The project responds to the growing number of migrants in the partner countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belgium and Germany). It focuses on the uneasy situation of local authorities (LAs) that often have neither the tools nor the know-how about working with migrants, even though they are aware of both the importance of migrant inclusion into local communities and the need of setting functional integration measures and mechanisms.The project reflects also that it is necessary for integration stakeholders to take into account the specific needs of vulnerable groups in the European territories. In the time of dramatic changes and decline from normal practice caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be of vital importance, for municipalities in particular, to be able to deal with new situations of yet vulnerable migrants and, at the same time, to support the integration activities needed in the long term that are likely to get lost in the light of current events. The project builds on the paradigm that relevant information, proper estimation of potential difficulties and creating opportunities for mutual understanding are the essential conditions of social cohesion and living together peacefully even under difficult external conditions.In general, the project implies the transnational cooperation of renowned and by their nature diverse partnering entities from 4 EU countries and focuses on (a) creating innovative tools to facilitate migrant integration on regional and local levels as well as on (b) transferring social innovations between the EU member states and their adaptation to local needs. For that purposes, various peer-to-peer and self-assessment methods will be used whose potential lies precisely in sharing and evaluating practical experience from different perspectives for its further quality application in the emerging innovation project. The project activities are based on a shared European experience with approaches that proved to be functional in work with migrants and in activating local authorities to deal with this transversal area. As first, we plan 4 partner meetings that shall facilitate the exchange of information from (1) experienced mentors – the Belgian city of Mechelen being an an example of inclusive city, and the German organisation AGABY with a long-term experience in engaging migrants in municialities, (2) the Czech organisation SIMI, as the project leader that has been focusing on new ways to grasp the area of integration on regional level in recent years, and (3) the Slovak organisation Human Rights League that has been dealing with LAs in Slovakia. Besides the partners, also many of the LA representatives and other integration actors are expected to participate in the project, mainly during the four Integration Forums where expert public will be given space to discuss various aspects of migrant integration and ways to achieve functional and seamless coexistence of diverse local communities. The project outputs will be presented at the forums and some practical experience of the participats will be collected. In addition, an innovative methodology of integration workshops for LAs will be created, based on which two pilot integration workshops will be carried out in order to test this innovative tool in practice in the countries with a low involvement of municipalities in the integration area (Czechia and Slovakia). A new study on structural mechanisms of local integration in the 4 partner countries will be another output that shall help to understand the transferability of solutions. The study will serve as an impulse towards work with LAs by saturating the substantial lack of information about who can and should do what, which tools (financial or other) can be used, and what the migrant contribution to municipalities is. Finally, a practical guidebook shall help the LAs to facilitate the integration process and to capture it better in its entirety. Several information sheets and schemes will be published to summarize some partial aspects of integration: incl. recommended ways for communication of the LAs with migrants in emergency situations (based on the COVID-19 pandemic example) or ways on how to engage the LAs in the integration areas. The infosheets shall innovatively supplement the existing guidebook of local integration (created by the applicant organisation SIMI) through knowledge collected from stakeholders in partner countries. The guidebook will be accompanied by tools such as e-learning for officials (Slovakia), workshops for LAs (Slovakia and Czech Republic), and e-sources (Czech Republic). Other project partners will use these tools in modifications according to their local needs. To sum up, the project innovative outputs shall be the following: (1) a methodology and piloting of integration workshops for LAs, (2) a comparative study on structural dimension of local integration, (3) an innovated, extended and transferred guidebook for LAs.

Europe is facing important challenges such as cultural complex diversity in classrooms, early school leaving and disadvantaged backgrounds for some children. Quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can be a bridge to tackle these challenges. Not only children’s presence in ECEC is important but also their level and quality of active participation and engagement in the social and learning activities of early childhood provision.HangingOUT! is an ambitious project that investigates the possibilities to use 'every' outdoor environment as a way to deal with the mentioned challenges. Eleven complementary strategic partners and different associated partners from five different countries (BE, LT, PT, UK, DK) want to give students, ECEC professionals and parents the confidence, tools and support to explore and create possibilities and experiments with different outdoor educational practices.Our HangingOUT! project has 4 objectives:(1) To further develop the professionalisation of educators in ECEC within our transnational network by strengthening the confidence of teachers and responsible adults in going outdoors.(2) To enhance the quality of ECEC through implementing and recognizing innovative pedagogies in outdoor education.(3) To discover the opportunities of different outdoor environments (from city streets to mindscapes and from forests over factories to school grounds) while recognizing the wide variety in local, cultural and ecological contexts by experimenting with concrete educational practices.(4) To install a culture of cooperation and co-creation between the different partners and stakeholders in early childhood education and care; deepening on the educational context of each country (care and education, formal and informal education, different stages in education,…).To reach our goals we will establish 6 associated local networks between a HEI and 2 field partners (pre-schools, kindergartens, organisations, ...). Each local network has its own focus depending on the interest, needs and expertise of the partnership: children's participation, diversity, 0-3 year old and ICT. Via this way of working we bring together a lot of expertise, co-create with the different stakeholders and have an impact that is really sustainable.The associated networks meet semi-annual F2F and online to share expertise, ways of seeing and knowing and experiment with each other's outdoor practices. Connected to the F2F meetings are international weeks where we can share and discuss our outputs and expertise with students and other lecturers from the different strategic partners and more broadly with all interested members of the Comenius Association, a European network of teacher training institutes of which all HEI's are longtime partners.The strength of working within the local networks in Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, Denmark and Lithuania is the diversity and quality of the intellectual outputs it will generate; 7 intellectual outputs in total. Ranging from an innovative GoPro-video database where we will gain insights in interactions between children and the material environment that can be used by teachers, parents but also policy makers, architects, etc. Over the development of inspirational flash cards showing children’s autonomy and that foster inclusion through outdoor activities. To an App that searches for (learning) opportunities in the outdoor environment (urban and rural), bridging the gap between the digital and natural environment. Or collecting outdoor inspiration for children aged 0-3 years old, overcoming the 0-3 yo & 3-6 yo divide in ECEC in many European countries.HangingOUT! has been conceived and designed with long term sustainability in mind. The consortium has the strong intention to integrate the outdoor topic in HEI curricula. This will ensure that what is implemented during the Hangout! project lifetime will endure and strengthen the profile of future ECEC professionals who will critically adopt an outdoor approach as the new normal.The dissemination and exploitation will be extended beyond the duration of the project. The transnational knowledge exchange between HEIs will be promoted and maintained beyond the completion of the project through the online platform including links to the local websites of the different partners. The project outputs will be further developed beyond the lifetime of the project and will be made available using Creative Commons licence.

