The CARISMA project has two overall objectives. First, through effective stakeholder consultation and communication leading to improved coordination and assessment of climate change mitigation options, it aims to benefit research and innovation efficiency as well as international cooperation on research and innovation and technology transfer. Second, it seeks to assess policy and governance questions that shape the prospects of climate change mitigation options, and discuss the results with representatives from the CARISMA target audiences to incorporate what can be learned for the benefit of climate change mitigation. The experienced, interdisciplinary and diverse CARISMA consortium has an extensive track record of collaborating in Framework Programme projects. It combines capacity for technological, environmental, economic and social assessment with deep expertise across a range of climate change mitigation options, encompassing mature and emerging technologies as well as practices and governance, which are increasingly identified as important areas to achieve deep greenhouse gas emission reductions. Communication with, and support to, the CARISMA target audiences are an integral part of the project. In all inventory and assessment activities envisaged in the project, interaction with stakeholders is a key part. To facilitate coordination and avoid overlap, these activities are overseen by a dedicated work package. The target audiences include national and local policymakers, innovation and strategy managers in business and industry, research funding organisations and the research community. The CARISMA project will result in online platform services, face-to-face interactions, policy briefs and publications and increased capacity in the EU, Accession Countries and beyond, to address the climate change challenge and move towards a green, innovative and thriving global economy.

The overarching objective of EU-MERCI is to support, in a coordinated way, the growth of energy efficiency in industry processes. It will develop methods and tools for assisting EU industry in the effective implementation of energy efficiency improvements and in the monitoring of the energy savings, in application of the 2012/27/EU Directive. The methodology will be based on the analysis of thousands real energy efficiency projects implemented according with the current energy policies and measures in different MSs and dealing with tenths of different industry sectors and processes. Energy efficiency solutions will be typified according with agreed criteria concerning applications, processes and technologies: best practices, algorithms and procedures of efficiency assessment will be derived, harmonized and standardized. The goal is to answer the questions: what are the most effective actions improving the efficiency in a particular process or industry sector? How to specifically implement them? What are the most promising technologies? What is the efficiency improvement attainable with each action? How to measure, monitor and report the savings? What are the associated costs? EU-MERCI, with recommendation and specific dissemination actions, will also assist policy makers and public authorities in the assessment of the effectiveness and transparency of the mechanisms, giving them also a picture of the technologies and efficiency improvements to incentive. Lessons learned from countries with consolidated energy efficiency schemes in place will be transferred to countries less advanced. The outputs of EU-MERCI will be specifically validated for the agrifood industry at a pan-European level. Finally, it is expected that, as a result of the assistance to industry, the number and effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements will greatly increase, thus contributing to the attainment of the EU and national energy goals.