The HOOP Project will help to unlock bio-based investments and deploy local bio economies in Europe through a systemic and cross-cutting approach. It will offer Project Development Assistance (PDA) to a group of 8 lighthouse cities and city clusters - to build the technical, economic, financial and legal expertise needed to develop concrete investments to valorise OFMSW (Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste) or UWWS (Urban Wastewater Sludge) with the aim of obtaining safe and sustainable bio-based products. Each PDA will contain detailed implementation assistance and a defined Circular Business Model tailored to each participating lighthouse city, as well as financing mechanisms to be used for mobilising investment. Moreover, HOOP will launch stakeholder engagement and citizen science initiatives to allow for the co-design of an improved collection of OFMSW for its later optimum valorisation. It will promote behavioural change and acceptability of biowaste-based products, as well as food waste prevention. The HOOP Project will also feature the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub (UCBH), an online platform that will provide opportunities to replicate the PDAs of the lighthouse cities in other follower cities (currently composed by 26 committed cities from all around Europe) – under the launch of the Network of Follower European Cities. HOOP continues the work of the projects VALUEWASTE, Scalibur and WaystUP!, funded under topic CE-SFS-25-2018 and coordinated by the three technical leaders of HOOP. The HOOP Consortium covers the whole value chain, from biowaste recovery to valorisation and characterization of the final products and unites complementary stakeholders with the deep multi-disciplinary knowledge crucial to PDA creation and the achievement of project objectives. It includes partners from 10 EU member countries, 5 municipalities and 3 clusters of cities.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic matter is a robust technology for biogas synthesis from different types of waste (sewage sludge from water treatment, animal slurry, bio-waste, etc.). The main goal of AD is the production of methane, a renewable energy source that can be used to generate electricity, heat or as vehicle fuel. Biogas is a mixture of methane (CH4; 55–70% of the total volume), carbon dioxide (CO2; 30–40%) and traces of other gases. In 2018, EU was the world’s largest producer of biomethane, reaching 2,28 bcm. However, from a purely engineering view, the microbial process underlying methane production is considered to be a black box: it is subjected to a degree of variability and it is an industrial process with a lot of room for improvement in the systematic optimisation of (1) yield, (2) quality, (3) speed and (4) robustness of the process. MICRO4BIOGAS aims to tackle these 4 aspects by integrating, for the first time, the use of microbial consortia that naturally inhabit anaerobic digesters with synthetic microbial consortia with improved capabilities, setting the basis for a user-friendly kit for bioaugmentation of biogas production (activities will be implemented at TRL3 with a TRL target of 5-6). Partners from 6 EU countries will work side by side to make a difference in the European biogas industry, that individually could not be achieved. By improving the biogas production in Europe, this project meets the EU Bioeconomy Strategy and the European Green Deal, helping to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG7: Affordable and clean energy; SDG13: Climate Action) and working towards the circularity, resource efficiency and sustainability of the European countries.

The European Space Programme (EUSpace) holds vast potential to fulfil the EU green and digital (twin) transition, but SMEs’ limited uptake and technological capacity is preventing them from fully unlocking the green and digital transformation. FIERCE aims to address these limitations by mobilising 140 SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups with specialised technical and business advisory to design business solutions and engage in process innovation using downstream space data in areas such as circularity, raw materials, environmental monitoring and corporate sustainability (space-enabled green solutions). We mobilise 2.5 million EUR in financial support providing 70 SMEs with access to market services and key infrastructure to realise their vision through Transformation Projects, supporting ideation, scaling up and commercialization of space-enabled solutions, accelerating SMEs journey to the market. We complement our support for SMEs with 10+ Local Entrepreneurship Initiatives driven by innovation intermediaries and business support networks (DIHs, clusters etc.) aimed creating more SME opportunities for space-enabled green innovation through synergies with regional industrial, research and market actors and infrastructure providers (OITBs). We reach further to key EU-wide networks (EEN, SME Alliance, EARSC) through our Strategic Partnership Network to create synergies and joint activities to navigate SMEs and innovation intermediaries towards exploiting high-impact opportunities for funding, collaboration and knowledge exchange, as well as jointly organized FIERCE investment tracks in the frame of key industry and business events. We deploy the FIERCE digital toolbox to enrich our support with 50+ learning resources, 10+ practical tools and 70+ qualified service providers to create a vibrant dedicated community. Finally, we monitor our performance and impact to design practical replication handbooks to inspire wider application and recommendations for enabling policies.

Africa will need to feed over 2 billion people by 2050 while coping with unprecedented demographic, socio-economic, environmental, climatic and health transitions. Meanwhile, undernourishment is still on the rise, affecting almost 20% of its population now. Under this light, ensuring Africa’s food security becomes imperative, with the bioeconomy posed to play a leading role to this end. It is against this backdrop that BIO4AFRICA sets off to support the deployment of the bioeconomy in rural Africa via the development of bio-based solutions and value chains with a circular approach to drive the cascading use of local resources and diversify the income of farmers. Our focus is on transferring simple, small-scale and robust bio-based technologies adapted to local biomass, needs and contexts (green biorefinery, pyrolysis, hydrothermal carbonisation, briquetting, pelletising, bio-composites and bioplastics production). In doing so we aim at empowering farmers to sustainably produce a variety of higher value bio-based products and energy (animal feed, fertiliser, pollutant absorbents, construction materials, packaging, solid fuel for cooking and catalysts for biogas production), significantly improving the environmental, economic and social performance of their forage agri-food systems. To this end, we have set up 4 pilot cases with over 8 testing sites in Uganda, Ghana, Senegal and Ivory Coast, offering more than 300 farmers and farmer groups of all sizes (incl. small dairy and lower-income farmers, women farmer groups and transhumant pastoralists among others) the opportunity to test them in real productive conditions. Along the way, our balanced mix of 13 African and 12 EU partners will engage in solid multi-actor collaboration with rural communities and government, co-developing novel sustainable value chains driven by circular business models and supporting deployment in other areas, all while safeguarding agronomic, environmental, social and economic sustainability.

iDriving aims to deliver a TRL 6 prototype based on seven key pillars, all designed to work synergistically to create an interactive, accurate and efficient solution to improve infrastructure safety of urban and secondary rural roads. (i) A Safety Criteria Catalogue (SCC) for all road users for secondary and urban roads. This establishes a benchmark for safety standards and KPIs, forming the foundational blueprint that guides all aspects of the iDriving system. (ii) Common communication solutions, ensuring a seamless and real-time exchange of data across a diverse range of sensors from various vehicles and road infrastructures. (iii) Innovative sensor integration on compact packages. These can be easily deployed and maintained on both vehicles and road infrastructure, particularly on secondary and urban roads, thus acting as core data collection or independent processing hubs for onsite analysis. (iv) Efficient and accurate monitoring services. This includes visual inspection of the road network, vehicle behavior analysis, and the analysis of weather conditions, all crucial for proactive road safety management. (v) Intelligence to maintenance operations to reduce the costs and impact on other users through advanced tools like 3D visualization, defect detection at the local level, and optimal traffic management. (vi) AI-based warning mechanisms that can provide real-time alerts about hazardous conditions or accidents either on road infrastructure with signs or lightning or directly to vehicle users via enhanced interfaces. The final pillar ensures the seamless integration of all these elements, bringing together sophisticated AI-driven analytics, machine learning, sensor fusion, and cutting-edge simulations into a (vii) Digital Twin of the road infrastructure. This facilitates the anticipation, identification, and response to a wide range of road conditions and events in real-time.