This project aims to explore potential connections between medieval stone-cut vaults in the Middle East and similar vaults that suddenly emerged in European regions such as the Valencian Kingdom, Northern Germany, and Southern Italy between the 15th and 16th centuries. The research endeavours to enhance our understanding of the geometric analysis, design, and construction techniques employed in these highly intricate vaults. While modern stone-cutting forms had yet to develop in Europe, a constructive and decorative technique that anticipated existing solutions in Western Christian culture had evolved in the Middle East. In this context, the study will progress by examining examples found in Eastern countries such as Armenia, Turkey, Israel and Egypt, which clearly exhibit construction similarities with Europe. Within this framework, the geometric analysis of five of the most complex vaults of the era will be conducted, and these vaults will be practically reconstructed. The existing knowledge has predominantly relied on sources and appears inconsistent in some aspects. The innovative approach of this project involves formulating hypotheses about vault design, supported by data obtained directly from constructed objects - a method not commonly used until now. In this context, by comparing the current interpretations of existing sources with the results of field and workshop studies, it will be possible to examine similar structures based on a scientific foundation, thus allowing for the establishment of new connections between Christian Western and Muslim Eastern can be established through the history of construction. Furthermore, the research findings are expected to make a significant contribution to the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage.

The Project aim is to develop and demonstrate lighter integrated heat exchanger systems for the turbofan engine. Currently in turbofan engines heat exchangers are used to cool the oil that is supplied to the bearing chambers and generators. They contribute to achieving the best engine performance by maintaining oil and fuel temperatures within defined limits. In the future, extensive use of heat exchangers will be required in order to get the very lowest levels of fuel burn to meet the environmental challenges. Therefore development of compact, lightweight and low cost heat exchanger systems is required. In this context, research and development activities are foreseen, to assess, develop, design and manufacture: High Length to depth ratio Surface Air Cooled Oil Coolers; Utilisation of engine structural components for thermal cooling; Robust mounting systems to integrate the high length to depth Surface Air Cooled Oil Cooler on the turbofan engine; High efficiency Fuel Oil Heat Exchanger; High reliability Modulating Oil Bypass Valve that is integrated within the Fuel Oil Heat Exchanger. The heat exchanger systems will be tested on the rig and Rolls-Royce demonstrator engines to validate their performance and structural capabilities. The integration of the high length to depth ratio Surface Air Cooled Oil Coolers on the engine will require a robust mounting system to tolerate the induced stresses due to thermal and vibrational loads. Advanced manufacturing capability will be developed for the designs of the high length to depth ratio Surface Air Cooled Oil Coolers and the Fuel Oil Heat Exchanger with the integrated Modulating Oil Bypass Valve.

Based on their shared background of being placed in regions with an urgent need for an economic transition and situated near state, language and cultural borders in different parts of Europe, project partners: University of Maribor (UM), Poznan University of Technology (PUT), Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus (BUT) and Université Polytechnique Haut-de-France (UPHF) have joined for the project departing from their mutual partnerships on the level of Erasmus+ agreements or also the level of traditional bilateral partnership agreements. On a multilateral level, all partners cooperate within a university network named Alliance and with other partner institutions that are not active partners to the project. In their preparatory meetings and exchange on distance, as well, they established a need for a higher level of internationalisation of research and studies, focused on project level on the field of digitalisation. A lack of technical or also legal skills among staff and students was established already in the past. Still, especially in the actual time of the COVID 19 measures of containment, when distant education is tried to be used for bridging the closing of all higher education institutions in Europe, it becomes evident and alarming that additional support is needed for face-to-face learning. Partners plan to internationalise their study programme in two significant fields of digitalisation: cybersecurity and internet of things. Another objective is to put more effort into the awareness of the benefits of e-learning and especially, to teach the preparation of e-learning materials and the use of the most common and most established tools for that among a wider population.The project is mainly focused on students enrolled at partner institutions, and secondly also designed for students from other international partners and their regions. All partners represent approximately 60.000 students, and within the partnership with separate potential roots of participants, there are several 100 partner institutions, where most of the partner institutions vary between 8.000 and 20.000 students, like a pool of dissemination and promotion of the project. An active role in the performance of the project will be dealt with 8-10 staff members of each partner institution for the production of intellectual outputs, as well as contributions by 20-30 students from each partner institution, who shall take part in the various project activities called learning, teaching or training activities.The main activity of the project is the development of a Massive Open Online Course in the field of cybersecurity in connection with the internet of things. This course shall be developed and accredited in the project lifetime in a way that all relevant stakeholders shall be involved in the creation, evaluation, and approval of the generated contents. Staff and students shall give their inputs to the materials. A peer group shall develop a quality assurance tool to set up draft action plans for the realisation of project goals. Each partner shall host a learning, teaching, or training event (summer school, workshop, teacher training), as well as a transnational project meeting. While learning, teaching and training events are meant for skill development, project meetings are intended to exchange between the partners and their invited stakeholders on the progress and results of the project in relevant phases of the project.For the information of the wider public and the dissemination of project results, the partner shall work out a project publication explaining the project, its activities and achievements. Additionally, for information, a project flyer shall be made containing relevant information and especially links to the project partner information and project website. The project website, as such, shall be an open information source and access point to the contents of the project, as well as a working platform (this part closed for the project partners). Based on the mentioned tools for information, dissemination activities shall be carried out in the project lifetime and beyond. Particular emphasis shall be put on the spreading of the ethical practice of the project to motivate others to follow.The project shall result in an increase of enrolment to selected study fields, as well as the higher involvement of international students and staff in the conduction of the study contents at home. Besides, home staff shall obtain additional skills for the creation and use of online teaching tools. By this, a positive impact on the view on internationalisation and the willingness to broader internationalise the existing and “traditional” academic process is expected in the long-term. Multiplication shall be reached on the level of partners’ bilateral and multilateral partnerships (international conferences, rectors’ conferences, joint research or learning projects), as well.

