Featured projects

The EU-funded project ReAAL aims at assessing the impact of common open platforms on the market penetration in the domain of active and independent living. For this purpose, nine different piloting initiatives involving over 5000 users in six European countries are porting different AAL applications and services to universAAL, the open source software platform for AAL systems, as their common open platform. In order to enlarge the project impact and involve more stakeholders participating in the assessment, the ReAAL project has recently decided to issue an open call for "associated pilots".

The Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme has recently created a website containing all public deliverables from the projects it funds.

Whatever we think about it, it is clear that surveillance has increased – it is hard to ignore as the topic frequently hits the headlines. But does it matter? The EU-funded IRISS project is intent on finding out. The team is looking at whether surveillance changes our behaviour, and how it impacts our basic rights. The conclusions will be presented to policymakers, together with recommendations.

EU-funded researchers have developed advanced computer simulations to assess an aircraft’s ability to handle the extreme forces experienced in flight – before it even leaves the design studio. The new techniques aim to save manufacturers time and money and deliver more innovative, fuel-efficient aircraft – good for Europe’s competitiveness and the environment.

A new process for concrete buildings has robots cutting mould shapes and bending the steel reinforcement. Self-compacting concrete fills the mould, giving smooth, organic-looking buildings, but without the usual cost. The technologies, developed by EU-funded researchers, are already on the market.

STOPandGO (Sustainable Technologies for Older People – Get Organised) is a Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) Pilot project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

In the hunt for sustainable solutions to problems arising when humans interact with the nature around them, having the local community on board is a must. The EU-funded COMET-LA project is studying environmental challenges in local communities in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina to understand and come up with solutions that could be applied anywhere.

Europe is the second-biggest aid donor to the Pacific Island nations, but understanding of the islands themselves – their people and needs – has been limited in Europe. The EU-funded ECOPAS project is helping to change that, using a combination of anthropology, climate research and the performing arts.

Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges facing 21st century science.
The goal of the Human Brain Project, part of the FET Flagship Project, is to use IT as a catalyst for a global collaborative effort to better understand the human brain and its diseases. HBP will also deliver revolutionary computing technologies mimicking the brain with its power, fault-tolerance and consumption efficiency.

The Graphene Flagship aims to take graphene and related layered materials from a state of raw potential through the whole value chain to a point where they can revolutionize several industrial sectors – with multiple innovations foreseen in multiple fields, from flexible, wearable and transparent electronics over THz electronics and exciting new concepts in spintronics to novel electro-chemical energy storage solutions – batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells, and finally super-strong functio

EU-funded researchers have used advanced modelling and geo-spatial information to compile more accurate greenhouse gas inventories for Poland and Ukraine. The approach could substantially improve the accuracy of national inventories of greenhouse gases and boost Europe’s efforts to reduce emissions.

Gkikas Magiorkinis, a clinical research fellow from the Department of Zoology at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, has traced history at a microscopic level. By combining epidemiological and molecular data, he has shown how hepatitis C spreads in a population, underlining early diagnosis as a key to preventing the spread of epidemics.

Hard to imagine, but yes – some of us go entire days without a thought for the future of the tooling industry. Few of us, however, go entire days without handling products the sector helped to shape, such as a toothbrush or a smartphone. A team of EU-funded researchers has developed innovative products as well as guidance on business models to help Europe’s tooling manufacturers remain competitive.

Health is an area of research where people’s hopes and concerns are often deeply personal. Many of us have strong reasons to care. The EU backs teams across Europe that are looking for new and better ways to treat disease and keep us healthy. It also encourages researchers to keep the public informed of their progress by bringing in specialised communication expertise.

An EU-funded research project, ShopInstantShoe, has built a technology to personalise fashionable shoes for consumers using memory shape materials. The system, which can be used for any footwear, molds the size, shape and design of the shoe based on the exact size of the consumer’s foot.

They may sound exotic or obscure to most of us, but they are an integral part of our everyday lives, whether we know about them or not. Known as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), they are chemical compounds which are used in a wide variety of industrial products, from food and drink packaging to fire-fighting foams, to dirt- or water-proofing treatments for carpets or clothing. The drawback is that these chemicals have now spread throughout the environment. Often the contamination originates in the effluent from wastewater treatment carried out at industrial or municipal sites.

Driving could become safer, quieter and greener thanks to TYROSAFE, an EU-funded project that has completed research on road surface and tyre interactions. A follow-on project is already using the results to develop common standards across Europe for monitoring such interactions.

We tend to think of plants as being the first victims of pollution and climate change. But thanks to an FP7 research project, crops, forests and even the plants in your back garden could be fighting back.

An EU-funded study has resulted in the most comprehensive picture yet of the widening income gap across Europe between top earners and other workers – and how it affects societies. It will help policymakers make informed decisions on how best to reduce the gap – and support those who are falling behind.

Automation is supposed to relieve an aircraft pilot’s workload and reduce errors. The reality can unfortunately be very different sometimes. When the pilot and the aircraft do not interact as foreseen, automation technology can be the cause of disturbing instability, which has resulted in catastrophic failures. Tools and techniques developed by the EU-funded ARISTOTEL project are already being used by industry, and should reduce the risk of such accidents.