The 'Concerted Action EPBD IV', supporting transposition and implementation of Directive 2010/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 2010 on the energy performance of buildings, is an activity which aims to foster exchange of information and experience among Member States and participating countries with regards to the implementation of the specific Community legislation and policy on the energy performance of buildings. It involves the national authorities implementing the Directive, or those bodies appointed and entrusted by them to do so. It is carried out under the coordination of Danish Energy Agency, DEA. The CA consortium is composed of organisations designated by all 28 Member States plus Norway. The CA is financed by the EU's Horizon 2020 Programme. The CA is the continuation of the first Concerted Action, CA EPBD, which ran from January 2005 to June 2007, then continued as the CA EPBD II from December 2007 until November 2010 and then CA EPBD III from March 2011 to October 2015. The CA IV will organise 4 CA Plenary meetings and some supporting activities over a period 30 months or approximately one meeting every 7-8 months, similar to the CA III. The work will be organised in Central Teams, which includes: a) 3 Core Teams on 'New Buildings', 'Existing Buildings' and 'Certification & Quality of Inspection'; b) 3 Cross-Cutting teams on 'Technical Elements', 'Policy & Implementation' and 'Compliance, Capacity & Impact'; c) 2 central functions on 'Collaboration with other actors' and 'Internal & External Communication'; and some additional functions and supporting measures. For each Central Team, issues are addressed on which the Directive does not require harmonised national implementation but where coordinated implementation would increase the impact of the Directive and reduce the implementing costs.

The project procure2innovate aims at improving institutional support for public procurers of information and communication technologies (ICT) and other product groups implementing innovation procurement by establishing or expanding competence centres for innovation procurement in ten EU Member States.

Throughout the EU, the fragmentation of innovation ecosystems and the lack of interconnection between public national and regional agencies appear to be one of the main obstacles to securing support for the most promising SMEs. The GO-SME project responds to the need to provide financial support to SMEs and start-ups for the development of their innovative ideas. The aim of GO-SME is to share the best practices of participating research funding organisations (RFOs) and their mutual learning in designing programmes which would support SMEs and start-ups in an initial assessment of their innovative ideas so that they can progress to more advanced stages of innovation development. To achieve this aim, a combination of the following activities will be used: 1/learning from best practices already applied in support schemes for innovative SMEs and startups, 2/motivation of agencies from widening countries to design innovation support schemes for SMEs and start-ups, 3/cooperation in the setting up of comparable support schemes and sets of selection criteria, 4/sharing of best practices in the work with (international) experts and sharing of their pools 5/learning from best practices in providing coaching and mentoring services to innovative SMEs and start-ups 6/mutual opening up pools of coaches and mentors 7/offering of special services to running projects which will be selected as the most promising by an independent international panel. The added value of the project rests in its ambition to design national and regional programmes supporting innovative SMEs which could act as a pipeline for the EIC Accelerator and be part of the “plug-in” mechanism. At the same time, it can serve as a pilot project for a possible partnership co-funded from innovation ecosystems in the Horizon Europe programme.

This proposal is the continuation of the Description of the Action of the Grant Agreement 101055476 signed under the European Innovation Ecosystems Work Programme 2021-2022. The proposal involves 41 National/regional Funding Bodies and/ Agencies under the umbrella of Eureka, and is coordinated by the Eureka Secretariat in Brussels. The partnership will be comprised of two main instruments(Eurostars-3 and Innowwide) as well as accompanying measures to further supports SMEs and to connect existing EU programmes, initiatives and other European partnerships. On this proposal, the consortium describes the additional activities that will take place under the EIE WP 2023-2024. The activities implemented under this Work Programme mirror to a great extent those described in the DoA.

The main ambition of IMPACTOUR project is to create an innovative and easy-to-use methodology and tool to measure and assess the impact of Cultural Tourism (CT) on European economic and social development and to improve Europe’s policies and practices on CT, strengthening its role as a sustainable driving force in the growth and economic development of European regions. CT has been recognized as one of the drivers of growth, jobs and economic development, as well intercultural understanding and social development in Europe regions and urban areas.However, there is still a knowledge gap on methods to measure different types of CT impacts and to assess multilevel and cross-border strategies, policies and practices contribution to sustainable development.IMPACTOUR proposes to bring together CT-related stakeholders and researchers to achieve new approaches taking advantage of the large amounts of information that confront policy-makers. By identifying and comparing quantitative/qualitative pan-European information on CT forms and promotion, and by providing quantifiable evidence of CT strategies and their effect on European regions’ development and Europeanisation, IMPACTOUR will deliver an innovative methodology and tool (combining data analytics algorithms with artificial intelligence and machine learning strategies) providing CT stakeholders with strategic guidance so that policies and practices on CT can be improved. IMPACTOUR will encompass a sustainable ecosystem by engaging Cultural Tourism stakeholders and following a participatory approach. IMPACTOUR tools and methods will lead to reinforcing the commitment with Europe CT, increasing citizens sense of belonging, valorisation of minority cultures, strengthening of identities and Europeanisation. IMPACTOUR Methodology will be completed and tested with data coming from 15 Data Information Pilots and the IMPACTOUR tool will be validated in 5 Validation Pilots, with distinct characteristics spread around Europe.