To reach Europe climate neutrality by 2050 as ambitioned by the Green Deal strategy, it is necessary to drastically reduce emissions from aviation. Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking has set out a very ambitious innovation programme to achieve this goal but it is also necessary to create synergy with the different aeronautical regional/national funding programmes in order to create leverage effects and maximise funding impact. ECARE project’s objective is to draw linkage between European/national/regional roadmaps and aeronautical stakeholders and co-create synergies through a pilot covering 4 major aeronautical European regions (Occitanie and Nouvelle Aquitaine in France, Hamburg Land in Germany and Campania in Italy) with the aim of creating a methodology expandable to other aeronautical European regions. ECARE digital platform will provide (i) a mapping of funding opportunities, relevant projects, scientific and industrial resources, (ii) a forum for exchange of information. The ECARE Stakeholders Group (funding bodies, clusters and other aeronautical stakeholders) will foster and spread ECARE methodology. After more than a hundred interviews with aviation players, national and transnational workshops will co-elaborate and provide recommendations for CAJU Phase 2 implementation by 2025. The consortium is composed of 3 major European aeronautical clusters (Aerospace Valley, Hamburg Aviation and Campania Aerospace District) and one Belgian SME specialized in aeronautics technology services (EASN-TIS). All are experts in their domain and other European aeronautical clusters will be involved inter alia via the EACP (European Aeronautical Clusters Partnership) partnership coordinated by Hamburg Aviation cluster. Eventually the project is expected to bring together more than 300 entities via the platform and 30 ECARE Stakeholders Group members that will collaborate on the synergy to help the European aviation achieve its ambitious goals.

InnEO’Space_PhD project aims at preparing post-graduate candidates and early stage researchers for a successful career through modernised and transferable PhD courses based on innovation skills and employers’ needs. To achieve this, the project will enhance and develop researchers’ innovation-oriented mind-sets and skills through Earth Observation, that offers a multidisciplinary approach and numerous applications in various sectors (environment, climate change, crisis management…). By converging to a joint PhD profile, synergies between universities will be enhanced to promote exchanges and mobility. The project will also create new synergies between: - PhD students and researchers and potential employers, and, - the universities and the private sector. Indeed, the consortium will collaborate with companies, SMEs and clusters to develop the activities, enhance PhD students and early sThe aim of the Open Science innovation in PhD programme through Earth Observation is to prepare young researchers for a successful career by developing modernised PhD courses based on innovation skills and employers’ needs. By implementing four pilots at a large scale and across Europe in the multidisciplinary case of Earth-Observation science applications, the consortium will get a broad mapping of best practices to develop a e-learning course and a PhD career tool kit that will remain accessible after the end of the project. The e-learning course will then be a useful tool for any university, which wants to foster new careers for PhD students and researchers from any domain by providing them with transferable skills to fit the European industry and stakeholder needs other than academic labs. The InnEO’Space_PhD shall stand for a special academic excellence for future scientific leaders in any field related to EO, enlarging their training and experience with soft skills, environment monitoring, open science and entrepreneurship, that are needed elements for innovation at any level.

SPACE4Cities will dynamise the uptake of space-based solutions for dynamic use and management of public space. This is an area of smart city development which is currently lagging behind in digital transformation when compared to parallel domains of similar economic and social importance. Cities are at the forefront of fighting todays grand societal challenges, as they consume 75% of the natural resources, 78% of the worlds energy, produce 50% of the global waste, and emit 60-80% of the greenhouse gases. Yet, they account for less than 2% of the Earths surface. Therefore, SPACE4Cities project predominantly targets cities and densely populated regions. Cities face increasing pressure to tackle their climate challenges and to utilise their existing assets more efficiently, while at the same time be more agile in reacting to constant change from climate events and other factors. In effect, cities need to be more dynamic and more resilient. However, currently, cities are not able to manage their public space (on ground and in air) in an agile manner that would adequately support the increasing amount of different types of needs. If the management of areas is to become dynamic, it has to be based on dynamic data assets. This project strives for better, more dynamic management of public spaces, answering a concrete need for cities and regions to be able to adapt to fast-changing requirements for transport infrastructure, open spaces and city maintenance, and to increase their resilience to cope with extreme and disruptive events. Via smart exploitation of space data, the SPACE4Cities project aims to build replicable solutions for the dynamic management of public areas, and a clear roadmap for Europe-wide implementation of such space data-based solutions.

The UFO project is based on two main assumptions. First, business opportunities lie in the combination of space data with digital technologies and other sources of data. Embedded Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) into small flying objects (SFOs - drones, small satellites, high altitude platforms) represent a great opportunity to collect additional aerospace data, especially to drive the Artificial Intelligence revolution for various global applications. Second, the value added applications in Europe are mostly driven by SMEs. Thus, the UFO project aims at fostering the development of cross-sectoral industrial value chains between 6 emerging industries (Mobility technologies, Environmental, Blue Growth, Digital, Experience and Cultural and Creative industries), SFOs, embedded KETs and data analysis and exploitation solutions stimulating the development of new products and services by SMEs. To achieve this, the consortium provides a systemic and strategic vision. Clusters, which gather SMEs, large groups, R&D actors, and other innovation entities, are crucial to create links between different value chains, basically the data providers and the information product providers that turn raw data into valuable information. The UFO consortium and associate partner consisting of 8 emerging industry clusters including 5 SFOs, embedded KETs, ICT clusters, representing more than 1000 SMEs throughout 6 different EU countries and sectors. The partners have the capacity to carry such actions as they will foster partnerships between the different links (their members) of value chains and provide them incentives through the launch of call for proposals providing Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) and innovation services provided by clusters. They represent some of Europe’s most dynamic clusters including Gold and Bronze labelled ones with a history of cooperation, a track record of supporting innovation actions for SMEs.