NEEMO aims steadily set in the Electric Mobility research, related integration of technologies, modes and operations within the MCAST Energy research Theme in Transportation from terrestrial to marine mobility and from heavy-duty vehicles to micro-mobility solutions. The issue of mobility and energy is more pregnant in geographic islands due to strong energy dependence on fossil fuel. Therefore, a Network for Excellence is created with two world-leading research institutions AIT (Austria) and CEA (France) and like Malta as a widening country with distinctive island, characteristics included Cyprus through the Nicosia Development Agency (ANEL) for social policy aspects and exchange of wider experiences. The activities are mainly knowledge transfer and networking through a series of workshops, winter/summer schools, training programmes, internships, exchanges, meetings, mentoring, conferences and joint publications as well as research outputs, mostly targeted to early stage or aspiring researchers. MCAST Energy is experiencing a self-funding growth within its breadth of energy research theme that leads on campus. In addition, the MCAST main campus infrastructure together with laboratories will be the first ‘living laboratories’ on the island, used for real-life applications while delivery training and research as well. This TWINNING proposal will provide a stimulus of required knowledge to become more efficient and competitive to an international level of excellence. NEEMO is designed for all partners to benefit in a way that goes sustainably beyond the three-year funding period. This eventually will result in enhanced skills sets and profile of MCAST Energy which in turn reflect the positive development of Malta knowledge economy including its ambition as a regional energy hub, solar country, AI state and maritime hub.

<< Background >>Global use of materials has more than tripled since 1970 and could double again by 2050 (IRP&UNEP). Yearly we throw away more than 2.12 billion tonnes of waste but only 40% of household waste is currently reused, recycled or upcycled. 99% of the things we buy are trashed within 6 months. World economy is only 9% circular. Directive 2008/98/EC of the EP and the Council waste and repealing certain Directives requires the competent authorities of the Member States to draw up waste management plans. There is a need to encourage reusing and extending the useful life of products. In line with the goal to Sustainable Green Europe of the EU Youth Strategy ScaleUPcycling project wants to motivate the young to be environmentally educated and active to make a difference in their everyday lives. In all PPs countries the reuse is the most overlooked and untapped potential on the way to a society with less waste although in the past few years, a small growth of upcycling and reuse initiatives has been seen. As such upcycling largely remains a niche and requires scaling-up to truly deliver a significant impact on the environment and society. Young people are more and more aware of the challenges and risks presented by the climate crisis. The next step is to incorporate these actions to youth communities and to the whole reuse and upcycle ecosystem. Interviews, discussions and desktop research among partners showed the need of joint collaboration tools to help the young become agents of change. In this context, the project aims to deliver digital platform as collaboration space for youth idea owners, youth workers and all interested in the reuse and upcycling ecosystem. By offering new skills on community building through upcycling, the platform will increase youth and youth workers’ capacity to initiate and manage upcycle activities of their own and become local change makers – ambassadors.<< Objectives >>The project objective is to empower and equip youth and youth workers with innovative digital tools, e-Learning materials and training modules to gain new skills, competences, and practical knowledge to help them to become ambassadors of change in saving resources and reducing waste through reuse and upcycling. It will provide in-depth support of reuse community networking and enhance the motivation and communication and help youth and youth workers acquire skills to design and manage their own initiatives within their communities. The project creates a currently not existing one-spot learning and collaboration space revealing the whole ecosystem and key role of youth in it. It provides thematic knowledge sharing opportunities to target group and through ever-evolving hub end users add new content and use other users’ ideas and good practices. Project aims to achieve this in 3 ways (PRs):-ScaleUPcycling Digital Platform as an interactive cooperation and skills development framework will provide young a shared space for regular cooperation and networking.-E-learning digital roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling will equip youth workers and young with skills and content to improve their expert knowledge on reuse and upcycling.-Community building with Upcycling training modules knowledge and developing skills among young through creative learning techniques will increase (7 modules developed).