The general objective of EUropean Water-smart initiative for fostering International Sustainable Development (euWater4i-SD) is to set an European Strategic Cluster Partnership–Going International (ESCP-4i) to enable Water-Smart solutions entering the Sustainable Territorial Development market in emerging countries. The project will support the establishment of 5 new value chains related with Sustainable Territorial Development along with the water industry, geared towards international markets, based on inputs and needs from SMEs. A Joint Internationalisation Strategy (JIS) will be designed and validated through the implementation of an Internationalisation Programme reaching 1,000 SMEs to access new non-EU markets, in particular in up to 4 targeted countries. The cooperation among (5) cluster organisations and its members with/in this ESCP-4i and also other ESCP-4i networks will be fostered.
A governance system and a financial scheme for the ESCP-4i will be developed to ensure active and sustainable collaboration among the different stakeholders. The visibility of euWater4i-SD will be promoted as a metacluster representing the whole value-chain on water smart solutions in order to gather other European clusters, interested even though not partners of this project at the beginning.
Projects
KIDS will foster the internationalization of the children's industry by setting-up a European Children's Cluster (the ESCP-4i) to uncover & exploit the most promising international business opportunities for the children & family markets. KIDS follows a holistic approach of the industry, combining different value chains to meet the needs of kids between 0-12 years old. From food, childcare, hygiene & cosmetics, health, fashion & housing to toys, games, audiovisuals, leisure & education technologies. The project will explore new synergies with digital technologies and will integrate circular economy & a gender-based perspective in the development of new value chains towards third markets. The ESCP-4i is composed of 4 clusters from ES, FR & DK and will analyze the most convenient legal form and identify sources of funding to ensure a long-term sustainability. KIDS will first conduct a set of activities to create knowledge on its internal capacities, to identify strategic partners in Europe and to provide a radiography of the children's industry at EU level, which currently is missing. Transnational workshops to develop new value chains will be organized in the fringes of 2 International Exhibitions, with the participation of 40 SMEs. KIDS will analyze the international demand by commissioning studies on global international trends & 3 market research studies. This knowledge will be transferred to 60 SMEs through local trainings and will pave the way to the Joint Internationalization Strategy, which will be tested by rolling out 4 tools: i) 3 business missions abroad with 60 EU SMEs, 240 matchmaking events and at least 10 Business Agreements signed; ii) a panel of 3,000 parents in one market to monitor the international demand; iii) a joint branding strategy for the EU children's sector; iv) a soft landing service for EU SMEs in the 3 target markets. KIDS will impact 653 clusters members.
TOURBIT aims to contribute to the resilience and competitiveness of tourism SMEs, fostering their skills and capacity and boosting the uptake of digitalisation and innovation, spurring a faster transformation of the European tourism sector. To achieve this objective, the project proposes a transnational and cross-ecosystem support-service scheme based on three pillars, the so-called ‘Learn, Build, Test and Implement’ framework. Through the Learning pillar, tourism SMEs will be in a better position to get started on their digital transformation, with an understanding of their specific strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities ahead, and with targeted training to get updated on where and how to integrate new and innovative digital technologies. Under this pillar, TOURBIT will support self-assessment of digital maturity for more than 400 SMEs, develop digital awareness form more than 225 low/medium digitalized-SMEs, and train more than 100 SMEs at different stages of digitalization.
With the Building pillar, the collaboration across the tourism ecosystem will be strengthened, promoting connections and facilitating an open and user-oriented innovation process, to test and prototype ideas for digital transformation. To this end, TOURBIT will setup an Innovation Tourism Platform, connecting more than 200 key players across Europe in peer exchanges, and will run a co-creation programme including a virtual transnational hackathon.
Through the Test and Implement pillar, transformative initiatives led by innovative SMEs will receive targeted mentoring support during 10 months to elevate digital projects. TOURBIT will engage more than 62 SMEs from 7 different countries (BE, FR, FI, IS, PT, SI, SP). To drive this transformation, the partnership gathers experience in a wide range of topics related to innovation and digital and smart tourism, and can draw on years of hands-on experience in incubation and acceleration of SMEs and start-ups.
Tecniospring INDUSTRY, ACCIÓ's international talent programme, boosts technology transfer processes by offering R&D companies and centres 2-year employment contracts to host a researcher.
Recent research highlights the worrying environmental effects of current production and consumption patterns in the Mediterranean Sea Basin, further accelerated by climate change impacts exerted by land-use (urbanization, agricultural intensification), pollution and declining biodiversity. In such context, Med4Waste project aims to facilitate new governance models for integrated and efficient urban waste management policies across the Mediterranean strategy. The project lays on a strong and experienced partnership composed by 7 organisations from 6 Mediterranean countries and reinforced by 3 pools of associated partners and supporters from the whole basin. its main objective is to facilitate new governance models for integrated and efficient urban waste management policies across the Mediterranean, with particular emphasis on organic waste & circular economy through adapting waste management plans, policies and other management actions and regulatory drivers in the selected territories. Moreover, it encompasses up to 8 activities oriented at building skills, planning and decision-making capabilities for Mediterranean institutions from public and private sector, and based on the most successful practices previously implemented in the region. Consequently, decision policy-makers will find a platform to promote better governance in the sustainable use of resources and management of waste, moving towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production at Mediterranean level, whilst developing joint and common policy responses.
