News

The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission, together with 37 International Senior Scientific Advisers from around the globe, released a joint statement ahead of the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference COP26, calling world leaders to take action for successfully mitigating climate changes and protect our planet.

From promoting nature-based solutions and engaging communities in sustainability, to communicating water resilience - take a look at the many other updates about the Green Deal Call-funded projects:

• Upcoming events for your diary
• Working group project highlight videos
• Reports
• Articles
• Webinars

Browse through all project success stories

RI-URBANS is transforming air quality monitoring in Europe, advocating for cleaner urban air with innovative tools and strategies. It has significantly influenced the revision of the European Air Quality Directive, aligning it with WHO standards and introducing advanced monitoring for pollutants like ultrafine particles and black carbon.

With 20 pioneering tools and comprehensive reports, RI-URBANS enhances air quality assessments, improves management practices, and safeguards public health across Europe.

The ENOUGH project is at the forefront of tackling emissions in the food sector, contributing to the EU's climate-neutral food business goals. It encompasses initiatives like the Retail Roadmap, which guides food retailers towards decarbonisation, dairy demonstrators in Austria and Norway that promote sustainable dairy processing, and a transport demonstrator in Italy focused on eco-friendly refrigeration in food transport.

ECF4CLIM has significantly advanced sustainability education, enriching the curriculum across multiple European educational institutions.

By embedding a participatory approach and co-designing interventions with the educational community, the project has facilitated a deeper understanding of sustainability challenges, while also empowering students and educators to take actionable steps towards sustainability.

I-CHANGE actively involves citizens in environmental science, demystifying the field and making it accessible to the wider community. This strategy boosts environmental awareness and fosters sustainable lifestyles and consumption habits.

The recent Genoa Living Lab demonstrates how citizen science can engage the public in environmental monitoring, cultivating a community focused on sustainability.

SOCIO-BEE tackles urban air pollution by engaging communities and citizen science.

Across European cities, it uses technology and interactive experiences to raise environmental awareness and spur action. Its successful pilots pave the way for broad community engagement, fostering healthier cities and sustainability.

REST-COAST has successfully implemented the nature-based nourishment technique in the Ebro Delta, demonstrating the real potential of the methodology to restore similar coastal systems.

In this success story the project has demonstrated the transferability of its nature-based solution by extending sand dune nourishment to other Mediterranean beaches.

ZeroPM is taking the lead against environmental pollution by persistent and mobile substances.

Through innovation and collaboration, it paves the way for a toxic-free future, in line with the European Green Deal. Its holistic approach shines as a beacon in the global battle against forever chemicals.

SISTERS pioneers food waste reduction in the European food value chain via innovations in production, packaging, & transportation.

With its Bulkbox smart container technology, it improves logistics efficiency & sustainability, ensuring optimal produce conditions for consumers. This comprehensive approach shapes a future of sustainable, resilient, waste-free food systems.

Welcome to this special issue in which we spotlight the remarkable success stories emerging from the research and innovation projects funded by the EU Green Deal Call.

We'll take a look at the groundbreaking technologies, collaborative efforts and impressive achievements from the projects that are driving our green transition to a climate neutral Europe. It's a great opportunity to find out about the impact of their activities and learn from the lessons they share which can be applied to other projects and initiatives.

Enjoy the read and if you like the content, make sure to share it with your network!

The G7 Science and Technology Ministers' meeting held in Bologna and Forlì, Italy, from 9 to 11 July 2024 underscored the pivotal role of science, technology, innovation, and higher education in contributing to a sustainable future, aligned with the shared values of democracy, respect for international law, and the promotion of human rights, fairness and freedom.

On 26 June 2024, European Commissioner Iliana Ivanova opened the contest for the 2024-2025 European Innovation Procurement Awards. She invited all innovation-minded customers that have used innovation procurement to apply for the European Innovation Procurement Awards and inspire further innovation and collaboration across Europe. You can now submit your applications online until 26 September 2024 and win this prestigious prize of 75.000 Euro.

Interested to continuously reduce costs in all your ongoing procurements and keep them up-to-date with the latest cutting edge innovations that increase the value of what you are buying? Save the date and register now for this online webinar on 17 September (14h00-17h30) about the benefits, good practice examples and practical approach of using Value Engineering. This technique incentivises contractors to present Value Engineering Change Proposals during ongoing procurement contracts that reduce costs and introduce innovations to improve the solutions that are being offered to the buyer with the lowest Total Cost of Ownership.

The European Commission has allocated an advisory assignment to the European Investment Bank to explore the potential for creating a new, easy-to-use financial product that financial investors under the InvestEU programme could offer to public procurers across Europe to de-risk innovation procurements. Public procurers and suppliers are invited to participate in the survey that collects information to design this new financial product: Please share with us by 22 September 2024 your views on barriers that public procurers experience in the financing of innovation procurements and challenges that suppliers experience in trying to sell innovation solutions to the public sector in Europe.

The 2024 State of the Digital Decade report highlights the need to extend the scope of public policy interventions, particularly in public procurement to speed up the development and deployment of cutting-edge digital solutions. This will help accelerate the development of the EU’s digital industrial and services base, including for sovereign AI, cloud technologies and public services. Member States are encouraged to mobilise such investments for the digitalisation of public services, to accelerate the scaling up of startups and SMEs and to use European Digital Innovation Hubs as gateways to facilitate access for businesses to public procurements of digital solutions. Member States will now have to review and adjust their national roadmaps to align with the ambition of the Digital Decade Policy Programme before 2 December 2024.

The European Council conclusions on 27 June 2024 highlight that it is crucial to leverage public procurement of research and innovation for strengthening European economic security, in particular to build up our own capacity in sensitive sectors and key technologies of the future, such as defence, space, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors, 5G/6G, health, biotechnologies, net-zero technologies, mobility, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and advanced materials.

Today, the Commission launched a call for applications for members of the new Technology Council for Advanced Materials. This high-level group will coordinate efforts to meet future needs for advanced materials in Europe and is key to building a single advanced materials ecosystem. It should ensure leadership in promoting research, fast-track deployment of innovations, address European industry needs and offer guarantees for an effective protection of human health and the environment.

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