<< Implementation >>The ScaleUPcycling project will run project management (by ANEL), promotion and dissemination activities (CTRIA) through the whole duration of the project. The creation of the project results has been carefully planned, enough time, budget and staff expertise has been allocated. Activities within PR1 development “ScaleUPcycling digital platform” (led by Vyara, co-leader CTRIA): Defining the reuse and upcycling thematic content of the platform« (250 surveys with young and 60 stakeholders), technical development-design and programming of the platform, development of the content related features namely features of »inspiration corner«, »ideation tool«, Digital flipbook on ecosystem roadmap (PR2), community building training modules (PR3) and »ScaleUPcycling initiatives (leaders Anel and DEFOIN), test operation of platform among the targets (180 registered young users – open call) and feedback will be collected by all PPs (lead by NGPI Tryavna school), monitoring and evaluation is responsibility of each partner and summary guideline preparation. Activities within PR2 development “e-Learning digital roadmap to reuse and upcycling” (led by AIA Menges and co-leader Anel): Concept and preparation of the roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling development, podcasts will be prepared with representatives of all 8 groups of actors, where each partner will participate upon its existing knowledge and experiences, preparation of document Roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling, preparations of motion info graphic videos, based on findings and content from the Roadmap and podcasts, collecting feedbacks and evaluation of all deliverables and possible adaptations will be incorporated, digitalization of the Roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling and summary guidelines preparation. Activities within PR3 development “Community building through upcycling training modules” (led by DEFOIN and co-leader NGPI Tryavna): all PPs will delegate 1 internal expert to the activities, preparation and definition of the training modules, preparation of the training module content, development of training modules will be conducted by each partner participating in 2 modules development, national training implementation and monitoring, feedback and evaluation of modules and possible adaptation of modules and translations, implementation, monitoring and evaluation will be led by DEFOIN and all PPs will be responsible for the implementation of the same elements, summary guidelines will be prepared. One training will be organized within PR3 - C1 Short-term joint staff training “Community Building through Upcycling. activity consists of a blended learning experience designed through a variety of formal and non-formal education methods The mobility is going to involve 18 participants (F2F) and 10 participants online from partner organisations and through open call. Multiplier events will be organized (5 events) in each participating country with 30 participants from the target group. Events will enable us to check the quality and adequacy of the final results.<< Results >>In ScaleUPcycling project the following results will be generated: - ScaleUPcycling digital platform (PR1) will be developed as an interactive cooperation and skills development framework that addresses the reuse and upcycling ecosystem and the role of EU youth in it. In line with its objective, the platform will be a valuable collaboration space for youth idea owners, youth workers and all interested in the reuse and upcycling ecosystem at EU level. A core element of the platform is sharing ideas, peer learning and joint development of reuse and upcycling community initiatives. By offering new skills on community building through upcycling, the platform will increase youth and youth workers’ capacity to initiate and manage upcycle activities of their own and become local change makers. The platform will integrate inspiration corner - collaborative tool of good practices, reuse and upcycling ideation tool to facilitate a co-creation process, ecosystem roadmap, community building interactive training modules and scenario generator of reuse and upcycling community events.- e-Learning digital roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling (PR2) will equip youth workers and young with tools, skills and content to improve their expert knowledge on reuse and upcycling. It will be implemented through Roadmap to ecosystem of reuse and upcycling, podcasts as interactive conversations with 8 groups of actors and video content of motion infographic identifying different actors and the role of youth communities. The final outcome is a Digital flipbook of Roadmap to ecosystem to reuse and upcycling that will include podcasts and motion videos. Youth communities will become aware with the whole reuse and upcycling ecosystem, individual actors and their roles, so they can use this knowledge in their advantage. Digital roadmap as a tool will encourage youth communities to become indispensable members, activists and better experts in the whole reuse and upcycling ecosystems. - Community building through upcycling training modules (PR3) will include 7 modules namely the content on concept of Circular economy, Innovative community Building practices through reusing, Active youth in the ecosystem, How the whole ecosystem work and what is the role of youth in it, How to get community involved, Best channels for community involvement, How to organise a Community Event and How to disseminate a Community Event. Community building capacities will be given to youth to become upcycling ambassadors of their own communities. Joint staff training event as ToT week will be implemented in Madrid, Spain and national trainings in partner countries. One training and a festival lead by young people will be implemented by each partner in their country. The final outcome is community building interactive training modules that will be uploaded on ScaleUPcycling platform to be further used.

