Ensuring a sustainable food system requires, above all other factors, re-entrusting our primary production to the guardians of our territory, the owners of small- and medium-sized farms and farm structures in rural areas. GUARDIANS focuses on understanding their challenges and empowering them with a set of digital innovative solutions that will help them to bridge the current technological gap between small and large farms. GUARDIANS will put in place a set of cost-effective and human-centric digital solutions, which aim to support and empower the penetration, sustainability and resilience of more agroecological farming models, like regenerative agriculture, natural grazing, alternative managed grazing strategies, and the promotion of pollinators in different farm structures. To do this, a multi-actor co-creation methodology, a set of adoption pathways and 9 different technologies, combining software and hardware (i.e. drones, sensors), will be customized to cover the farmers' needs. These digital solutions will be tested through a total of 24 small- and medium-sized farms and farm structures with a wide range of production types (arable crops, woody crops, grassland and livestock production) in 6 pilots represented by farming cooperatives (acting as one stop shops) from 5 different countries with diverse environmental, climatic and socio-economic conditions. As a result, GUARDIANS will increase the uptake of innovative digital technologies by farmers, guaranteed by the use of a multi-actor approach, integrating farmers and agricultural stakeholders at all stages of the project, as well as scientists, technicians and SMEs. Cascade funding and connections to specific stakeholders (agricultural cooperatives, agrifood hubs, DIHs, OGs) will be used as multipliers to allow GUARDIANS to roll up its impact throughout Europe. It is expected to roll-out and replicate GUARDIANS results up to 92 farms around Europe during the project duration.

The RE-SKIN project aims at developing an integrated and multifunctional system for energy retrofit of existing buildings, organised in two main subsystems, roof and façade, combined with the building's HVAC system. The roof is equipped with a hybrid photovoltaic-thermal system, which produces electricity and heat and at the same time thermally and acoustically insulates the slab beneath. Electricity, from retrofitted photovoltaic modules, powers the building's loads, which interacts with the grid and EV charging stations. Heat is used by a heat pump for heating and hot water preparation. Solar modules form the outer skin of the roof and replace traditional materials such as tiles and sheets. Through a special treatment, they can take on different colours, depending on the aesthetic and architectural identity of the building. The façade is a thermal cladding with self-supporting panels and bio-based insulation, optimised for quick assembly without scaffolding, inside which the wiring for the new installations and earthquake sensors are housed. Retrofit techniques/components of existing windows are also included. Both the roof and the façade are particularly resistant to weather and extreme climatic phenomena, as they use materials that are more resistant and waterproof than traditional ones. The HVAC system consists of a solar-assisted DC air-water heat pump, connected to smart-fancoils, which are designed to be connected to the building’s heating piping, but can provide both heating and cooling. The whole system is designed according to a circular economy logic, using mostly recycled/bio-based/repurposed/refurbished materials, and is supported by a lifecycle cloud-based DSS and energy management tool, in order to maximise energy performance while reducing environmental impacts. The system can be applied all over Europe, as it provides renewable energy and participates actively and passively in the energy performance of buildings, both in summer and winter.

The INSENSION project will create an ICT platform that enables persons with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) to use digital applications and services that can enhance the quality of their lives, increase their ability to self-determination and enrich their lives. The target end users of the proposed solution are capable of using only nonconventional, nonsymbolic means of interaction with their environment. Therefore, the platform aims to provide technological means for seamless, and adaptable recognition of a range of highly individual nonsymbolic behavioral signals of people with PMLD to detect behavioral patterns happening in the context of specific situations. These patterns are translated into the affective ‘intents’ of the end user (their approval or disapproval to the given situation) and allow to communicate them to assistive services. This way an individual with PMLD gains a possibility to seamlessly influence their living environment, through new means of communication with other people, changing conditions of their environment or use new types of assistive digital applications. The project employs recent advances in a range of ICT disciplines equipping the proposed assistive ICT platform with natural behavior recognition mechanisms based on gesture, facial expression and vocalization recognition technologies. This is complemented by novel techniques of artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art Internet of Things models. The research and development of the project is conducted within the inclusive design paradigm, with individual with PMLD and their caregivers directly participating in the R+D process throughout the whole duration of the project. This process links a highly interdisciplinary team of experts of ICT specialists and researchers and practitioners of disability studies and care, with due participation of an assistive technology industry representatives.

The ever-increasing use of building monitoring and control systems has created an opportunity for data-driven approaches in the entire construction sector. At the same time, interaction and interoperability among data platforms remain a challenging issue. MODERATE will formalize a set of procedures and techniques that enable building owners, policymakers, facility managers, utility companies, etc., to openly share their data, gain insights, and make decisions while complying with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Moreover, MODERATE will enable uniform access to heterogeneous data sources on buildings' performance, usually dispersed in several non-interoperable data silos. Although several projects have recently emerged to address the problem of defining a modular data architecture, they lack: - A protocol for data sharing and anonymization, complying with the rules defined by the GDPR while avoiding losing the statistical properties that make them valuable. - A solution enabling data owners to openly share their datasets while profiting both economically and in terms of knowledge on their data. - A fully open platform. Commonly, most of the results (data, algorithms, software, etc.) of a project are owned by partners within the consortium, making it very difficult to use them later without their permission. MODERATE will develop an open platform, embracing leading-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain/distributed ledger technologies, the internet of things (IoT), and many more. This platform will enable its users to analyze real-time building data from various building systems and provide insight into the many dimensions of a building's performance. The use of synthetic data generation techniques, not yet widely applied in the construction industry, is one of the elements that allow open data sharing, enabling more reliable services and generating business opportunities.