Climate change poses a global challenge, and the production of cement contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 5–8%. This project is, therefore, poised to revolutionize the industry by developing an innovative, eco-friendly cement using dredged materials (DMs) as precursors to produce greener geopolymers. The latter are synthesized by mixing materials rich in aluminosilicates with an alkaline solution. The GHG of geopolymer concrete is ~73% and ~46% less than ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete, respectively. Geopolymers exhibit noticeably improved mechanical properties compared to OPC concrete and have been shown to have better resistance to acid attacks, high temperatures, and fire. However, the production of large quantities of geopolymer concrete is limited due to the declining availability of fly ash worldwide. Dredged sediments have been identified as a potential source of silica and alumina. This project sets out to establish the foundational science needed to transform DMs into materials suitable for structural applications, thus pioneering a sustainable path to CO2 reduction. This study will foster the adoption of these by-products in sustainable infrastructure development and create a roadmap for producing DM-based geopolymers. The research, led by me, Dr. Amine el Mahdi Safhi, under the mentorship of Dr. Mahdi Kioumarsi and Dr. Shima Pilehvar at Østfold University College (HiØ) in Norway, will bolster my skills in materials and structural engineering, preparing me for an expansive academic career. The project is an international endeavor, with the collaboration of Dr. Ahmed Soliman from Concordia University (Canada) and industrial partner NETICS (Netherlands). Our vision is to turn an environmental challenge into an opportunity for sustainable development. By harnessing DMs, we will not only transform the cement industry but also positively impact society and the environment.

In Europe we need young people with strong multilingual and intercultural skills who can tackle the challenges that arises in European societies and especially the labour market in the future. The European Commission as well as the Council of Europe have elaborated policies to support multilinguism and interculturalism in order to enhance businesses’ competitiveness and citizens’ mobility and employability, e.g. “European Strategy for Multilingualism: Benefits and Cost” (2016). The motivation theories are already available (Dörnyei et al., 2014). We propose to apply these to energise young people to perform better multilingual and intercultural skills. An example for this is ‘creating the vision’, that is, to construct vision of who they could become as multilingual users and what knowing several languages could add to their lives. However, recent findings on European level (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/multilingualism_en) or on local (national) level, for ex. in the “Danish National Language Strategy” (2017), show that there is a large percentage of young people who do not have sufficient language skills, and, simultaneously, there is a growing demand for multilingual labour market. This project addresses both challenges. The project has three primary target groups. Within, the project, we will attempt to path the complex relationships among the different target groups that exist and can increase the awareness of young people and their motivation to become more proficient in different languages and more interculturally competent. The running of the project consists in three steps: The first target group is business. The dialogue between education and business is vital if the supply of language skills from education systems is to be better matched to the needs of the labour market. The task of the businesses (our associated partner in this project) is to help define a profile for the multilingual workforce and create a demand for it. The second target group are career staff/consultants, policy makers, school leaders, university staff, and curricula writers. Associated partners from this group will help to provide and find a practical solution regarding the dual competence based on the demand from business. The third target group of the project are young people – both European citizens, and migrants and refugees. Teachers and parents have to be also included in the third and the last phase of the project. Ideally, the young people, participating in the project, should be motivated, they should welcome the solutions proposed in the previous two steps, and finally, try to implement the guidelines proposed here. The project aims: - To change attitude toward language learning, more specifically to increase the awareness of value of multilingualism (foreign languages and mother tongue languages) as well as Intercultural Communicative Competences (ICC) as dual competences, - To increase awareness in careers/skills organisations and staff to be more knowledgeable about dual competences and languages/ICC skills relevance, - To elicit employers and businesses to recognise and demand Languages and ICC skills, - To equip the users better for the labour market through an increased level of languages and cultural knowledge and thus combat skills deficit that currently exits, - To develop, test and implement innovative approaches to motivate young people to choose more languages and be aware of intercultural similarities and differences. To achieve these aims, the project’s team will design and create a website, which will be updated as the project progresses, being one of the final products at the end of the project. To do this, short videos for the website presenting professionally successful people who combined their multilingual skills with another profession, will be created. Guidance for different audiences (i.e. language teachers, career staff, parents, etc.) will be also elaborated as well as examples of good practices and case-studies. The official start of the project will symbolically be on the 26th September – the European Day of Languages when Europe is celebrating the language and cultural diversity. The dissemination plan includes local events in every partner country as well as involvement at interdisciplinary events organised by the key-organisations (e.g. business conference, parent conference, career advisors) to promote project’s development, get feedback and present ongoing results. We also plan school visits where we can meet young people. The long-term impact of the project should be to initiate changes in the national curricula and to create integrated studies and new study programmes. The guidelines from this project will pave the way to move the language studies towards a more functional and communicative approach in line with needs of the businesses, the global society and cultural understanding, thereby increasing the young people employability and skills in general.

