EXERTER connects 22 practitioners from 13 EU Member States into a Network with Explosives Specialists within the Security of Explosives (SoE) area. The objective of the EXERTER Network is to bridge the difficulties for security practitioners to capture and utilize research results and to direct the industry’s innovation efforts to address the most pressing needs in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. Practitioners will via EXERTER get improved operational capability via novel technologies, methods and knowledge to aid them in executing more efficient countermeasures in a changing threat environment. In cooperation with key practitioners in the Network, the project will each year define one unique scenario based on past events to facilitate the identification of capability gaps along different counter-terrorist phases associated with PREVENT, DETECT, MITIGATE and REACT. With its explosives expertise, EXERTER will provide recommendations to the SoE community on how these gaps can be countered by (i) directing innovators into targeted areas to which research programmes should focus, (ii) proposing standardization priority areas and (iii) advising on exploitation and commercialisation opportunities. Ongoing research activities will continuously be reviewed to promote practitioners’ uptake of results and knowledge. Academia and research institutes will be supported by the technical expertise within EXERTER to lower exploitation barriers for promising research by enhancing their interaction with security industry. EXERTER will assess evolving threats requiring immediate attention of the SoE community - thus widely addressing emerging technologies and trends. Annual interaction workshops will be held where explosives practitioners, research institutes and academia as well as industry gather to discuss the current state of play and future roadmaps to answer to urgent capability requirements.

The COVID-19 pandemic has a severe impact on higher education, and this impact is present also in the military academies, as universities had to close for some periods of time the direct teaching process in response to lockdown measures. Some universities or faculties had to replace classic teaching system with online or hybrid learning and these measures affected learning, teaching and examinations quality. In the same time, the international relations were also impacted by the COVID-19 situation. The main needs identified by the project consortium are: difficulties in operating available applications and programs adapted to remote learning; lack of methodological skills in the use of multimedia tools, methods, and techniques in the education process, problems with connectivity and security. The idea of the DIGICODE project was born during the meetings of representatives of Military University of Technology from Poland, Military Technical Academy „Ferdinand I” from Romania, “Artillery, AD and CIS” Faculty from Shumen of „Vasil Levski” National Military University from Bulgaria and University of Turin from Italy within Military Erasmus initiative (www.emilyo.eu/), as well as in connection with the emergence of an unexpected situation, which is the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.The aim of the DIGICODE project is to improve the security and defence education quality by using digital tools in the didactic activities and by developing digital competences of teachers. The main objectives of the project are: to conduct a survey and collecting detailed information in a group of students and lecturers from international universities and to conduct a comparative analysis in order to compare the processes, strategies, and methods used by the respondents and to identify the best practices and competencies ensuring safe and effective online teaching in Security and Defence; to develop a Best Practices Handbook, including a collection of best practices and solutions used by universities in the times of COVID-19; to develop a teacher tool-kit including a toolkit for digital competences for teachers in the Security and Defence field and open online training courses to support teachers and trainers in using specific digital learning environments for education, different kinds of digital tools, and in adopting innovative and adaptive methodologies like problem solving, problem-based teaching, learning by doing, formative and data-driven automatic assessment with interactive and immediate feedback, collaborative learning, team working; to design and develop a curriculum for a summer school “Systems for Command and Control in Security and Defence Field” which plays a critical role in helping teachers to have an integrated vision of the security and defence education system; to apply the teacher tool-kit prepared especially for the digital education in order to explain the systems functionality, replacing the classic laboratory activities; to improve the digital competences and to improve the communication skills in online environment of at least 16 teachers and 16 students from security and defence education institutions; to build the critical mass of knowledge and resources in partner institutions in order to foster the use of digital education in military academies.The main activities of the project will consist in 4 transnational meetings, 5 intellectual outputs, 2 multiplier events, 2 staff training editions for improvement the technical competences and communication skills for digital education and 2 summer schools in digital education for learners “Systems for Command and Control in Security and Defence Field”. The project activities will be organized in 8 work packages: WP 1 - Needs Analysis; WP 2 – Benchmarking digital competences in Security and Defence education and elaboration of Best Practices Handbook; WP 3 – Teacher tool-kit for digital learning in security and defence education; WP 4 – Summer School Design; WP 5 – Cybersecurity in Digital Education; WP 6 – Pilot Summer School Implementation; WP 7 – Development of Report on participants‘ experiences and lessons learned after the trial digital education; WP 8 – Dissemination.As a result of the activities implemented, we expect to produce sustainable results among the participants and the organizations involved, that could be translates into a better capacity of the teachers to face the challenges of the digitalization and of the digital learning in security and defence education system. The Best Practices Handbook, the methodology for the cybersecurity requirements, the teacher tool-kit and the teacher digital workbook and all other outputs created within the project will support the context for the future organization of the staff training activities and summer schools for students in order to improve the teachers and students digital competences and communication skills in online environment applied to the security and defence education system.

