Featured projects

The Mediterranean and neighbouring countries are a climate change hotspot, the climate research community believes. Projections suggest water availability is highly likely to fall, while demand will rise. The EU-funded CLIWASEC project cluster studied climate change impacts on water and security, and helped prepare Europe and its neighbours for the challenges ahead with guidance on water efficiency and stakeholder involvement.

Five years after Europe launched a plan to foster innovation, EU-funded researchers are taking stock of its impact on growth and jobs. Their analysis aims to help policy-makers calibrate on-going policy actions and plan future ones.

The importance of damage tolerance in aircraft was recognised as long as 400 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. The quest to improve tolerance continues, with much of the focus today on materials. Two EU-funded projects are developing advanced materials with the potential to both improve damage tolerance and the durability of composites.

Is a precise answer always better than a slightly less detailed one? Not necessarily. Some problems could take forever to compute and tie up vast IT capacity. Where solutions are needed urgently, e.g. in business or manufacturing, near-enough can be more than enough. ERC-funded research has produced a library of fast, powerful approximation algorithms.

In 2011 alone, more than 30 000 people were killed on EU roads and many more had their lives changed forever due to a serious injury. The European Commission has set the target of cutting road deaths by half by 2020, and projects such as ARTRAC are helping. The project developed new sensor technologies to reduce the likelihood of vehicles colliding with pedestrians - one of the most vulnerable of all road users.

Unfortunately, dealing with one chronic disease doesn't mean that you can't develop another. More than 50 million people in Europe are living with more than one such condition, and this number is expected to grow. EU-funded researchers are looking into ways to provide them with more integrated support and redesign healthcare systems accordingly.

Machine tools are expensive investments that need frequent preventive maintenance. EU-funded researchers have devised new methods to keep them in peak condition through remote monitoring, cutting maintenance costs. Commercial prospects for the new technology are strong thanks to the industrial partners in the project.

Agricultural, forestry and residential waste can provide fuel for transport, heat for homes and electricity for businesses, reducing Europe's dependence on imported fossil fuels and lowering green house gas emissions. EU-funded researchers are overcoming challenges to making residual biomass a technically viable and cost-competitive source of renewable energy.

EU-funded project ESMERALDA is developing ways to assess Europe’s biodiverse ecosystems and their many contributions to society and the economy.

In the battle against climate change, more funding is being directed to preserving the planet's forests and wilderness regions - often home to marginalised Indigenous peoples. Project COBRA is showing how their skills and experience can help make these vital conservation efforts more successful, with the UN Development Programme keeping a close eye.

EU-funded PENGUINAV was the first-ever study of how groups of king penguin chicks find their way home. We now know more about collective animal movements and how to study the movements of other species.

The SEA CHANGE project aims to encourage citizens to take direct and sustainable action to protect healthy and biodiverse seas by increasing their ocean literacy – defined as an understanding of the ocean’s influence on a person and that person’s impact on the ocean.

After an organ transplant, a patient must take powerful drugs to suppress rejection of the new body part. The EU-funded THE ONE STUDY project is testing whether some of the body's own immune cells can improve organ acceptance. Initial clinical trials are underway.

EU-funded researchers have conclusively shown that large-scale, cost-effective manufacturing of graphene is possible, opening up new product possibilities and ensuring that Europe remains at the cutting edge of applied nanotechnology.

An EU-funded project to design a simple and secure means of collecting online payments will enable more SMEs to efficiently and cost-effectively access the full potential of Europe’s burgeoning e-commerce market.

When oil-seed plants and fish are processed, how can we use the parts not traditionally used in food? How about food ingredients, skincare and pesticides? EU-funded researchers have demonstrated sustainable ways to get the most out of produce. Companies are already building factories and machines to put the results to good use.

EU-funded research indicates air pollution and global warming are locked in a vicious circle. The research is feeding into efforts to cut air pollution and fight climate change.

EU-funded researchers have developed three new tools to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. They are now working to bring their low-cost innovations to market quickly – a boost to the global battle against this deadly disease.

The robot Kompaï helps older, dependent or disabled people to live independently at home for as long as possible. Kompaï was designed to accommodate in particular people suffering from cognitive decline. People can be safe at home and stay in permanent connection to the outside world due to internet access and dedicated applications in Kompaï.

The fall detector validated in the FATE project is a highly sensitive device for fall detection. When a fall is detected, a message is sent to a phone number of a relative, carer or alarm monitoring centre. The device is very small and light and can be worn in a customised belt comfortably and securely at all times. It can be easily connected to the user smartphone using Bluetooth. A proprietary App for Android makes its management very easy and transparent for the user.