Ocean observing is executed and financed by nations according to their national interest and needs, but aligned with European and international agreements and directives. ObsSea4Clim brings together key European and international actors within ocean observing science, climate assessment, Earth System modelling, data sharing and standards, with users of oceanographic products and services with the goals of: - improving sustained and multipurpose observations vital to European and global climate requirements, and - delivering an improved observation framework based on EOV/ECVs and embedded in a Rolling Review of Requirements approach. ObsSea4Clim will: - improve regional and global climate assessments and - provide projections and actionable indicators for sustainable development provided. The work program is organized around four building blocks (TRL7-8): 1- the EOV/ECV concept, 2- the regional ocean indicator concepts, 3- the nations’ multi-purpose (climate, services, ocean health) ocean observing, 4- the integration with European and global initiatives. ObsSea4Clim will make use of ocean climate application areas such as: sea ice loss, ocean transports, stratification, sea level, ocean warming and marine heat waves and ocean mesoscale. Regional observing will be transformed into an EOV/ECVs framework suitable for regional and global climate products, ESM development (CMIP7) and indicators. ObsSea4Clim will also link to the Mission Restore our Ocean 2030 lighthouse basins. AI methods will control data quality and unlock EOV/ECVs from existing data repositories. ObsSea4Clim will promote the implementation of FAIR/CARE data, enabling and advocating their use for versatile applications and referenced to an EOV/ECV framework. ObsSea4Clim will actively lead the dialogue with European and international climate and data initiatives to ensure the necessary exchanges for implementing the ObsSea4Clim results into the international system. In this way, ObsSea4Clim will ensure sustained EU leadership in the ocean–climate–biodiversity science nexus at a global level.

Humans are at the center of knowledge-intensive manufacturing processes. They must be skilled and flexible to meet the requirements of their work environment. The training of new workers in these processes is time consuming and costly for companies. Industries, such as the Italian textile sector suffer from the shortage of skilled workers caused, e.g. by the demographic change. A second challenge for the manufacturing sector is the continuous competition through high quality products. COALA will address both challenges through the innovative design and development of a voice-first Digital Intelligent Assistant for the manufacturing sector. The COALA solution will base on the privacy-focused open assistant Mycroft. It integrates prescriptive quality analytics, AI system to support on-the-job training of new workers, and a novel explanation engine - the WHY engine. COALA will address AI ethics during design, deployment, and use of the new solution. Critical components for the adoption of the solution are a new didactic concept to reach workers about opportunities, challenges, and risks in human-AI collaboration, and a concurrent change management process. Three use cases (textile, white goods, liquid packaging) will evaluate the results in common manufacturing processes with significant economic relevance. COALA will contribute its results to the European AI community, e.g. via the AI4EU platform, and it will involve Digital Innovation Hubs to replicate its demonstrators for Europes first trustworthy digital assistant for the manufacturing industry. We expect to reduce the failure cost in manufacturing by 30-60% with the prescriptive quality analytics feature and the assisted worker training. For the change over time we expect a reduction of 15% to 30% by shortening the worker training time.

Planning and scheduling (P&S) is a core area of AI. Its aim is to build systems that assist humans in planning, organising and optimising courses of action to achieve complex objectives. Despite the pressing need for decision-support systems for P&S applications in industry and public services, current approaches do not satisfy essential properties of trustworthy AI, such as transparency, explainability, robustness, safety and scalability. TUPLES is a 3 year project aiming to obtain scalable, yet transparent, robust and safe algorithmic solutions for P&S. The cornerstones of our scientific contributions will be (1) combining symbolic P&S methods with data-driven methods to benefit from the scalability and modelling power of the latter, while gaining the transparency, robustness, and safety of the former and (2) developing rigorous explanations and verification approaches for ensuring the transparency, robustness, and safety of a sequence of interacting machine learned decisions. Both of these challenges are at the forefront of AI research. We will demonstrate and evaluate our novel and rigorous methods in a laboratory environment, on a range of use-cases in manufacturing, aircraft operations, sport management, waste collection, and energy management. Our results also include practical guidelines derived from the lessons learnt in this process, and open-source software tools and test environments enabling the human-centered development and assessment of trustworthy P&S systems. Expected outcomes include increased productivity, decreased environmental footprint and the empowerment of workers in the above sectors. These could translate into huge economic, environmental and social impacts if trustworthiness ends up driving mass adoption of P&S. The TUPLES consortium includes world-leading researchers in several fields of AI (P&S, constraints, machine learning, explanations), humanities and social sciences (psychology, law, ethics), and experts of their applications.

The VOYAGES project is the collective effort of 12 partners and the legacy of 15 years of participation in the ERN as a Consortium. Our ambition is to organize events in 14 different French cities (specifically focusing on medium-sized cities, where there are researchers, but science engagement activities are less frequent), sharing the same objectives, activities, approach to popularization, and involving local researchers. Our project is based on an engaging theme: “Voyages” that will help visitors dream and stimulate researchers. Convinced that the quality of the exchange with researchers is the key factor in enriching and refining the public's vision of research and science in society, we create warm and aesthetic encounters between the public and researchers. Our theme stimulates the creativity of the scenographers and mediators who design playful activities to be shared by researchers and the public (The Researchers’ suitcase, different Strolls, etc.). On national and international scales, we are designing three online formats that will allow thousands of people to discover field research all over the world, engage in face-to-face dialogue on Zoom and debate with researchers from other countries. To achieve this “in person” and “online” strategy, the 1,000 researchers involved in the project will be coached and trained by mediators, artists or scenographers. A long-lasting effect on researchers will be one outcome, as ERN is an occasion for them to start a long journey in science engagement. The French Ministry of Culture will financially support the event for the 4th year, fostering the participation of researchers in social sciences and humanities; the Ministry of Research will also continue its support. One partner is in charge of strategies for reducing the environmental impact of the events. The ERN will let us take a breath of fresh air and formulate questions about the resources and future of the planet. Flight 2021 to Research is now boarding!

Beyond UNIVERSEH will develop the research and innovation dimension of the UNIVERSEH European University, an alliance of five partners: University of Toulouse (France), AGH University of Science and Technology (Poland), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany) and University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg). Beyond UNIVERSEH will expand the teaching, learning, know-how of the alliance, into a UNIVERSEH European Research University focusing on “Space” in all its dimensions: Science and Engineering; Economy, Business and Finance; Medicine and Health; Social and Human Sciences; Art and Culture; Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It will bring in researchers and stakeholders from multiple backgrounds, promoting a highly multi-disciplinary and cross sectorial network to address the societal challenges of Space and New Space. Beyond UNIVERSEH’s main ambition is to develop and propose a research policy roadmap for 2035 and a vision for 2050 within the space sector. This roadmap will implement a sustainable, integrated research and innovation network within the UNIVERSEH alliance and beyond. Also, Beyond UNIVERSEH will create a shared and collaborative virtual single lab and a research community among, spearheading new collaborative and interdisciplinary methodologies, to further enhance Space research and innovation outputs. Additionally, the alliance proposal will reinforce the links with: (i) its Space economic ecosystem focusing on industry-academia collaborations, (ii) the citizens; and (iii) policy and decision makers. The consortium has already established collaborations and gathered the support of key stakeholders such as national space agencies. We expect Beyond UNIVERSEH to notably transform the future Space and New Space research landscape, as well as to enhance the links between education and research. Moreover, we believe the methodologies and practices co-created by this alliance will serve as a model for other collaborative initiatives in Europe and the world.