"The objectives of the European Common Technical Semester for Defence and Security (EuCTS_DS) project are the development, testing and designing of a new modular curriculum for an international technical semester for defence and security, at bachelor level, common at European Union, and also the development of a network of teachers with competences in the field of technical systems for defence and security. The project idea comes in the frame of European initiative for the exchange of young officers inspired by Erasmus, often referred to as ""military Erasmus"" (EMILYO, http://www.emilyo.eu/), that is an initiative undertaken by the European Union Member States aimed at developing the exchanges between armed forces of future military officers as well as their teachers and instructors during their initial education and training. All the member institutions of the project are accredited as state higher education institutions of the national Ministry of Defence from each country, integrated into their national education systems, having among their missions the objective to prepare the future engineer officers in the field of engineering sciences: Military Technical Academy ”Ferdinand I” , Bucharest, Romania (MTA Bucharest), Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland (WAT Warsaw) , the Faculty of Artillery, Air Defence and Communication and Information System from Shumen of ”Vasil Levski” National Military University Bulgaria (NMU Bulgaria), Hellenic Air Force Academy Attika, Athens, Greece (HAFA Athens) and Air Force Academy Salon de Provence, France (FAFA Salon de Provence). The main activities of the project are organized in 9 work packages: WP1 Project management and implementation (planning, implementation, evaluation and dissemination activities, under the coordination of MTA Bucharest, based on a general work plan and action plans agreed during meetings and phone/video conferences or e-mail communication); WP2 - Professional Network in the Field of Technical Systems for Defence and Security (developed professional networks of teachers and researchers for basic engineering, military science for engineers, mechanical and aerospace engineering, electronic and computer science engineering, resulting finally a pool of lecturer); WP3 - International Technical Semester Curriculum Development (curriculum with common subjects at EU in the field of technical systems for defence and security); WP4 - International Technical Semester Subjects Description (detailed description for each subject included in the curriculum); WP5 - Preparation of Education Materials (course support and applications prepared to be used during the learning/teaching activities in the frame of the international semester); WP6 - Interdisciplinary Scientific Project Preparation (teaching activity included in the international semester using the project based learning methodology, assuring the competencies in different engineering branches); WP7 - E-learning Platform (modern tool used to share learning materials and to support the teaching/learning activities in the international semester); WP8 - Teaching/Learning Activities for Testing the International Technical Semester (Intensive Study Programmes organized in order to test the curriculum, subject description, learning materials and e-learning platform prepared for the international semester); WP9 - Impact and Dissemination (dissemination activities organized to share the project results, including two multiplier events). The EuCTS_DS outputs are international technical semester curriculum, descriptions for each subject included in the curriculum, methodology for the interdisciplinary project, e-books with educational materials for the international technical semester curriculum, guide for the international technical semester implementation, network of teachers with competences in technical systems for defence and security, electronic platform for e-learning, DVD with the project results. The EuCTS_DS outcomes consist in developing the new competences and knowledge for the students, but also for the teachers, increasing the interest of the students and teachers in taking part in international activities, increasing the visibility and the national and international recognition of the members of the project consortium, increasing the level of the academic results of the students, authentic learning. The interdisciplinary approach of the EuCTS_DS will provide to the teachers and students a wider perspective over the field technical systems for defence and security, and will enhance their skills in the area of didactical and pedagogical methods. The EuCTS_DS will facilitate further development of partnerships in the field of teacher and student mobility between the partner universities. The nature of the lectures and the broad spectrum of teachers will provide new links and opportunities for new joint degree study programs."

Environmental concerns motivate a transition to liquid hydrogen aviation fuel in coming decades, and for this technology the size, placement and connections of the hydrogen tank on an aircraft are key decisions. The Hydrogen Aircraft Sloshing Tank Advancement project (HASTA) aims to experimentally and computationally investigate the storage of liquid hydrogen (LH2) for airborne use as fuel in civil aircraft applications. Size and position of a LH2 tank inside an aircraft are limiting factors for range, payload and aircraft size, and consequently play a crucial role in the environmental impact. The goal of facilitating tank design will be achieved through creation of design criteria for LH2 aircraft tanks; these design guidelines will be based on the different tools and models of derived during the project, in particular those aimed at complex cryogenic sloshing. The experimentally validated design tools developed during HASTA are to be used for both conceptual and detailed design in the aircraft industry, and therefore span a range of fidelities from reduced order models to full computational methods. The primary focus of this project will be the development of LH2 capabilities, and particularly the extension of mature capabilities already available for sloshing of standard civil aircraft fuel (kerosene) to the cryogenic temperatures associated with LH2. These capabilities are well reflected in the composition of the consortium, which includes partners with both experimental and modelling experience of fuel slosh, as well as cryogenics for space applications. The ultimate goal of the project is development of experimentally validated numerical and analytical simulation tools to model the complex thermo-fluid-dynamics of cryogenic LH2 coupled to the thermo–mechanical behavior of a tank and its operational environment.