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Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to medicine and healthcare. The field takes advantage of the physical, chemical and biological properties of materials at the nanometer scale to be used for a better understanding of the biological mechanisms of diseases at the molecular level, leading to new targets for earlier and more precise diagnostics and therapeutics. Nanomedicine, rated among the six most promising Key Enabling Technologies, is one of the most important emerging areas of health research expected to contribute to one of the strategic challenges that Europe has to face in the future: Provide effective and affordable health care and assure the wellbeing of an increasingly aged population. EuroNanoMed III (ENM III) builds on the foundations of ENM I & II, which launched 7 successful joint calls for proposals since 2009, funded 51 transnational research projects involving 269 partners from 25 countries/regions, and allocated € 45,5 million to research projects from ENM funding agencies. ENM III consortium, reinforced with 12 new partners from Europe, Canada and Taiwan, is committed to fostering the competiveness of European nanomedicine actors taking into account recent changes in the landscape and new stakeholders and challenges, as identified in the SRIA in nanomedicine. The first joint call for proposals will be co-funded by ENM III partners and the EC. After the co-funded call, three additional joint transnational calls will be organized and strategic activities will be accomplished in collaboration with key initiatives in the field. ENM III actions focus on translatability of project results to clinical and industry needs.

ERA-HDHL is a proposal of ERA-NET Cofund in the field of nutrition and health to support the Joint Programme Initiative Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (JPI HDHL). Nowadays, there is a high burden of non-communicable diseases due to unhealthy diet and lifestyle patterns. The 24 members of the JPI HDHL are working together to develop means to (1) motivate people to adopt healthier lifestyles including dietary choices and physical activity, (2) develop and produce healthy, high-quality, safe and sustainable foods and (3) prevent diet-related diseases. Between 2012 and 2015, JPI HDHL had implemented 7 JFAs with 40 M€ funds from national funding. The JPI HDHL is now set for further enhancement in tight coordination with the EC through the ERA-NET Cofund instrument. ERA-HDHL will provide a robust platform for implementing joint funding actions (JFAs) that address the needs identified in the JPI HDHL strategic research agenda and strengthen the research funding activities of JPI HDHL. An EC cofunded call on the identification and validation of biomarkers in nutrition and health will be implemented. For this foreseen action, the member countries of the JPI HDHL have doubled their financial commitment comparing to previous JFA implemented on a similar topic. Moreover, ERA-HDHL will launch at least 3 additional JFAs in line to fulfil the JPI HDHL objectives.

PROMISS (PRevention Of Malnutrition In Senior Subjects in the EU) is a multi-country project aiming to turn the challenge of tackling malnutrition in community-dwelling older persons into an opportunity for healthy ageing for the future. The PROMISS consortium contains worldwide expertise in epidemiology, clinical trials, geriatrics, nutrition, physical activity, microbiomics, as well as in behaviour, consumer, sensory and computer sciences. It builds on strong collaborations with food industry and SMEs to strengthen innovation of the European agri-food sector and their market position. Existing data from scientifically well-established prospective aging cohorts and national nutritional surveys from Europe and ‘third countries’ will be combined with new data from short- and long-term intervention studies in older persons at risk. Its holistic approach will provide insight in the causality of the links between diet, physical activity, appetite and malnutrition and underlying pathways, thereby providing the necessary evidence to develop optimal, sustainable and evidence-based dietary and physical activity strategies to prevent malnutrition and enhance active and healthy aging. PROMISS will also deliver food concepts and products as well as persuasive technology to support adherence to these strategies. The dietary and physical activity strategies and food products will be specifically developed with older user involvement to meet the needs and fit the preferences of older consumers. In close collaboration with stakeholders, PROMISS will translate these strategies into practical recommendations to guide policy and health professionals at EU- and Member States level. Dissemination and implementation takes place through strong dissemination partners operating on an European level and linked to national networks across Member States. PROMISS promises prevention of malnutrition, additional healthy life years and a strengthening of EU’s food industry