UNCHAIN will “break the chains”, boosting the cooperation between public authorities and logistics stakeholders. It will create a set of services for optimal and flexible urban logistics operation, management, planning and policymaking, unleashing the potential that technology and digitalisation can bring to the sustainable urban logistics and moving towards climate-neutral and smart cities. UNCHAIN will implement a standardised and reliable data exchange ecosystem supported by a public-private collaborative framework that will allow the establishment of reliable data sharing agreements, break data silos and make the urban freight data more available and accessible. Driven by the unlocked data, an innovative set of 12 urban logistics services will be implemented to optimise the allocation of urban space, improve the policy-making capacity of local authorities and optimise network management and logistics operation. With UNCHAIN, public authorities will improve their data collection capabilities and have the right tools to achieve sustainability goals. Meanwhile, for operators, having services aligned with their own and society's objectives will unlock mutually beneficial cooperation schemes, a key factor for long-term collaboration and the establishment of sustainable urban freight transport policies and operations. 10 European cities will participate in UNCHAIN activities: Madrid, Berlin and Florence as living labs; Prague, Mechelen, Madeira and Riga as follower cities, and Brest metropole, Ravenna and Alba Iulia as peer- cities supporting the early adoption of the results. Also, the well-balanced representation of the urban logistics industry, with DHL and UPS, will ensure large-scale impact and feasibility of the project results.

The large scale introduction and application of cargo bikes in urban areas has shown to be a game changer for cities: the image of cycling improves; general levels of cycling increase (both for freight and passengers); urban space is used more efficently; air quality, safety levels as well as quality of life improve. However, this innovative solution is present in only a few cities and at best in the starting phase in other European cities. Its full potential has not been achieved in any European city. CityChangerCargoBike (CCCB) aims to change this and increase and accelerate take-up. CCCB will take the very best cargo bike implementation examples, contexts and expertise in Europe and profit and learn from them in order to transfer these on a large scale and in the best way possible to new cities and contexts - in CCCB's forerunner cities, in the follower cities and beyond. CCCB is based on the huge potential of cargo bikes to replace: - 23 - 25% of the commercial deliveries in cities - 50% of the commercial service and maintenance trips - 77% of private logistics trips (shopping, leisure, child transport) Further, cargo bikes bring with them a whole new bicycle culture: new fashonable multi-purpose cargo bike designs, cargo bike shops, new logistics concepts. Stationary cargo bikes can quickly be transformed to mobile street furniture and then even fulfil a place maker function. CCCB has the following objectives: - Raise awareness among the relevant stakeholders: public, private and commercial sector. - Utilise innovative tools for the take-up and scale-up and transfer between forerunner and follower cities: e.g. peer-to-peer exchange. - Establish favourable framework conditions for cargo bike use. - Achieve wide roll-out and transferability through Forerunner cities, Follower cities (within the consortium) and External follower cities. - Reduce congestion, emissions; increase safety; increase public space and improve public space usage.

GREEN-LOG accelerates systemic changes in last mile delivery ecosystems for economically, environmentally and socially sustainable city logistics. The project establishes city platforms comprising of inclusive stakeholder Urban Living Labs for nurturing social innovation, designing and deploying innovative delivery solutions while allowing the most effective exchange of ideas, the development of robust, harmonized regulatory and policy frameworks, and cooperative business models that build upon effective public/private-sector collaboration and joint investments. The GREEN-LOG approach provides an innovative simulation environment for scenario building combining different solutions that allow the integration of last-mile delivery interventions with the highest possible impact on environmental sustainability and traffic reduction, while considering their financial viability. On the operational level, GREEN-LOG provides cargo-bike based innovations for sustainable micro-consolidation design and deployments, multimodal parcel deliveries integrating public transportation, Logistic as a Service platforms for interconnected city logistics and automated delivery concepts with the use of autonomous vehicles and delivery droids. The solutions are supported by interconnected city logistics dataspaces that feed dynamic services for proactive optimization of the ecosystem, respecting the interests of consumers, businesses and city stakeholders. The approach is deployed and validated in five cities and areas: Athens, Barcelona, Flanders, Oxfordshire and Ispra. Special focus is given on the transferability of the proposed innovation, starting from three follower cities with high interests in tailoring and replicating the GREEN-LOG solutions, and continuing with a pan-European outreach with intensive transfearability accelaration actions, setting the ground for the establishment of multiple city logistics Urban Living Labs.