Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are becoming the state-of-the art energy storage technology for the future, and they are increasingly applied in the automotive industry as well as for renewable energy storage. The global Li-ion battery market size, considering only Electrical Vehicles applications, is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 25.3% from USD 27.3 billion in 2021 to USD 67.2 billion by 2025.1 Simultaneously, there has been continuous growth since 2000s in the integration of renewable energy sources, such as huge production of photovoltaic (PV) modules; the total cumulative installed capacity reached 627 GW in 20192. These emerging technologies will result in two major issues in the future: - Supply issue: Growing need of critical materials (Co, Si, Ni, Al, Li, Mn) - Environmental issue: Wasted LiBs and PV panels (considered as hazardous waste) contain also harmful components which harm health and water resources, even provoke spontaneous fires. The main objective of RESTART Project is to implement a full value chain for recycling End-of-Life (EoL) LiBs and PV, shifting from linear economy to circular economy, thus reducing waste disposal as well as minimizing dependence on important primary materials. Major aspects will be covered: • Collection, disassembling and characterization of EoL LiBs and PV • Technology Development and scale-up of metals recovery processes • Demonstration of fresh Batteries build-up from recovered chemical elements • Sustainability Life Cycle Assessment • Economy Business Plan based on the best cost performing recycling processes • Dissemination of the Project’s outreaches for identification of key stakeholders • Implementation of a Start-up The outcomes of RESTART on the creation of jobs (through dedicated capacity building and innovation) and implementation of real circular economy will serve as a model for the numerous African Countries through the large scientific and economic existing partnership. RESTART implements an interdisciplinary approach facilitated by its consortium that brings complementary expertise from top-level research institutions in EU and Africa to cover the entire recycling value chain. It will strictly comply with all national, AU and EU legislations on the matters of privacy and data protection. Any Intellectual Property generated in this project will be governed by the IPR rules described in the final Consortium Agreement. RESTART project, involving 7 females/20 members, will address the need for gender equality in its capacity building and peer-to-peer-exchange, to ensure that women are represented and involved in all aspects of the project. The methodology consists of: • The screening and development of advanced and innovative solutions for spent PV and battery processing (WP2, UM6P-UCA). • The characterization of the speciation of the used metals to select the appropriate recovery strategy (WP1, CEREGE & Aalto). •Thermoelectric materials and fresh batteries will be developed starting from recovered metals. Their performance will be compared with commercial batteries (WP3, UCA-KSIU). •Strategy for reactor design and upscaling will be developed for the most efficient process (WP4, UM6P) combining the techno-commercial assessment (UBB, WP5). Life cycle assessment and handling processes will be completed (Aalto, WP6). • Development of a detailed business model from the e-wastes collection to the valorization of the final products. The implementation of a Start-up in GEP will serve as a model for the African countries (WP7, GEP). Note that UCA-UM6P-GEP-CEREGE with the support of EMOB enterprise providing their EoL LiBs, already started to initiate RESTART project through the co-supervision of a PhD student (UCA-UM6P-CEREGE) with a scholarship funded by GEP. The first steps consisting of battery collection, disassembling, separation of the components and their analysis were performed in accordance with the RESTART’s methodology. EoL LiBs from EMOB are currently recycled

Aquifers are a critical component of the water cycle, the ecosystems, and the socio-economic systems; especially in the southern shore of the Mediterranean, where water resources are limited and unevenly distributed in space and time. Some countries receive a mere 10% of the local total annual average rainfall. In such complex region, where aquifers are influenced by population growth, climate change, and environmental changes, it is increasingly important to enhance, manage and sustain services derived from aquifers and the groundwater. The conceptual framework of AGREEMed is inspired from the assumption that resilient water management, preservation of ecosystems, and sustainable agricultural development in water-stressed Mediterranean basins is possible if area’ specific portfolio of solutions and practices is designed and implemented in a participatory approach. AGREEMed project aims at improving the capacities of water actors in developing aquifer management