"<< Objectives >>The aim of this project is to bring the academic contribution to circular economy on waste management in the construction industry, by building skills for future construction actors, higher education students now, so that they may become drivers of change for the construction sector towards a sustainable construction model that uses natural and recycled materials, reducing the environmental impact and thus meeting the objectives of EU directives. We will also provide tools to professionals.<< Implementation >>Development of case studies to work with the students on how BIM (Building Information Modelling) methodology and LCA (life cycle analysis) may be used to evaluate the sustainability of the different construction materials.Development of a web app where professionals may select a certain material and obtain results regarding CO2 emissions, energy consumption, waste, subproducts, environmental impact and other indicators.Development of a university course to train future construction actors.<< Results >>An ""Educational program of one course on sustainable building and C & D waste management, based on national case studies"" to be used by universities in order to train students and a web app on construction's material circularity to be used by professionals in the construction industry in order to choose alternatives with the least impact on the environment. Outcomes: A more sustainable construction industry, producing less waste, consuming less energy, reusing and recycling materials."

"""An unforgettable experience"". This phrase summarizes the two and a half years that the execution of the CISOSS project has meant for all those involved in it.Yes, it was a project devised by Javier Rodríguez Pascua,VET professor of computer science, expert in free software and, currently, the director of the CFTIC Getafe, Training Center of the Community of Madrid, under the General Directorate of Training.The objectives of the project as well as its design and the support of the collaborating partners have been stimulating. Who can not be excited to create a new training specialty, especially designed to facilitate SMEs in Spain and Europe their digital transformation in an economic way, through the design of a profile of consultant-implementer of free software tools?Certainly, putting an innovative idea into practice is not easy. The effort to ""create"" has a much more valuable merit than that of reforming, expanding, or updating. But, with effort, we have overcome this difficulty throughout the execution of the project.Therefore, yes, we have managed to give an effective and affordable response to the need for digital transformation of SMEs, developing a new training action for unemployed people, based on an innovative program to increase ICT skills of a consultant-implementer profile of free software tools.This adventure has been the one that we undertook in 2015, 6 entities with interest in promoting the use of free software.But in February 2017 we suffered a blow, due to the departure of the main partner Sheffield City Council (SCC), for economic reasons. To diminish the repercussion of this fact, has been in some aspects, complicated.To highlight, fortunately, that after this serious incident, the response of the other partners has been to put the best of them, to get the project forward. Definitely, the partners have been:CFTIC GETAFE (MADRID) -Spain- Training Center of the Community of Madrid and National Reference Center of the Computer and Communications Professional Family.ESSI PROJECTS LTD -United Kingdom- Small company of services of Consulting and Training in Computing.SRH HOCHSCHULE BERLIN - Germany- Institute of Information Systems of the SRH University of Berlin.HOGSKOLEN I OSTFOLD (HIOF) -Noruega- Computer Science Faculty of the University of Østfold.HOGSKOLAN I SKOVDE (HIS) -Suecia- Software Systems Research Group at the University of Skövde.And get to work!It was the first experience of the CFTIC as coordinators of a project of strategic partnerships under the Erasmus + program. The difficulty that always means to lead a project has been overcome with the hope to achieve the goal of the project, which we have always believed.The technical activity is the one that has taken more time in the dedication to the project.Even with the difficulties generated by the abandonment of the SCC project, we are proud to have been able to finish it with the production of outstanding intellectual results, for their novelty and for the effort in controlling the quality of them.Being aware of the importance of disseminating a project, a great effort has been made to use all means to disseminate the CISOSS project as much as possible. Webs, twitter, LinkedIn, presentations, congresses, meetings, press releases, e-mails to associations and public and private institutions, have been the means used to achieve the objective of achieving maximum dissemination (as a sample button, the multiplier event celebrated at Getafe had an impact of 283,843 users) as well as the elaboration of the website of the project http://cisoss.es/.A huge achievement of which we are especially proud is that, finally, we have included in the National Catalog of Specialties of the SEPE of Spain, on an experimental basis, the latest CISOSS specialty.The work team of the CISOSS project leave, with satisfaction, with free access all the products produced, for the benefit of the whole society, thanks to the license with which they have published: ""International creative commons License"" and its offer in Moodle platforms .You can check all the work done through the Moodle platform. Please, use this credentials to access the moodle platform:user: evaluatorpassword: SepieEraCiso478There are three acceses:- Monitoring and documentation of the project:Here you can find all the material, reports, evidence and results of the project.URL: http://centrosdeformacion.empleo.madrid.org/aulavirtual/course/view.php?id=3- Virtual classroom for students:It is the virtual classroom where the students took the course.URL: http://centrosdeformacion.empleo.madrid.org/aulavirtual/course/view.php?id=5- Virtual classroom for teachers:Where the documentation to be used during the pilot was made available to the trainers:URL: http://centrosdeformacion.empleo.madrid.org/aulavirtual/course/view.php?id=54In the Erasmus results platform there are summaries of the documents, they are all in the Moodle platform."

