"The main objective of RockStar (acronym for ""rockets"" and ""stars"") is to establish an educational collaboration between institutions from Canary Islands (Spain), Nordland (Norway) and Copenhagen, Denmark. This will be based on a coordinated project between high schools from the different countries and three institutions dedicated to education and dissemination of science and research: the Museum of Science and the Cosmos (MCC), the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), both in Tenerife, Spain, and the National Center for Space related Education (NAROM), part of the Andøya Space Center, located in Andøya, Norway. This program focus on astrophysics, space sciences and technology, and priories the development of educational modules that fits with learning objectives of the curricula (upper secondary level) of the different countries . The program will use the educational resources located in Tenerife (MCC and Teide Observatory), and Andøya Space Centre, Andøya. These complement very well, offering a unique frame for developing educational projects based on active-inquiry learning by using the attractive astrophysics and space science fields as hook to get attention into STEM disciplines. The main goal of RockStar is to increase interest towards STEM discipline. The combination of the resources that these institutions offer will certainly awake the enthusiasm and help achieving an effective program. The experience of these institutions in educational projects related to the objectives of RockStar will guarantee a high quality program.All resources developed by the project will be available online for use in classrooms. The transferability enables teachers to bring space related and hand-ons STEM-activities in use."

Being one of the main actions of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the European Biodiversity Partnership (Biodiversa+) will coordinate research programmes between EU and its Member States and Associated Countries, mobilising environmental authorities as key partners for implementing biodiversity research and innovation, along with ministries of research, funding organisations, and environmental protection agencies (75 organisations from 37 countries). Biodiversa+ has five overarching objectives: (1) improve monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe (status and trends); (2) generate actionable knowledge to tackle the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss; (3) expand and improve the evidence base, and accelerate the development and wide deployment of NbS to meet societal challenges across Europe; (4) make the business case for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; and (5) ensure efficient science-based support for biodiversity policy making in Europe. Biodiversa+ will meet these objectives by (i) setting up a pan-European network of harmonized monitoring schemes, building on existing national/regional monitoring schemes, creating capacity for setting up new schemes, and feeding into the EC Knowledge Center for Biodiversity; (ii) coordinating research programmes between the EU and its Member States and associated countries, thereby ensuring the long-term pan-European research agenda is co-created and implemented; (iii) contributing science-based methodologies to account for and possibly value ecosystem services and the natural capital, and to assess the dependency and impact of businesses on biodiversity and (iv) better linking of R&I programmes to the policy arena, providing greater input to policy making and improving the assessment of policy efficiency. Doing so, Biodiversa+ will help ensure that, by 2030, nature in Europe is back on a path of recovery, and by 2050 people are living in harmony with Nature.