InnoRate is set on deploying a trusted, objective and recognised service platform across the EU and AC to support and improve the decision-making processes of investors and lenders for vetting, prioritising and providing access to finance to innovative high growth potential SMEs. The suite of digitally-enabled decision support tools and services provided through our platform are underpinned by well-customised innovation assessment and rating methodologies that go beyond the unsuitable, backward-looking and costly practices currently employed, so as to evaluate and signal the technological and business potential and risks of market-creating innovations, efficiently and cost-effectively. To this end, we leverage semantic technology, existing data sources and in-depth human expertise, to minimise the time and resources (human and financial) required by investors and lenders in this respect, reducing knowledge / information asymmetries and ultimately risk premiums paid by innovative project managers. In doing so, our ambition is clearly to disrupt the largely risk-averse financial sector of the EU and AC, enhancing the innovation capacity of high growth technology sectors and SMEs, paving the way for drastical innovations to flourish and placing Europe in the forefront of the global innovation game. To put it simply, we want to bring innovation to finance and finance to innovation.

The 2018 EPBD update identifies deep renovation as key to drastically reduce energy demand and achieve the EU vision of a decarbonised building stock by 2050. The technology to achieve this reduction is available on the market today. Renovation rates are still far from the target 3% and shallow retrofits persist with low impacts on energy consumption. StepUP will develop a new process for deep renovation for decarbonisation, with fast design to operation feedback loops to minimise performance gap and optimise investments. The project will deliver plug&play technologies for minimal disruption, interconnected for maximum impact on energy, costs, IEQ and user comfort. The new iterative approach to renovation, based in big data for continuous performance improvement, will reduce financial barriers and make decarbonisation of existing buildings a reliable, attractive investment. StepUP will: 1. Make renovation more attractive and reliable with a new methodology based on near-real time data intelligence to identify cost-optimal, high impact interventions at any stage of the building life; 2. Reduce the performance gap to 10% via an integrated life-cycle software platform to plan renovation steps, identify high value ECM, improve IEQ, integrate RES (including storage) and optimise operations by constantly refining and verifying targets and constraints; 3. Minimise time on site to 40% by advancing innovative technologies for deep renovation to a market-ready renovation package of Plug & Play Technologies, including RE generation and storage for decarbonisation; 4. Optimise renovation investments via innovative financing models for optimisation of energy, comfort and cost performance over the building life, based on progressive financing and building performance as a service; 5. Accelerate the renovation market via an open protocol for interoperability of the StepUP solutions with third party market products, fostering a plug&play environment accessible to innovative SMEs.

The Talent Pass initiative is designed to: - strengthen the innovation ecosystem towards a borderless research, innovation (R&I) and technology market by addressing the critical need for geographically balanced talent circulation and increased cross-sectorial interoperability, as outlined in Action 4 of the ERA Policy Agenda (2022-2024); - cultivate and support cross-sectorial partnerships between academic and non-academic organizations that operate in areas of proven scientific excellence, particularly within the realm of the circular economy. The Talent Pass project aims to: - significantly enhance talent mobility and expertise development within circular economy, particularly focusing on researchers, innovators, and other R&I academic/non-academic talents from widening countries; - build a critical mass of competent researchers having the necessary high-quality knowledge, skills, and tools to drive forward innovation and sustainability in the circular economy; - improving access to excellence by consolidating an interdisciplinary network of highly skilled human resources and enhance the efficient utilization and valorization of complementary research capacities, infrastructure and results, aligning with the Horizon Europe Work Program (2023-24) - WIDERA and the Circular Economy Action Plan for a Cleaner and More Competitive Europe (2020); - bridge the gap between research and application and effectively translate advancements in circular economy into real-world solutions, by fostering collaboration between academia and industry. Talent Pass will subsequently focus on strengthening the research capabilities of WC institutions, ensuring they are on par with leading European entities. This will be achieved through strategic use of research resources (human, know-how and infrastructure) to foster capacity-building initiatives and targeted training and secondment programs addressing current and future challenges in circular economy.

An interconnected city grid of sensors, such as of cameras or environmental sensors, offers a wealth of actionable Big Data. In addition to better managing traffic and public transit, as well as controlling pollution, they can be used for enhanced policing, crowd control, and even public sentiment monitoring. However, such smart systems increase the risk of unethical use of personal data, and increase the attack surface of a city as multiple interconnected IT systems control key infrastructures such as transport, energy, water distribution, etc. To address the growing security and ethical threats on smart cities, the project will develop an integrated toolkit that covers the complete physical and cybersecurity value chain (detection, simulation & analysis, intervention). The project will enhance the resilience of cities in the face of security events in public spaces, by addressing three main aspects of urban security in smart cities: • Technologies: integrating and developing the tools and processes underlying the capacity of cities to manage both physical security and cyber security, leveraging the power of IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data analysis • Ethics: ensuring smart city capabilities are developed for the benefit of society, balancing potentially conflicting needs to collect, transform and share large amounts of data with the protection of data privacy • Processes: delivering a multi-tenant solution fully aligned with the operational needs of multiple city stakeholders (e.g. police, first responders, municipalities) supported by a framework gathering deployment guidelines and best practices The consortium includes 17 partners from 11 different EU Member States and Associated Countries, including 2 local government authorities (City of Padova and City of Oslo) that will lead the field trial implementations. The project will also be supported by a Community of Safe and Secure Cities (COSSEC) gathering other cities to provide feedback.

DECADE project proposes a new photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) approach for the conversion of CO2 avoiding water oxidation as anodic reaction to overcome the current limits in PEC system and to maximize effective energy utilization. Novel PEC technology will be developed up to TRL 5 (prototype testing under environmental relevant conditions) using alcohols and waste CO2 as feed. Different applications are investigated: green refinery, distributed green solvent production and use to lower carbon footprint in methanol plant. In the main application, bioethanol and waste CO2 are used to produce a mixture of ethyl acetate (EA) and ethyl formate (EF) in ethanol, to be used as drop-in green solvent or as octane booster fuel component. The net impact is to produce valuable added-value products through an energy-efficient PEC device, to lower the carbon footprint by using waste CO2 and introducing renewable energy in the production chain. DECADE project will develop the PEC concept and validate at prototype unit for distributed production (productivity > 1 g/h of EA and > 1A current density per single 10x10 cm module). Optimization and engineering of electrode/materials and of the PEC design is driven by techno-economic, LCA, market & social assessments. There are several elements of innovation in the proposed DECADE approach, based on the identification of the critical issues in the current PEC design. The project is organized around three main areas: i) advances in materials and technology, with a series of novel concepts and materials proposed (TRL 3 -> 4), ii) upscaling and prototype design & manufacture (TRL 4 -> 5), focused at improving performances, stability and reduce costs, and iii) process validation by using the prototype (TRL 5). Consortium partnership has a strong industrial character, but comprises top level scientists in the area and international collaboration with Japan to allow the best possible benchmarking for the novel approach developed.