<< Background >>The SmartDevOps project aimed to address the increasing demand for specialised skills and new job profiles and associated skill needs due to the development of hundreds of smart cities worldwide.In this regard, the SmartDevOps project examined the supply and demand of skills for Smart Cities’ (SC) professionals, identified and documented 3 brand new job-role profiles, namely, Smart City Planner, Smart City IT Head and Smart City Officer. It developed three curricula, 43 training modules, etc.<< Objectives >>The SmartDevOps project objective is to support professional and personal development of people working in smart cities sector, an industry domain that is growing rapidly. The project aims to the development of new innovative job profiles to support sustainable smart cities growth and to support the development of quality high-tech jobs. Further, the project promotes the development of transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective, through formal or non-formal training.<< Implementation >>The SmartDevOps project implemented an extensive market research on the training needs of the smart cities sector. It identified three innovative occupational profiles and delivered three modular VET curricula, implemented through a MOOC and three specialisation courses including blended learning and work-based learning.<< Results >>The project developed- 3 new occupational profiles- 3 new modular curricula- 43 training modules following EQAVET principles. The modules include, digital OER, assessment objects, handbooks, etc. and they are available in five languages (EN, DE, IT, GR, FR)- developed book namely «Smart Cities Body of Knowledge» which is freely available from the project web site https://smartdevops.eu/scbok - a large number of academic papers, reports, videos, etc.

The main goal of HERIFORGE is to develop a network of three interconnected place-based ecosystems in Poland, Cyprus and Turkey providing an excellent R&I environment for innovation in the cultural heritage and creative industries with the responsible use of extended reality (XR) technologies and digital cultural heritage assets for the benefit of social resilience. The HERIFORGE project harnesses the expertise of three excellence hubs on XR technologies, advanced IT and digital humanities infrastructures as well as cultural heritage resources to provide an interregional ecosystem of innovation. These hubs epitomise the quadruple helix model, integrating academic institutions, businesses, public authorities, and societal actors within their ecosystems, in a bid to foster a real place-based innovation culture based on a strategic agenda and in line with regional or national smart specialisation strategies. Within the project, these individual ecosystems will be transformed into the HERIFORGE Hubs Network. The project results in five key results including critical for the establishment of the innovation ecosystem, including strategic impact package, the fully operational HERIFORGE Hubs Network, XR-driven prototypes and services, guidelines for building human-centric and trustworthy innovation ecosystemsas well as Data Orchestration Platform.

The overarching objective of Connecting Nature is to position Europe as a global leader in the innovation and implementation of nature-based solutions. The project partners will form a community of cities fostering peer-to-peer, transdisciplinary capacity-building between front-runner, fast-follower and multiplier cities. Connecting Nature will co-develop the policy and practices necessary to scale up urban resilience, innovation and governance via nature-based solutions. An open innovation ecosystem approach bringing together city governments, SMEs, academia and civic society will be used to co-produce usable and actionable knowledge in all cities. Connecting Nature will provide the reference framework for a new generation of urban nature-based solution processes and empower transitioning ambassadors who will globalise this approach through a strategy targeting multiplier cities. This novel approach, coupled with the high capacity of the consortium, makes Connecting Nature an exciting prospect. In addition, linking all open-sourced data to the Oppla platform will ensure perpetuation beyond the end of the project.