plans and organizing demonstrations of such development in pilot areas in strategic agricultural Mediterranean basins: Souss-Massa in Morocco, Hammamet in Tunisia, and Jordan Valley in Jordan. This will be achieved by selecting, adapting, and implementing a combination of successful technologies and practices in the Mediterranean region within inclusive and adaptive aquifers’ governance plans. Specifically, AGREEMed seeks to: deliver scientific knowledge about quantity and quality status of groundwater and dependent ecosystems, evaluate non-conventional water technologies, promote innovative water treatment and brine management technologies, leverage Nature-Based Solutions, foster institutional water management practices, promote Big Data-based models added values, and introduce the collective intelligence concept in water resources management. To accomplish these sub-objectives, AGREEMed is relying on an international consortium of partners from different sectors (research centers, universities, association, SMEs) and proven expertise in the project pillars, and on an innovative methodology to approach the different milestones. In each of the pilot areas, “Stakeholders Bords” will be created and will include various actors in the water value chain. This coalition will represent an instrument of dialogue and inclusive governance and will be involved across the project activities. Exploratory investigations and evaluations of groundwater, associated ecosystems, and current non-conventional water technologies will be carried to guide the following activities. Aquifers governance plans specific to each pilot area will be built, combining non-conventional water technologies, disruptive Big-Data based models, NBS, and institutional practices according to findings of the exploratory researches. Socioeconomic and environmental assessments will be performed to secure the optimal footprints of the suggested solutions. Dedicated efforts will be made in upscaling and dissemination, for a larger outreach of the project outcomes within the Mediterranean region. The strategic ambitions of AGREEMed are falling within the scope of water thematic call as it addresses the vital role of aquifers and their management in the Mediterranean. The multidisciplinary and multiapproach of AGREEMed will be supporting the research activities in responding to the expectations of the selected topic regarding addressing the problem of water scarcity through innovation, integrating ecosystems and people, and reducing gaps between plans and implementation. To that end, AGREEMed’s value proposition in contributing to groundwater and dependent ecosystems sustainability is alleviated by a large portfolio of solutions and practices (technological, institutional, and scientific) where specificities of the pilot area, inclusiveness, and ecosystems are key pillars. Diverse innovations (products, business models, approaches, and organizational models) are expected within the framework of AGREEMed.

Agriculture in the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly a challenging sector that’s shaped by climate change. TRUSTFARM will use Climate-Smart Farm Practices (CSFPs) that cope with climate change. Core challenges in the case studies will be identified by their climate impact variability on food security. In cooperation with stakeholders, TRUSTFARM will develop Multi-Stakeholder Innovation Platforms (MIPs) to prioritise and select the best-fit innovative CSFPs for each case study. A toolbox of innovative pathways will be developed that contains the following: 1) Identification and promotion of food crops with high yielding germplasm that are resistant to heat and disease; 2) Soil and water conservation to improve productive capacity; 3) Adoption of best practices in ruminant husbandry. TRUSTFARM will design integrated agro-ecosystems based on the selected pathways with on-farm trials. The environmental and economic impacts of the designed systems will be assessed using Life Cycle Analysis. To increase and diversify farmers’ income, two business models will be developed:1) Reduce Reuse Recycle (RRR) to produce high-quality compost; 2) Dairy and meat products and wool from small ruminants. TRUSTFARM will select one or both business models according to the needs of each case study with the stakeholders through the MIPs. Expected results: i) A strong EU and African partnership for R&I to achieve the goals of sustainability and food security; ii) A Better understanding of the impact of climate change in the case-study countries; iii) Improved capacity building among farmers’ and stakeholders’ with better coordination of the targeted value chains; iv) Improved soil and water quality and thus productivity with efficient use of inputs; v) Enhanced farmers' incomes and a boosting of the rural economy as well as consumers’ nutrition; vi) Dissemination of the integrated agro-ecosystem and CSFPs through social media, taking advantage of farmers’ smartphone usage.