SLIPPS Multidisciplinary Patient Safety project responds to the need to improve patient safety education. Health professions students learn in university & work placements. Students experience a range of patient safety episodes from good practice to adverse events. Such experiences are often overlooked & learning opportunities lost. SLIPPS collected & used these experiences to enhance education. Objectives: Develop SLIPPs Learning Event Recording Tool (SLERT)(IO2) & Database (IO1); Gather student event records (SLERs); Create website & public virtual learning centre (IO3); Analyse SLERs for development of Simulation scenarios & Patient safety game (IO4) & Virtual seminars(IO5); Promote patient safety education network; Develop other activities; encourage closer relationships among academia & health services.Participating organisations; 7 Universities, 7 health care organisations: UK Northumbria University > 33,500 students, > 650 staff. Degree, master & doctorate. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust. Care services to > 500,000 people ~11,000 staff. Finland: University of Eastern Finland ~ 15,000 students 2,800 staff. Master’s & Doctorates. Saimaa University of Applied Sciences ~ 3000 students ~260 staff, Degree courses. Kuopio University Hospital ~4300 staff > 840,000 patients. South Karelia Social & Health Care District ~4200 employees, care to ~ 130.000 citizens. Lappeenranta University of Technology ~6000 students. Computer sciences, Degree, master & doctorate. Italy: University of Genova > 40000 students, Degree, master & doctorate. San Martino Regional Hospital, Genoa ~ 1500 beds ~ 5000 staff. Norway: Østfold University College ~ 7000 students ~ 550 staff, Degree & masters level. Centre for Development of Institutional & Home Care Services, Østfold County, services ~ 293000 population. Spain: University of Alicante ~28000 students > 2400 staff. Degree, master & doctorate. University Hospital of San Juan de Alicante, ~2.000 professionals, care to ~236000. Main project activities; Monthly management group & IO sub-group meetings. Rigorous development of multidisciplinary multi-language tool (SLERT) for gathering students accounts & reflections on important learning events experienced in practice placements. Gathering > 300 learning event records (SLERs). SLERs analysis to develop educational resources (IOs); research into patient safety experiences & placement learning. Creating database to house & search SLERs. Establish SLIPPs website, virtual learning centre & SLIPPs database access, educational resources & information. Develop relationships between health care organisations & universities. Social media presence: blog, website Twitter & Facebook. Evaluate SLERT use. Promote other projects & involvement of others. Dissemination activity: multiplier events, national & international presentations, reports & publications. Foster external interest & network, share resources with institutions, countries & professions. Results; Successful development of IOs, freely availability on website & virtual learning centre. SLERT embedded in several partner countries curricula, so becoming integral part of health professions education. Development of other relationships & activities: Systematic narrative literature review & SLIPPs project publications; Use of SLIPPs data (PhD studentship UK, Dissertations UoG, SUAS); Additional funded education research project (UNN); Sub-studies with junior colleagues analysing SLERs; Analysis of impact of using SLERT & of student involvement in resource development. Impacts: SLERT functions as educational device & data collection method. Students involved in IO2 &4 development & described learning from this. Students using SLERT reported enhanced learning via guided reflection on action leading to individual learning. Closer working relationships between health care organisations & academics, evidenced by attendance of clinicians at QAG, Multiplier events, country specific project meetings, input to tool development. Beyond expected: SLERT use for a range of experiences & purposes beyond SLIPPs (e.g. as part of ‘portfolios’ of evidence for professional competencies, for personal reflection outside formal education), students taking learning gained from using SLERT back to work placement, so inspiring learning in communities of practice.Ongoing benefits: SLERT embedded in curricula of several education programmes (UNN, UoG, SUAS, UEF, UoA). Continued use of simulation scenarios in several partner sites (e.g. SUAS, UoG). Website & database maintained ~ 3 years after project end, so longer term benefit as research & educational resource for SLIPPs team & beyond. Network links on website to encourage new ‘partners’. Contnued relationships between academics & practice/work placement educators. New relationships between partner organisations (e.g) new Erasmus student exchange between UNN & UoG, visiting professor appointments, Erasmus training mobility visits, plans for new projects.