The WaterEurope project was an innovative pedagogic programme within the Erasmus+ framework, initiated by University Nice Sophia Antipolis (France) in association with five partners: Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (Germany), Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain), Newcastle University (UK), Polytechnic University of Warsaw (Poland) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). WaterEurope was dedicated to promote a new project oriented pedagogic approach and to develop a unique set of pedagogic resources focused on water resources and water related hazards management strategies. The project was targeting MSc students from the partner universities specializing on hydroinformatics. The new resources combined with an innovative pedagogic method based on the collaborative engineering concept was integrated as a mandatory module of the MSc courses and associated to 6 ECTS to successful students. WaterEurope aims to promote key concepts, methodologies, tools and the best practices essential for water resources and water related hazards management strategies. Today, the problems related to water are more and more complex and must be analyzed in a global way and with the right tools. The produced resources, combined with the collaborative platform, allow introducing to the MSc participants, the increasingly complex issues of integrated water resources, droughts and floods management. Experience has shown that the most effective way is through the adoption of an integrated approach for water resources management – one that recognizes for example both the opportunities provided by floodplains for socioeconomic activities and manages the associated risks – which is essential for the sustainable use of resources. Thanks to the long-term scientific cooperation of the academic partners, the members of the consortium have shared with participants a new approach that was developed by the consortium itself in the last years and that is now adopted within many on-going project and follow the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the UN. Along with the solid academic theoretical preparation, WaterEurope provided to participants with a hands-on experience opportunity to work on real case studies such as the Vésubie and Var catchments in France which faced a challenging situation regarding resources management (matching users expectations), droughts and disastrous floods such as in October 2020 in the Vesubie catchment. Through the intensive use of modern ICT, the resources and the innovative pedagogic approach offer to the participants the opportunity to explore new methods and to assess management strategies thanks to a Collaborative Engineering Platform that the consortium will create and develop. This unique environment benefited from the most advanced technologies and the most advanced modelling tools provided by research and industrial partners. The objective is there to setup a unique numerical environment that gathers the most advanced modelling tools and allows all participants to be exposed to such technologies. This unique collaborative working platform groups all modelling tools developed by world leading enterprises and research institutes. WaterEurope was planned for a duration of three years with 3 validation sessions lasting three months each year (November to February). During the first 3 months, participants are based at their home university and work remotely collaborating with their peers through the platform. A final and intensive 2 weeks phase reunites all participants at one location where they finally conclude their work project and validate resources. Collaboration in this environment demands new skills and a new technological culture to be generated just by doing. This is a challenge for the European dimension where future experts and engineers from different countries with different languages, different mentalities as well as different specializations and professional experiences have to collaborate in their daily professional activities. Training of collaborating in such new environment is the challenge of this project that by collaboration of the 6 WaterEurope partners will help to establish common high quality teaching courses and establish links between students from the involved countries. At the end of the 3 years project, following the validation of the pedagogic resources and the collaborative engineering approach, professors and expert have prepared a final informative report on water resources management and water related hazard management strategies for European cities and in the other hand a synthesis on the new resources and implemented pedagogic approach. The conclusions included in the report have been presented during the multiplier event held in June 2021 during the international conference SimHydro. Despite the pandemic situation, most of the activities took place as planned and the 3 validations sessions were organizes as the multiplier event.

<< Objectives >>At the request of professionals from water sector, HydroEurope will develop innovative training material and modules in a pan European approach for MSc students in 6 MSc. programmes in water engineering, especially in the advanced modelling solutions for flash floods and related water pollution accidents. The teaching units, after validation and integration within the MSc's, will bring new needed competencies to participants.<< Implementation >>Pedagogic teams from the 6 HEIs partners will create and validate 18 teaching units deliciated to competencies focus on uncertainties in modelling, flash floods and related water pollution accidents. These units are developed around 6 case studies representative of European hydrological diversity. Innovative advanced modelling solutions of these units will be validated every year by 120 learners and professionals from water sector. The produced materials will be shared with several HEIs.<< Results >>Competencies improvement with 18 teaching units (endorsed by water professionals), each equivalent to 2 ECTS, will be achieve with integration in each core part of the 6 MScs. These units will serve as references and will be used by other HEIs in Europe and at international level. The selected Project Orientated approach represents a major pedagogic innovation that can be deployed in other training education programmes. Project will reinforce leadership of HEIs in water engineering education.