CONTEXTS Hydroculture has a key role to play in food provision and tackling global challenges such as water scarcity, food security, urbanization and reductions in energy use and food miles. The EU acknowledges these challenges through its Common Agriculture Policy and policies on Water Protection, Climate Change, and Social Integration. A European approach is required in the globally emerging hydroponics research field building on the foundations of Europe’ s status as a global centre of excellence and technological innovation in aquaculture and hydroponic horticulture. Given the subject, to achieve high levels of performance in this project (actually aimed also at increasing employability in agriculture and rural development) it is necessary to foreseen also a common system in the jobs implementation. The European credit system for VET (ECVET) is one of the most important common European tools to support and increase European mobility. This aims to transform skills and competences into new job opportunities. OBJECTIVES The project aims to the objectives of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020), including the corresponding benchmarks, of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and its education and employment headline targets through better labour market integration, especially, in agriculture sector it aims at improving jobs in the food processing, food retail and food services. After that, one of main indirect objective is in relation to diversification actions and creation and development of a new professional role: the Hydroponics technician. PARTICIPANTS-NUMBER-PROFILE Target group will participate particularly to the following activities: - Survey collection a total of 180 rural and semi-urban farmers interviewed - Pilot test a total of 20 rural and semi-urban farmers involved The indirect target group of the project are all the private and public entity committed to Green jobs and vertical agriculture sector at local level. In particular: - Public offices for sustainable agriculture promotion - Organizations active in the promotion of rural farming and ecofriendly methodologies - Integrated systems for sustainable agriculture promotion ACTIVITIES Intellectual Output 1 HYDROPONICS VET: A GUIDE FOR HYDROPONICS PROFESSION IN EUROPE Intellectual Output 2 Toward qualification of new occupation: Hydroponics technician Multipliers Events Hydroponics technician demonstration event METHODOLOGY - E-learning tools - pilot training with small group of learners RESULTS - transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications: ECVET for Hydroponics technician will facilitate employability and mobility; - enhancing access to training and qualifications for all, with a particular attention to the low-skilled, through continuing VET, notably by increasing accessibility of continuing VET, validation of non-formal and informal learning, promoting work-place learning, providing for efficient and integrated guidance services and flexible and permeable learning pathways; - arising competencies in vocational and adult training, helping to enhance food production as well as create employment for EU rural and semi-urban farmers; - intervening in the sustainable lifestyle achieving the goals of training responsible citizens for Europe 2020; - applying ECVET to vocational and adult training into agriculture fields aimed at rural development. - allowing farmers to be trained on topics such as innovative and economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. IMPACT The project will create a model for the development of hydroponics approach for rural and semi-urban farmers with the skills to plan the sustainable economic development of their businesses. LONGER TERMS BENEFIT It is expected that sustainability can be achieved at different levels: • at European level: promotion through European network channels and conferences; • at local, regional and national level: promotion of results and outputs by project partners in their countries; ongoing promotion of activities through cross-sectorial partnerships; it is also expected that the cross-sectorial partnerships in the five countries will continue after the course of the project. An exploitation strategy with free-for-use issues will be developed by the end of the project. The consortium members will sign an Intellectual Property Right Agreement, that will regulate the shared property of the results and will be attached to a comprehensive Exploitation Plan. Exploitation activities go beyond dissemination activities, as they aim at adapting existing products to other beneficiaries or systems than those for which they were initially conceived. This adaptation requires supportive and regulated work, and for this reason exploitation activities have developed either through further transnational projects, or through key organization able to implement these types of activities.

Oper8 will set-up a self-sustainable, multi-actor, EU-wide Thematic Network to support and promote solutions for non-chemical weed control by building upon the knowledge and outcomes of 8 Operational Groups 7 countries, and stimulate knowledge exchange among all relevant actors and stakeholders. With the ambition to achieve a high impact and improve the sustainability of the European agricultural sector, the synthesis of partner OGs is based on their expertise, geographical location, novelty of solutions, as well as the established connections with the AKIS actors. Special emphasis has been placed on collaboration schemes among these OGs that progress at a different pace providing the opportunity to learn from the early birds, which will bring hands-on experience. The project will follow a multi-actor approach, implement a bottom up and top down model and build upon co-creation & cross fertilisation activities to help farmers access up-to-date knowledge, tools and techniques, applicable to specific conditions and needs.To this end, Oper8 will: (i) establish a stakeholder engagement processes to assemble the 7 National Networks (NNs); (ii) capture the drivers, barriers, and root causes of lack of non-chemical weed control adoption as part of a bottom-up approach; (iii) establish cross-fertilisation activities within and between the NNs to co-create, showcase, and evaluate non-chemical weed control methods; and (iv) deploy knowledge transfer tools and techniques (workshops, demo farms, CAP Measures) to adapt and scale up alternative weed control solutions and ensure their diffusion across EU. A series of actions (e.g., demonstration activities, policy recommendations and training sessions) for integrating project results into the CAP National strategic plans will be implemented, strengthening the AKIS and, ultimately, paving the way towards a transition to a sustainable agriculture in adherence to the Green Deal and its Farm to Fork strategy.

