The main purpose of the HEARTS proposal is to provide high-energy (>100 MeV/n) heavy ion accelerator access to space users, in order to mimic the effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) at ground level, and thus fulfilling the needs of microelectronics qualification and shielding & radiobiology experiments. These ions will successfully mimic the effects of heavy ions present in the GCR spectrum, and will also ensures penetration levels large enough to enable electronics testing in air, without the need of electronics device preparation (e.g. de-lidding, thinning) and at board and box level. High penetration ion irradiation is essential in order to facilitate the exploitation of high-end microelectronics technology in space, for e.g. onboard artificial intelligence or Big Data processing applications. To this end, the HEARTS proposal features CERN and GSI as accelerator infrastructure partners, who also gather a vast experience and knowledge in radiation effects on electronics, and shielding & radiobiology, respectively. Moreover, HEARTS features also the University of Padova as academic partner, and Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space as industrial participants, all of which have ample experience in the radiation effects domain, and a strong interest in VHE ion testing. The academic and industrial partners will define the requirements, both technical and procedural, for VHE ion user facilities. Such requirements will serve as input to CERN and GSI and will be implemented as upgrade which, once completed, will be scrutinized and validated by the industrial and academic partners, through “real case” experimental campaigns that will in turn serve as input for the development of VHE ion testing recommendations and guidelines. Therefore, in final instance, HEARTS ambitions to create a high quality and sustainable VHE ion irradiation capacity in Europe, accessible to and tailored for space users and applications.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Edge computing is entering a new era based on the use of ubiquitous small and connected devices. Until now, Europe has not been doing well, as America sets the standards and most components are produced in Asia or America. This project believes doing better is realized by (1) Putting European values of self-organization, privacy by design and low use of energy in the core of the Edge Computing components that shape this new era, and delivering the technology needed to promote these values; (2) Focusing on pan European cooperation to ramp up the capabilities needed to deliver these new components at a scale that can make a real impact. Europe does not have huge IT leaders so cooperation from a very early phase is key. All partners in the project participate in delivering key parts of these new Edge Computing components; and (3) Demonstrating the use of these components in key European industrial areas. Clear and early examples are needed to un-lock corporate and external funding to deliver on the promise of this very exciting project. The DAIS project will research and deliver distributed artificial intelligent systems. It will not research new algorithms, as such, but solves the problems of running existing algorithms on these vastly distributed edge devices that are designed based on the above three European core values. The research and innovation activities are organized around eight complementary and mutually supportive supply chains. Five of these focus on delivering the hardware and software that is needed to run industrial-grade AI on different types of networking topologies. Three of the supply chains demonstrate how known AI challenges, from different functional areas, are met by this pan European effort. The DAIS project consists of 48 parties from 11 different countries. The DAIS project fosters cooperation between large and leading industrial players from different domains.

The Strategic Research Agenda of the EU Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technical platform requires new large infrastructures for its successful deployment. MYRRHA has been identified as a long term supporting research facility for all ESNII systems and as such put in the high-priority list of ESFRI. The goal of MYRTE is to perform the necessary research in order to demonstrate the feasibility of transmutation of high-level waste at industrial scale through the development of the MYRRHA research facility. Within MYRRHA as a large research facility, the demonstration of the technological performance of transmutation will be combined with the use for the production of radio-isotopes and as a material testing for nuclear fission and fusion applications. Numerical studies and experimental facilities are foreseen to reach this goal. Besides coordination, international collaboration and dissemination activities, the MYRTE proposal contains 5 technical work packages. The first and largest work-package is devoted to the realisation of the injector part of the MYRRHA accelerator to demonstrate the feasibility and required reliability of this non-semi-conducting part of the accelerator. The second work-package addresses the main outstanding technical issues in thermal hydraulics by numerical simulations and experimental validation. Pool thermal hydraulics and thermal hydraulics of the fuel assembly will be the focus of this WP. In the WP on LBE Chemistry, the evaporation from LBE, capture and deposition of Po and fission products will be studied in detail to complement the safety report. A small dedicated WP on experimental reactor physics is also foreseen to allow carrying out the necessary supplementary experiments at the GUINEVERE-facility to address the questions of the safety authorities. In a last WP, advanced studies on Americium-bearing oxide fuel are carried out to demonstrate the capability of developing minor actinide fuel for transmutation.

Metastatic bone cancer is an incurable disease and one of the most complex cancers to treat. Due to the high dose, tumour imaging is currently performed at the beginning and end of standard particle radio-therapy (PRT), making personalised treatment difficult. The main goal of BoneOscopy is to develop a radically new technology to enable informed medical decisions by monitoring bone cancer on a daily basis during PRT. At the heart of BoneOscopy is the ability to detect prompt gamma (PGs) emitted by cancer during PRT and separate them from healthy tissue, unlocking the full potential of spectroscopic analysis without the need for additional dose. The development of a highly specialised detection and collimation system will enable accurate spectroscopic analysis of a very small volume or region within the cancer. As the number of PRT centres grows, we anticipate that within 10 years BoneOscopy will benefit all patients treated with proton and carbon ions. The objectives of BoneOscopy will be achieved by its interdisciplinary consortium, which brings together six partners from five European countries with key expertise in bioengineering and PRT (DKFZ), medical physics and engineering (CSIC), fast electronics for PRT (LIP), Monte Carlo simulations and clinical PRT experience (THM), turnkey software for high performance medical devices (Cosylab) and EU project management, communication and dissemination (accelCH). If achieved, the proposed science-to-technology breakthrough will have a transformative impact on current cancer treatment by providing a safe, personalised and quantitative measure of daily treatment efficacy, thereby contributing to the global fight against cancer. In summary, BoneOscopy will lead to a significant reduction in the health burden in Europe and worldwide, improved quality of life for patients, reduced costs for healthcare systems and improved sustainability of healthcare.