The project will make a tangible and positive contribution in terms of: environmental change thanks to supporting best waste management solutions/practices, integrating concerns on conservation of nature and resources. Med4Waste will be able to minimize the negative environmental impacts of waste by reducing CO2 generation and Greenhouse Gases emissions. In addition, the socio-economic change will be based on job creation resulting from higher recycling rates, and transition to eco-innovation circular economy models. The institutional progress will stem from the awareness and active involvement of public authorities, civil society organizations and private sector, and all together, in cross-border thematic groups advancing governance models, technological solutions, business and social entrepreneurship, zero waste strategies and social sustainability in relation to the waste sector.
The high rate of youth unemployment, in particular NEETs and women, in the Mediterranean basin has economic and social consequences that are not specific to one country, but rather impact all Mediterranean countries. These groups share common challenges like lack of education, unequal access to education and employment, mismatch of their skills with the needs of the labour market, and they suffer a difficult transition from school to work. SIRCLES partners want to explore new employment opportunities by applying the circular economy model applied to the biowaste sector. The project will mainly focus on developing new capacities oriented to business development and separation, collection, composting and agriculture processes. The training will be tested through 7 pilot projects that address the hotel, food retail and household sectors, adjusted to the diverse local contexts of each territory involved in the project. Consequently, SIRCLES will contribute to the creation of green jobs by involving the most vulnerable sectors of the population and supporting environmental sustainability.
The project “SmatchS: Sports organizations Matching Social inclusion issues” (SmatchS) is an initiative of six organizations from sport, local authorities, social and academic areas, willing to contribute with their joint efforts to encouraging social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport. The area of the intervention of the project consortium is social inclusion of children in migration through providing them with facilitated access to sport activities. The key idea of the project is to create synergy between sport and social organizations as well as local authorities from Spain, France, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece in order to develop and apply to the local contexts a methodology for social inclusion of children with migratory background. The methodology will be built, taking into account the complexity of social inclusion issues of migrant children, their diverse migratory background, structural characteristics of every local context and different types of sport for implementing activities. Contextualisation of the methodology within two streams of pilot activities for 420 migrant children will allow to propose “multiple solutions approach” towards the problem of social inclusion of child migrants instead of “one solution for all”, that facilitates its multiplication and application to other local contexts outside the project consortium.
European cities are facing multiple challenges when it comes to managing the impacts and urban transformation processes deriving from tourism. These include increased sanitary precautions, strain on limited urban resources like water, energy and space, waste management, gentrification, and the cohabitation between residents and visitors as well as precarious hospitality working conditions.
In the light of this development, TOURBAN project concentrates its efforts to tackle the adaptation of European tourism companies towards more sustainable, low-carbon, circular and resource-efficient business models. As essential players in this transition, SMEs need to be provided with the necessary skills, capacity and financial resources, if they are to become innovation and sustainability catalysts. Furthermore, the project supports SMEs in uptaking international best practices and developing innovative solutions that render them both more sustainable and competitive through new and increased revenue streams, reduced costs and decreased resource consumption as well as a better visibility and positioning. Ultimately, TOURBAN aims to foster cross-sector collaboration to close the loop in circular economy processes and spearhead a transnational movement towards tourism sustainability in urban areas across Europe.
The project “InAbled Cities: Developing Inclusive urban environments for physical activity of people with disAbilities and senior citizens” is an intersectoral partnership of six organizations from five EU countries, joining efforts to increase the participation of people with disabilities, especially the elder, in health-enhancing physical activities (HEPA) within urban areas. The main idea of the project is to rethink existing urban environments and infrastructures and encourage people with physical disabilities (with special focus on elderly people) to practice physical activity there with support of physiotherapists and health professionals, supported by Practical Methodology and mobile App that will be developed within the project activities. One of the project objective is to implement Citizen Engagement Strategy, that will allow to involve citizens in rethinking of urban environments, give them a voice and jointly create comfortable, accessible and inclusive urban areas.
The development of a green economy in the Mediterranean area to combat environmental degradation represents a great opportunity for jobs creation, particularly for young graduates and women who are three times less likely to be employed than men. Strengthening eco-innovative entrepreneurship is a recognised solution even though green ventures face a complex set of challenges including limited access to funding, underdeveloped markets and fragmented support from sector stakeholders. GIMED aims at boosting the development of eco-innovative ventures in order to create employment and drive the green and circular economy in the Mediterranean. The project will implement a United Nations-backed ‘Green Entrepreneurship Standard’ that will standardise the supportive inputs needed to generate successful ventures and will give those ventures a mark of quality to better access finance and markets. On the ground, the project will train and coach eco-innovators and encourage financiers to invest in the Mediterranean eco-innovation sector.