ST4TE adopts a multidimensional approach to study the relationship between the green, digital and twin transition (TT) and inequalities. The project aims to investigate the impact of the TT on inequalities among individuals and territories and explore how existing inequalities affect the transition paths creating cycles of inequalities. ST4TE uses both quantitative methods (econometrics, machine-learning and agent-based modelling) and qualitative methods (narrative interviews, case studies and workshops) to analyse different patterns of inequalities and envisage custom made policies to counterbalance the unequal effects of the TT. ST4TE objectives are: 1) Understand the different drivers of the TT and measure the progress in European regions to identify the level of regional readiness and existing or potential vulnerabilities; 2) Identify types of inequalities including income, skill- job- and health- related inequalities, as well as age/gender and other intersecting inequalities and investigate new forms of social inequality that emerge or widen due to the TT; 3) Examine how the TT can increase existing inequalities leading to a vicious cycle between higher inequality and unequal impacts of the transition. The focus will be on four drivers: policies, consumption, education and STI; 4) Model the effects of TT policies, assess their territorial impact, develop forward looking scenarios, and define pathways for knowledge-based policymaking using tools and recommendations, that will ultimately address negative socio-economic effects caused by the TT; 5) Maximise the project’s visibility by communicating and disseminating ST4TE activities and progress and support the exploitation of its results, with emphasis on policy engagement and co-design of recommendation. Overall, ST4TE will go beyond the state-of-the-art as it can have significant implications on the twin transformation of cities and regions and the design of social cohesion and place-based innovation policies.

CLIMEX will bring to the market an innovative commercial product based on the research output of the FET research Project DOLFINS, i.e. the “Climate-Finance Stress-testing”. The innovation will narrow the gap between our prior top level research and the market. By delivering a B2B commercial tool for financial risk managers, CLIMEX will allow them to price climate risks in their portfolio management strategies, thus filling in an existing gap on the market. In particular, our innovation will provide detailed quantitative information about the exposure to climate risks of individual firms and financial institutions’ portfolios, thus allowing them to improve their business and environmental performance. To achieve this goal, CLIMEX designs a 12-months Commercialization Roadmap that pursues a patenting and a start-up strategy and a commercialization strategy, and delivers a website and Software as a Service demo, together with targeted dissemination events with key private and public finance stakeholders with whom the CLIMEX consortium has already engaged in a business dialogue. CLIMEX’s disruptive positioning on the market is achieved by combining cutting-edge scientific competence across three domains in which the CLIMEX members are international leaders, (i.e. models of risk and contract valuation in financial networks, environmental economics, Software as a Service demos) and their knowledge and know-how when it comes to implement the methods on actual clients’ portfolios. The consortium will have access to professional advise on technology transfer via a dedicated organization at the coordinator node, as well as support from experienced entrepreneurs in the field of fintech.

The dual climate change and biodiversity crises put an urgency for implementing inclusive, just, and effective policies, while their inextricable nature calls for integrated assessment approaches that capture synergies and trade-offs. Mainstream economic methods currently used in the appraisal of environmental policies fail to capture the complexity of the climate-biodiversity-economy nexus. Even though uncertainty, disruption, and irreversibility are inherent to environmental challenges, these are overlooked when designing and evaluating the performance of policies. Policy effectiveness and resilience against other impact areas, such as quality of life, financial stability, political feasibility, innovation is not included in policy appraisal. Rather, policy evaluation is informed by a narrow set of metrics, falling short of encompassing broader considerations of sustainability and wellbeing. DECIPHER employs a systems and multi-disciplinary approach using a diverse set of models, methods, and processes to significantly improve decision-making on climate change and biodiversity and enhance policy resilience and feasibility. Moving beyond state-of-the-art, we will establish a holistic and operational decision-making framework that integrates advanced economic and biophysical models, empirical methods and stakeholder participation tools. The novel framework incorporates environmental damages in the economic decisions of agents and introduces a risk-opportunity approach for decision making. To offer critical insights on system dynamics and risks, the models developed will be equipped with innovative features including improved representations of agent behavior, technology innovation, financial risk valuation and the capacity to assess extreme events and critical tipping points. The new decision-making framework will be the end-result of an iterative co-creation process with stakeholders and applied under real-world conditions in the assessment of flagship EU policies.