aims at harnessing the full potential of non-formal science education, culture and the arts, to equip diverse cross-generational learners between 15-30 years of age with a range of competences, among them creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and resilience, as well as digital competence, which will empower them to address current and future large-scale societal and environmental challenges traversing our European community.This goal will be achieved through novel art-science virtual residencies, bringing together cohorts of learners and job seekers in direct collaboration with communities of practice in the arts, culture, science, and research, to create long-term creative partnerships as drivers for job creation, economic growth, improved social cohesion, as well as a means to experience, accept and engage European identity in all its diversity.The project leverages (i) informal job-shadowing, with young people allowed to go throughout the complete unedited creative process of artists and scientists, (ii) micro-mentoring by taking advantage of cross-generational mentoring as a powerful tool for inspiring youth with their transition from education to work and to better face uncertainties about their future, and (iii) self-reflection, where young learners will plunge into the creation of individualized handmade booklets of varying size and format (zines) to reflect upon the STEM subjects as intertwined by their own personal experiences, value and identities, and the whole process of creative thinking.Partners from Italy, Ireland, Greece and Hungary will explore the potential of new forms of cultural experiences and dissemination by enhancing the Science Gallery digital Rapid Residency model as pioneered by Trinity College Dublin - Science Gallery Dublin. They will challenge these well-grounded models and will undertake an experimental innovation process that will drill down to specific aspects of format and duration, interaction and collaboration modes and tools, content and strategies for audience development, finally enabling more collaborative and interactive creative art-science projects pursued in tandem with young beneficiaries.The project will ultimately test and evaluate if and how COVID-19 may act as a catalyst and accelerator for a digital value-adding transition to a virtual incarnation of artistic residencies, and if this digital migration is successful in terms of social inclusion and sustainability.