Population growth drives up local demand for food and energy resources and induce a negative impact on the ecosystems due to waste accumulation and greenhouse gas emissions. Slaughterhouses produce large amounts of solid and liquid waste, containing a high organic load, which constitutes a threat to ecosystems and a risk to human health. Their management is even more challenging as it is complicated by the overconsumption of water. The blood, stomach contents, urine and faeces of the animals and possibly other organic constituents are drained with the cleaning water to the sewage system. Because the slaughterhouse waste (SHW) contains large amounts of fats, proteins, lipids, and organic matter, it becomes a potential source for producing biogas (methane), biohydrogen and other value-added products. The bioenergy produced can support addressing rural population energy needs in rural areas, and energy self-sufficiency for slaughterhouses. In this context, an integrated approach will be developed to overcome these environmental and socio-economic problems and to develop effective strategies to recover and valorize effluent streams for applications mainly in energy production. The BIOTHEREP project which is mainly within topic 1 and 5 of the call, aims to develop an integrated strategy to produce bioenergy from slaughterhouses wastes, and to implement solutions responding concretely to the global and regional objectives of sustainable development in a circular economy aspect. The BIOTHEREP approach combines biochemical (BCC) and thermochemical conversion (TCC) (pyrolysis, gasification) processes to produce renewable energies. The obtained solid digestate from BCC will be processed by a TCC to produce biochar by pyrolysis, and syngas by gasification. The biochar will be used as a precursor for improving CH4 and H2 production, and for in-situ CO2 removal. Syngas (mainly H2 and CO) could be used as a fuel to produce thermal energy. This hybrid system outputs are contributing to the bioenergy production, and they are good local and regional alternatives to imported activated carbons and conventional energy sources. The use of the proposed approach will be justified in the context of ensuring economically and environmentally sustainable development both at the regional and international levels. The mechanism for such an assessment will be based on an integrated approach, including a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the internal and external sustainability of the proposed project. The integrated approach will be developed in collaboration between the eleven R&D institutions from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Italy, Germany and France, including two private companies from Germany and South Africa. It will be implemented under eight Work Packages (WP) for 24 months. Each partner will be responsible for its own WP or task and could be involved in other WPs led by other partners to ensure synergy between the teams.

Resource reduction, extreme climatic events and loss of biodiversity in cultivated fields, are having a strong impact on farmers' incomes, subjecting farms to the risk of shutdown and fields abandonment. BIOMEnext proposal aims to optimize, with a multi-actor approach, all resources available along the entire supply chain, in terms of plant genetic potential, effective microbial consortia for plant growth and health, new agro-systems based on the use of controlled grassing and cover cropping. Among the various Mediterranean cultivation systems, tree fruit growing has undergone the greatest technological transformation towards a deep intensification, complete mechanization and a genetic revolution, allowing, on one hand, an increase in production and cost reduction but, on the other one, leading to a very strong increase in resource demand, soil consumption and air-water-soil pollution. A threatening diversity loss of varieties and organisms composing the agro-ecosystems and causing irreversible loss of soil, reduction of organic matter and unacceptable levels of pollution of the air and surrounding environment. As a consequence of these changes, it has become mandatory to re-design the production models, using or enhancing low resource-demanding cultivars and developing new cultivation systems ready to reduce energy and water inputs, favoring cenoses able to increase adaptation, resilience and ability to exploit the environmental resources, including microbiomes, cover crops, agro-pastoral systems, neglected and underutilized species to produce food, to preserve soil fertility, to protect the agro-environment and to enable sustainable and resilient agro-systems to produce under a circular bioeconomy perspective. Olive, the most typical fruit crop of the Mediterranean basin, should represent the model system for studying new cultivation strategies and testing their environmental and economical sustainability to protect against climate constraints and recover from excessive pollution, resource consumption and genetic erosion. The model built within the project, could then be adapted and extended to many other fruit crop species (grape, almond, citrus, etc.). BIOMEnext will put in place the following actions: •Harnessing traditional varieties, wild olives and new bred genotypes to redesign environmentally friendly groves; •Developing new bacterial consortia and mycorrhizal inoculants to promote climate resilient and stress-tolerant plants; •Building new composite eco-friendly crop systems; •Assessing the environmental and socio-economic impact of the proposed innovations and newly developed crop systems; •Involving different stakeholders of the supply chain in order to share the problems to be faced and the technologies to be applied, with an integrated participatory approach. The expected outputs include: •Selection of traditional and newly bred plant genotypes adapted to extreme conditions, stress tolerant and low-resource demanding, with high agronomical value in terms of productivity and product quality; •Development of microbial consortia and biostimulants to assist plant trees to grow under severe environmental conditions, to valorize low-fertile soils and the environmental constraints; •Recovery of traditional farming systems able to reduce resource inputs and endorse the natural resources; •Application of new farming technologies, including remote sensing technologies to reduce water, fertilizers and pesticides; •Increasing crop yield under different soil and climate stress conditions; •Integrating different value chain components into new farming systems; •Application of inclusive approaches and to increase the public acceptance of the new technologies.