One Health is a concept initially promoted by FAO, OIE, and the WHO, that seeks to join forces to combat public health threats arising from interactions between animals, humans, and the environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has once again demonstrated the importance of the animal-human-health interface in the emergence of infectious diseases. Although not all zoonoses (diseases which can be transmitted to humans from animals) cause pandemics, most pandemics have a zoonotic origin, and knowledge of the determinants associated with them must form the basis of prevention strategies. However, so far this approach has been confined only at a broader policy level and to the academia, with research that have not yet been able to spill down to the agricultural vocational education and training sector, and to the workers that should actually use this framework with their interaction with animals and the environment. To bridge this gap, LIVET aims at developing and pilot testing an innovative VET curriculum at EQF 5 level focused on the management and practical application of the One Health principles into the livestock farming and animal husbandry sector. The project will develop an xMOOC at EQF 5 level on the adoption of the One Health approach into the livestock farming sector; three Specialisation courses at EQF 5 level on Animal welfare, Zoonoses, and Antimicrobial use and resistance; an Autumn School on One Health, Resilience Skills, and Integrated Risk Management; and a period of work-integrated learning for 60 learners. The project will also develop a new One Health Advisor qualification profile, and a VET curriculum related to such profile. The target groups of the project are graduates of agricultural technical vocational education institutions, undergraduate students in agriculture or veterinary science who have not completed their degree yet, advisors, consultants, technicians or supervisors of livestock farms, and specialised livestock workers with management roles.

The general objective of NOVASOIL project is highlight the benefits for the society and the environment from the investment in soil health. The main expected outcome of the project is a toolbox for the analysis of suitability of different business cases that promote soil health. This toolbox will be based on a set of good examples from Europe and other countries and the needs and demands from the society. The toolbox will include a categorisation of the models and business cases taking into account: a) sustainable soil management under different land uses and climatic conditions; b) products based on practices promoting soil health; c) consumption and certification practices conductive: d) the reuse of land and e) sustainable soil management in the context of the EU Taxonomy Regulation. For that, NOVASOIL is composed by a multidisciplinary team with a large experience on European and national projects focus on soil health and business models. As well as, NOVASOIL will built a Community of Practice around project objectives in order to co-develop soil health business models and the tool-box for incentives taking into account their needs and demands. NOVASOIL is organised in 5 WPs plus coordination following the expected objectives and impacts of the call. The first step is to develop a conceptual framework of soil health and business. This framework will nurture other WPs in order to develop in the same way all the expected objectives. The soil health business models will analyse current successful experiences in Europe and outside Europe in order to categorise them taking into account their variability. In addition, NOVASOIL includes 13 Case Studies with business models that promote soil quality and products based on sustainable crop and soil management. On the other hand, an analysis of current policies related will be carried out in order to provide suggestions and improvement that facilitate the implementation of these soil health business.

In a context of ecosystems pressured by nutrient pollution and record-high fertiliser prices, the recovery of nitrogen and phosphorous from waste streams provides a solution to tackle both issues, allowing the supply of new fertilisers (and other products for the food value chain) at a competitive price while enabling cleaner soil, air and water systems. However, to effectively do so, an intensive political, regulatory and governance effort is required to bring all key stakeholders on board. NENUPHAR was conceived to solve this need by developing new governance and value chain solutions addressing three waste streams widely present and the EU: manure, sewage sludges and dairy wastewaters, addressing four main innovations (i) a methodology for estimating N/P emissions from the application of a fertiliser on soil (ii) new governance models based on a network governance approach (iii) innovative economic and financial incentives for public and private entities; (iv) enabling technologies to treat manure, sludges and dairy wastewaters to recover the nutrient loads. NENUPHAR approach will be demonstrated in three different regional clusters from geographically diverse river basins: the Ebro river basin (Spain), the Lielupe river basin (Latvia-Lithuania), and the Danube river basin (Hungary-Slovakia branch) and they will be replicated in two insular systems: Cyprus and Bornholm (Denmark). All the regions involved gather a population of 5,4 M people and an area of 109,000 km2. This demonstration will allow the direct recovery of 273 ton of N and 72 ton of P, while the involved regions shows and overall potential of 38.3 Mton of manure, 252 kton of dry sludges and 4.3 m3 of dairy wastewater that can be treated. NENUPHAR will employ a multi-stakeholder approach, gathering 21 entities representing farmers and irrigators, waste managers, research experts in circularity and agronomics, social science experts, environmental organisations and public administrations.