Unwanted loneliness has increased all across Europe. Loneliness represents a decrease in the quality of life of many people in our society, especially in the elderly, hindering their health and well-being. Through different co-creation initiatives and considering their needs, our project addresses elderly loneliness. This project will provide elderly and other actors with tools to tackle with their loneliness feeling, increase self-esteem, and understand that living alone does not mean living in loneliness.HEALTHY LONELINESS will co-create, develop and validate high quality adapted learning program tailored to the needs of low-skilled or low-qualified seniors living in a situation of loneliness with the aim of acquiring skills and competences to minimize the negative effects in both mental and physical health.The project aims to involve more than 200 end-users (seniors in loneliness, people from the community and health/social-care professionals) in many stages of the project to co-create, develop and validate an innovative training framework for promoting the skills and competences of citizens to minimize the negative effects of lonelinessHEALTHY LONELINESS will be focused on the use of ICT Tools (Apps and Assistive Technologies), developing adapted learning materials and activities to promote several dimensions of the personal development and social inclusiveness. All the materials will be available through an electronic platform based on a learning management system in English and the languages of the participant countries (Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and French)HEALTHY LONELINESS promotes the development of knowledge and skills to improve the inclusion of persons living in unwanted loneliness through an innovative integrated approach based in promoting health and well-being habits in domestic and in community environments. The program will have a two-fold approach: 1) Theoretical materials to introduce and give ground basis to several aspects of daily life, health and technology and, besides, 2) a practical training program to develop the skills and competences learnt in the theoretical part.The project will also promote non-discrimination in education through the direct participation seniors who are out of the scope of standard training offer. HEALTHY LONELINESS will aim to foster the development of social, civic, and media literacy also combating discrimination of persons in unwanted loneliness.Short term impacts of the project will be to maintain and reduce the self-esteem shrinkage of seniors living in loneliness and to raise awareness and promote knowledge and capacities among senior citizens, their entourage and health/social care professionals about the challenges related to unwanted loneliness, its effects on health and how to remediate them.In the long term we envision to deliver a flexible program, fully ready for replication in more districts, cities and countries to motivate the permanent change in individuals’ lives towards healthy and active ageing, to inspire initiatives and public policies addressing the social problem of unwanted loneliness and putting into place innovative methods and materials to educate and empower citizens concern their health and social life.

The persisting R&I gap between Western and Eastern Europe is a major challenge to the EU. It includes under-developed R&I ecosystems, a lower ability to attract and retain talents, single-track research careers with a lack of modern HR, and fragmented industry-academia collaboration. To improve the situation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Alliance for Life Sciences (Alliance4Life) was formed by 12 progressive health research institutions and universities in 11 CEE countries. Since 2018 it has become a lively community and role model of modern institutional governance and excellent research in CEE, piloted strategic institutional reforms, and succeeded in influencing national R&I reforms and EU policy. With the A4L_BRIDGE project, the alliance focuses on a broader implementation of the successfully piloted strategic changes toward enhanced attractiveness, competitiveness, and innovation strength, and newly also addresses excellence in higher education. The scientific collaboration will be boosted by a Virtual Research Centre, connecting different research groups, and thanks to seed funding, initial research projects with IP originating in CEE will be prepared to be developed into RIA projects for Horizon Europe. The alliance will develop a complex educational matrix, including mentoring, e-learning, and international internships, targeting both academic and non-academic staff in all career stages. The Industry Relationship Platform will stimulate knowledge transfer and partaking in applied research projects. Societal actors will be invited to shape the research agendas and will be addressed at events for end users of health research results. Events, webinars, and dissemination activities will target national stakeholders and policymakers, promoting ERA values and supporting the empowering of low-performing regions in their R&I upscale. The A4L_BRIDGE project will thus significantly contribute to bridging the gap in R&I performance in the EU.

