The need to advance financial capability and financial awareness among informed citizens and market participants was identified as a major target to achieve an improved social performance, better client protection and, ultimately, greater societal well-being. The new socio-economic landscape in the post-crisis world brought changes in the financial, labour and pension markets along with changes in the public finance decisions from the political sphere. Technological developments enable and enhance the availability of large volumes of information on themes relevant to financial decision making. However, the volume of information, the existence of often ad hoc sources, and the documented existence of cognitive limitations by individuals when it comes to the processing of big data plus widespread financial illiteracy found even within developed economies, including those of the EU point to the need for (a) specialized financial education toolkits available to the wider public (b) advanced crowd-sourcing tools to process financial data, extract and present collective knowledge, (c) advanced forecasting models exploiting the market sentiment to identify market trends and threats, (d) novel personalized recommendation systems to support financial decisions according to the user’s profile (financial literacy level, interests, demographic characteristics etc). Based on these requirements, PROFIT will develop a platform built on Open Source components. The platform's functionalities will be pilot-tested in collaboration with the members of the European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks (FEBEA), an institution committed to responsible banking and finance. The outcomes of the project are expected to enable best practices that can be made available to the wide public in the European Union.

SE 4Ces responds to the needs for stronger collaboration among Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), enterprises and local societies, improved employability based on transversal skills, more engaged citizens and connected societies and the need for innovative, multidisciplinary approaches for knowledge co-creation, co-teaching and co-learning under inclusive, collaborative and highly interactive educational environments. SE 4Ces builds on 4 forCes: Connected societies, knowledge Co-creation, Community development, Collaborative educational practices. It aims to mobilise those under the Social Economy (SE) framework. It introduces the SE Living-Labs as spaces for interaction, collaboration and knowledge co-creation between all stakeholders involved (HEIs, Social Economy organisations, students, teachers, community members) for the creation a Joint Professional online Master’s programme on “SE and Community Development Strategies” that aspires to become the first joint international Masters programme in the area. SE 4Ces also includes a pilot phase in four countries (Spain, Italy, Greece and UK) testing the programme and its innovative elements such as the application of service-learning and the integration of real life societal issues into curricula. Our project envisions to create, sustain and expand the first European Community of Practice in Social Economy, already consisting of the SE 4Ces partnership (9 partners), more than 20 associated universities and Social Economy enterprises and 9 world-renowned experts forming the SE 4Ces Scientific Advisory Council, that will establish growing and sustainable collaborations among HEIs involved in SE and with SE and community actors from a wide range of disciplines across Europe towards a transdisciplinary approach that would bring real and measurable results for the Social Economy.

Lower population and business density make it more challenging to develop private businesses and public services in rural areas, negatively impacting socio-economic indicators. Rural areas are key to solve climate change, food, biomass and energy challenges. Favourable climate for entrepreneurship is needed for better provision of jobs, basic services, including health and care, connectivity, smart transport, energy solutions and attractiveness as whole, overcoming digital divide between rural and urban areas. AURORAL focus on delivering a digital environment of interoperable services through platforms able to trigger dynamic rural ecosystems of innovation chains, applications and services. Thus, AURORAL contributes to increasing economic growth in rural areas and to tackle significant societal challenges. AURORAL digital environment is demonstrated by cost-efficient and flexible cross-domain applications through large-scale pilots in five European regions. AURORAL digital environment builds on an open, API-based, interoperable and federated IoT architecture and includes a reference implementation supporting flexible integration of heterogeneous services, bridging the interoperability gap of the smart object platforms and creating markets for services in rural areas. AURORAL digital environment addresses the integration of data and information across different platforms, establishment of an open market place, large-scale demonstration, multiplication of novel applications, the leverage of infrastructure and inclusion of public services. AURORAL pilots follow an evolutionary agile, well-delineated, and lean approach demonstrated in large-scale applications capable of meeting social and economic objectives critical to boost new rural services and business. AURORAL digital environment supports a vibrant ecosystem of developers, service providers and user communities and addresses barriers currently opposing the socio-economic development of rural areas.

It is evident that current food supply chains are notoriously inefficient and show vulnerabilities from initial agriculture production down to the final household consumption and the management of the waste generated. FoodRUs strategy has been built on the basis of the three fundamental pillars of food sovereignty to undertake Food Waste Prevention challenge being Circular Economy a mandatory model from which to generate, implement and replicate solutions, in different value chains. The reasoned application of these basic principles where FoodRUs strategy is applied, will assure resilient and sustainable local and regional Bioecosystems thanks to a multi-actor and multidisciplinary approach. FoodRUs will deployed 23 technological, social, financial, legal, educational, political, labelling and organizational innovative solutions involving the mobilization and active participation of more than 40 actors to overcome the specific challenges of the selected value chains and follower regions consisting on: experts on agro-industry, Life Cycle Assessment , social innovation and social economy, sensitisation , culinary arts, nutrition, labelling, fiscality and ICT tools; municipalities; policy makers; ethical finance organizations, stakeholders of the entire food value chains (producers, farmers, retailers, packaging and logistics services, restoration sector, consumers associations and communities); waste managers; entrepreneurs; ONGs; food banks; social kitchens; educational centres and civil associations. FoodRUs will screen 3 value chains focused on 3 specific types of food in Europe: -Cross-regional Spanish pilot (SPP) focused on vegetables and IV range salads -Danish pilot (DP) that will analyse the value chain for meat and fish -Slovak pilot (SLP) analysing the bread value chain FoodRUs will actively involve 6 European regions as Followers: (Valencia (Spain), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Budapest (Hungary), Linz (Austria), Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and Halandri (Greece)

Mountains cover 30% of the land area and are home to 17% of the EU´s population, meaning that every 6th EU citizen lives in mountainous areas. While we often associate mountains with breathtaking landscapes that offer perfect sites for relaxation, in truth, mountains are much more than that. In fact, mountains play a crucial role in our daily lives by providing vital resources and key community systems to the global population. Mountains like other areas face unprecedented challenges in terms of climate change (CC), however mountain ecosystems are more sensitive to CC. The harmful conditions provoked by CC are exacerbated by the significant deficits in adaptation responses mountainous areas have, stemming from several existing gaps, including shortcomings in CCA options, deficits in the uptake and the lack of coherence. MountResilience has been formulated to increase the adaptation capacity of mountainous regions and communities so as to strengthen climate resilience within the European mountainous biogeographical region (Alpine biogeographical region). The project aims to accelerate the climate resilient transformation of 10 of the most relevant communities and regions located in the mountains in 9 European countries. 6 of the regions will develop and test transformative CCA solutions (technological and social innovations with nature-based solutions at their core). These solutions will address policy, governance, societal needs and behaviours, technological requirements, public and financing targets, and CC risks typical of mountainous areas. Regional quadruple-helix partnerships will use open innovation, participatory decision-making, stakeholder engagement approaches, and effective communication to mobilise, engage, and reach out to key communities. The remaining 4 regions will serve as "replicator" regions, repurposing CCA solutions and lessons learned from the demo regions in their regions through special initiatives to improve their adaptive capacity.