TEKNOAX 2.0 aims at answering to agriculture increasing demand for intelligent components in the market of axles for farming trailers, going beyond the state of the art and filling the existent gap with precision farming needs. TEKNOAX 2.0 will bring intelligence onto axles, enabling unique traceability and condition based maintenance through a collaborative platform. The achievement of this goal will be reached by merging the know-how of consortium partners: ADR SpA (Italy) - innovative axles with hollow shape, COLAERT Essieux (France) - adaptation and customization of trailer suspensions and axles, RINA CONSULTING SpA (Italy) - engineering company with a longtime experience in testing, knowledge management and design of electronic systems, FARMTECH d.o.o. (Slovenia) - manufacturer of trailers and spreaders for farming purposes. The innovative axles developed by ADR will be equipped with a communication system connected to a collaborative platform, both developed by RINA CONSULTING, to track axles performances and keep track of maintenance onto each unit. In a first testing phase COLAERT will provide implementation on trailer and testing on-road and on-field. Then, intelligent axles will be validated by FARMTECH in relevant working conditions on their trailers, which will be equipped with intelligent axles and tested by a pool of farmers throughout Europe, in order to develop the system in direct contact with end-users. An effective Business Plan has been already established, and the first results are going to be presented to public in next AGRITECHNICA 2017 (Nov. 2017) in Hannover, world’s biggest fair for agricultural machinery. Axles will be ready for commercialisation within 30 months from project start. New axles will also enable new business models, as trailer renting and trailer sharing, easing the approach to farming for young entrepreneurs and start-ups, promoted by the actions of Agricultural and Fisheries EU Council.

EeB-CA2 initiative is to provide the right set of instruments supporting technology-clustering and geo-clustering upon the whole set of EeB PPP EC-funded projects related to energy efficiency in the built environment, with the following primary ambition: to enhance and rationalise coordinated and broader dissemination, technology transfer and future exploitation activities of clustered projects, so as to help them better promoting and marketing their achievements and deliverables.

With the involvement of a comprehensive stakeholders community (including industrials and SMEs from the construction sector, energy utilities, capital providers, municipalities, building owners, tenants, research institutes), STUNNING will accelerate the adoption and large scale replication of new business models delivering adaptable and affordable refurbishment solutions (incl. decentralised RES generation), in order to meet the building renovation rate set by the upgraded EPBD. Under the coordination of TECHNOFI, five players (CSTB, D’Appolonia, Solintel and Steinbeis 2i GmbH, all key active members within the ECTP) propose a systemic and integrated approach to address the market roll-out of innovative refurbishment packages, supported by an Advisory Board covering the whole refurbishment value chain. The five project objectives are aligned with all the EEB-08-2017 call challenges: - Supporting the cooperation of diverse, yet dispersed, stakeholders federated in a single stakeholder community built around a web-based knowledge sharing platform addressing technologies and business models for refurbishment in EU27; - Benchmarking and (geo)clustering innovative refurbishment packages and ranking them according to profitability/energy efficiency indicators; - Identifying and addressing barriers which still prevent these refurbishment packages from being replicated by value chain players; - Promoting and validating (through 10 real business cases) novel renovation business models allowing consumers and the market to invest with confidence, thanks to performance-guaranteed energy savings, and addressing end user’s commitment to energy efficiency after renovation; - Disseminating the support action outputs, with an exploitation strategy for the newly built knowledge sharing platform, thus continuing to interact with the stakeholders’ community beyond the completion of the STUNNING project and contributing to maximising its impact and more globally the EEB PPP.

Advanced technologies are key drivers towards transformation and efficiency of industry. Today behind every innovation is a complex and high-tech supply chain where SMEs have an important role to foster invention. Their role of drivers of innovation mainly happen through collaborations with large enterprises (LEs). However, getting SMEs engaged with LEs and vice versa still encounters some barriers. Major challenges are related with finding interesting innovations and connecting them through trustful and beneficial collaborations. The PITCCH project aims to build a pan-European open innovation network to support the establishment of structured collaborations between innovative SMEs and LEs to take up their advanced technologies-based solutions, by intermediating the connection between needs and cutting-edge offers. The PITCCH consortium intends to build a well-reputed network ecosystem gathering technology centres, LEs and SMEs. Actors will be attracted from partners’ networks and from other existing European initiatives, such as the EEN, the DIH catalogues, the KET observatory, the SME Instrument Hub. To create a critical mass of partnerships, selected LEs will launch 15 Corporate Challenges to call for SMEs. After a selection, best SMEs will be supported by the PITCCH support schemes to develop their projects. A Digital Open Innovation Platform will be developed to serve as the central brokerage service point, enabling an efficient functioning of the network. The platform will support the members of the network in scouting potential partners and in managing the requests for brokerage services. A brokerage services portfolio will be set up based on the competences of TCs and the needs of companies. To achieve the final objective of long-term sustainability of the network, three different business models as support schemes to Open Innovation partnerships will be tested. By the end, the most sustainable will be chosen as base to build a PITCCH Sustainability Plan.

The overall aim of REMIND is to develop an innovative framework of interplay between Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and innovative Water Treatment Technologies in the logic of a sustainable growth for mining industries. The novel paradigms explored are expected to drastically reduce the environmental impact due to extensive water and energy consumption, and to release of untreated wastewater during the production cycle of copper and gold. The REMIND collaborative network among European Union, Chile and Ecuador is in line with EU policy and strategy for raw materials supply; moreover, this partnership supports the economic and research efforts of Latin American countries towards a more eco-friendly and RES-driven development. The bi-directional knowledge transfer activities implemented in REMIND aim to: i) implement a rational use of water resources in the logic of circular economy; ii) promote a carbon-free technological approach (water-energy nexus) for reducing conventional energy resources requirements, and iii) mitigate health environmental risk in two demonstration sites (mining districts of Antofagasta – CL and Regione de l’Oro – EC), and iv) exploit the intersectorial cooperation between academia and industry by setting best practices for knowledge transfer in analogous contexts. REMIND brings together 7 leading High Education Institutions, 1 Research Institute, 1 Business Association and 3 Industrial Companies from 5 Countries (Italy, Spain, Sweden, Chile and Ecuador), and implements a multisectorial and transdisciplinary network.