The ClimAIr project will expand the evidence-based understanding of climate change, air pollution, and non-communicable respiratory diseases by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. It will gather data on greenhouse gases levels and disaster risks, information on serious air pollutants and respiratory diseases' prevalence. The AI-powered tools will be employed to generate better intervention methods and improve public health outcomes. Federated Learning (FL) will be used to develop AI models to protect patients' privacy. By raising public awareness and delivering the ClimAIr tool specifically designed to health workers, urban planners and policy makers - the project aims to influence policy decisions, promote healthier environments, and reduce respiratory diseases in Europe, which will be tested and validated the ClimAIr tool in specific municipalities that are part of the project. ClimAIr draws on a consortium of 21 partners from 15 European countries, including carefully selected health centres across Europe in Spain, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Romania and Poland focused on respiratory diseases, which will provide disease data and explore metabolic routes of the studied contaminants/diseases. ClimAIr is composed of an interdisciplinary team formed by research centres, ethical AI and modelling experts, SSH specialists, municipal governance, and a Communication & Dissemination (C&D) expert team dedicated to achieving and spread the results of the project.

In September 2017 UM (Medical University of Lodz) began the implementation of the project 2017-1-PL-KA107-036411. This project is a continuation of the 2016-1-PL-KA107-024824 project carried out last year with the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. The rules for exchanging students and employees of UM and UNS were created on the basis of many years of experience and the rules implemented in the Erasmus + Ka107 project for 2016. The 2017 project has been fully implemented and all mobility completed and recognized. The activities included the exchange of students and employees between the Medical University and the Medical Faculty at UNS (University of Novi Sad, Serbia). The project was coordinated by the University Coordinator of the Erasmus + Program and the Department of Foreign Cooperation of the Medical University. The implementation was in line with the university's European policy for 2015-2020, the main element of which is broadly understood internationalization. The employees of the International Cooperation Office and the Pro-Dean for International Cooperation and Foreign Students of the UNS had a key impact on the shape and manner of the project implementation by the partner. The project is a continuation of the cooperation between the two institutions initiated in the Campus Europea project and continued in the Erasmus + KA107 project.Due to the receipt of financing in the amount of 62,050 Euro, we completed the exchange of 11 students from the fields of medicine and dentistry and 12 employees.Participation in the program supported and developed the process of close cooperation between the institutions. The number of students and employees interested in mobility has once again significantly exceeded our expectations. The quantitative goals of the project were exceed. Within the financial agreement, we received funds for 10 people - study trips. Our curricula (medicine, dentistry) are compatible and both the universities run classes in English, therefore the cooperation between the universities was very good. The universities signed an interinstitutional agreement for the exchange of students and employees of both the universities for the years 2016-2021 signed by the UNS Academic Coordinator and Rector's Proxy for International Exchange.The main quality objectives of the project were: development of professional, linguistic and cultural competences of students and employees of both universities; support for the internationalization process of the UM and UNS; developing cultural awareness, tolerance and the ability to function in a multicultural environment.The students of both universities emphasized that the participation in the program taught them tolerance, recognizing the value of other cultures, cooperation with people from other environments and cultures, increased their interest in European affairs and world events. It also taught them planning, organization, independence and faith in their own skills. Competences acquired by the project participants indicate its success. Employees put the greatest emphasis on acquired practical knowledge, language skills and strengthening of the cooperation between the universities.Participants' reports indicate 92.86% satisfaction with mobility for students and 100% satisfaction with employees. The result underlines the importance of international cooperation for both the universities and the impact Erasmus has on mobility development with partner countries. Student recruitment was in accordance with the principles of the Erasmus + program. The students completed a minimum of the first year of study. Their average, grade from a language and additional academic activity were taken into account. The best received from the Erasmus Program Commission a place in the program and funding in line with the rates in force in the Erasmus + program mobility with partner countries in the 2017 competition. All the students were treated equally.Employee mobility was very popular. Places, as before, were allocated at the Medical University based on the order of applications, but priority was given to the units that accepted employees in Serbia in the previous project. Our goal was to strengthen the relationship between similar units. In case of UNS, scientific achievements were also analyzed. The Erasmus KA107 cooperation project has contributed to the personal and academic development of students and employees of both universities. The main goal of universities today is to be open to changes and social multiculturalism. The implementation of the KA107 project mobility is a model example of the development of cooperation between European universities from the first contacts under Campus Europea in 2015, to the exchange under the KA107 2016/2017 Program and its continuation in the KA107 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 projects contributing to the significant internationalization of both the universities and their regions.