ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) is the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe. It is dedicated to scientific research and innovation and offers a unique framework for interaction and debate for scientists, innovators, policy makers, business people and the general public. Created in 2004 by EuroScience, the non-profit grassroots association of researchers in Europe, this biennial, interdisciplinary, pan-European forum brings together over 4 000 researchers, educators, business actors, policy makers and journalists from all over the world to discuss breakthroughs in science. After Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, Torino, Dublin, Copenhagen, Manchester, the 8th edition of ESOF will take place in Toulouse, France, from 9 till 14 July 2018. The motto of ESOF 2018 is “Sharing science: towards new horizons” and enrols itself in the “Open innovation, open science, open to the world” vision for Europe. ESOF’s Scientific Programme will deal with major societal challenges, such as sustainable cities, sustainable living, global change, science policy and transformation of research practice, health in our societies, understanding divided societies, and so on. The call for sessions strongly encourages the participation of society through innovative format and the alignment with one cross-cutting issue, such as gender issues or ethics. It is complemented by five other programmes: - the Science and Policy Programme, which addresses policies on science for Europe; - the Career programme, which is geared specifically towards young European researchers; - the Science to Business Programme, which addresses the involvement of the private sector in science and innovation; - the Media and Communication Programme, which targets media involvement in all forms with a specific agenda dedicated to science communication; - the Science in the City Programme which provides a scientific cultural programme to engage with the general public.

AToUT is the French word for advantage, asset, benefit like a trump card. AToUT offers to host 50 post-doctoral fellows in University of Toulouse (UT), in 3 scientific areas that are i) Understanding and promoting good health and well-being ii) Understanding global changes and their impact on societies iii) Accelerating sustainable transitions: mobility, energy, resources and industrial change. By addressing these societal issues, Post-Docs will enhance their ability to connect with the public sphere, fortify the link between research and society, and augment both their scientific and technical competencies, as well as their societal intelligence, a pivotal element in their career development and employability. We will welcome 50 researchers from around the world, each for a period of 2 years, transparently selected for their academic excellence, to address the strategic applied and scientific axes of the programme. The beneficiaries will be free to develop their own research project, they will receive support, supervision and mentoring by their host team and laboratories. Fellows will have access to a structured training programme to develop their scientific, professional, personal and soft skills. They will benefit from the international academic and business network of AToUT'S associated partners (5 competitiveness clusters and 16 international universities), set up to establish collaborations and prepare their future careers in one or other sectors. Fellows will be required to engage in open science, public outreach events. AToUT will last 60 months (3 November 2025 to 2 November 2030). Its implementation is based on a governance structure organised around the services of the University of Toulouse including a human resources department, a department of valorization and business relations, an open science task force and an ethics committee, a partnership with Toulouse Tech Transfer for intellectual property management, and services for hosting foreign researchers.

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.

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!