In order to strengthen the sustainability and resilience of health services and systems a unique consortium of governmental and funding organizations plus research institutes, has expressed the ambition to systematically learn from the organisation of care in other settings. Overall objective of TO-REACH is to provide groundwork for a future joint research programme that will contribute to the resilience, effectiveness, equity, accessibility and comprehensiveness of health services and systems. We will do so along two work streams: A) We will develop a research program on cross-border learning from good (or even innovative) models of care and the conditions needed to transfer them to other settings for implementation. It could refer to anywhere in the care chain depending on the priorities as identified in a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) within this project. Conceptual, methodological and empirical advancement will be achieved through 4 meta-questions that will instruct research under a future joint research programme, linking to what counts as good models of care, what are the conditions required for transferability, what are the conditions for up-scaling, and how do they contribute to the performance of health care organisations and systems. B) We will build a platform for funding organizations that allows for collaboration and coordination in the project and projected joint research programme. This will synchronize priorities and activities, hence improving the quality and applicability of research with a focus on the topic areas as described under A. TO-REACH will pursue five specific objectives: Mapping health system challenges and priorities by synthesizing different materials and stakeholder inputs; Developing a framework and providing a knowledge synthesis on the above-mentioned meta-questions; Establishing sustainable cooperation of research funding bodies and links with other initiatives; Developing a SRA through agenda setting at European and Member State level; Disseminating the results of TO-REACH.

INTERACT aims for a geographically comprehensive and excellent state-of-the-art terrestrial research infrastructure throughout the Arctic and adjoining forest and alpine regions to identify environmental change, to facilitate understanding and prediction of future change and to inform decision makers about societally-relevant impacts. INTERACT is the fundamental building block and one-stop-shop for EU and international projects, programmes and organisations requiring access to northern lands, data and services, and includes a rapid response capability to potential hazards. INTERACT is pan-Arctic, multidisciplinary and crosses EU call domains by linking to forest, coastal, marine and atmospheric communities. INTERACT uniquely unites 77 research stations in a Station Managers’ Forum ensuring inter-comparability of information and excellent science support. A Data Forum improves availability of data by bringing data providers together with data users. Physical (7780 days) pan-Arctic Trans-national Access is offered by 43 stations and virtual access is offered by 29. An innovative TA User Community will stimulate new collaborations and improved information flow while new state-of-the-art educational resources will encourage young scientists. Joint research activities will ensure close cooperation between the Arctic Council’s biodiversity monitoring programme and station activities; develop new technology in a WP led by Industry to enlarge the research stations’ environmental observing footprints; and produce guidance for local communities to adapt to change. INTERACT’s incalculable legacy and societal impact includes aiding people to adapt to local and global environmental changes, recruiting the next generation of environmental scientists, offering access and opportunities to researchers world-wide and providing data and information to high level regional and global organisations and decision-makers.

Satellite contractors are permanently looking for cost and performance improvements. This cascades to the PPU, a subsystem having a very high impact on the cost and performance of EP systems. Hence, we propose to focus on the PPU “heart” studying a disruptive power converter, with major innovations complementary to the incremental improvements, beyond the state of the art. We will demonstrate and combine in a synergistic way innovative technologies (such as GaN, digital control, adaptive filtering and embedded packaging), thus resulting in a radical breakthrough applicable to advanced EP architectures based on such PPU designs. The consortium plans to demonstrate the selected technologies by means of a 7.5 kW power converter to be tested in electrical propulsion existing test facilities, thus providing measurable validation, and specification definition, within the 2016 Phase 1 time frame. This will lead to dramatic improvements in cost, mass and volume targeting part list reduction (by 3), converter efficiency (98%) and optimized thermal characteristics (200°C), translating into system optimization and increased power requirements. Being at the forefront of technological developments, the consortium members are able to anticipate emerging technologies and medium to long term performance requirements consistent with existing and planned space programs at national, commercial and ESA levels. GaNOMIC will constitute a solid technical basis for future Direct Drive configurations, and further down the line, to “distributed” configurations where the PPU can be eliminated altogether. In addition to promoting and accelerating the development of breakthrough EP-related concepts, the consortium members have identified other markets, e.g. aeronautics and automotive, which could benefit from these innovating high performance power converter and related technologies under consideration. The consortium is committed to continue this study in future calls of the SRC.

Blue-Action will provide fundamental and empirically-grounded, executable science that quantifies and explains the role of a changing Arctic in increasing predictive capability of weather and climate of the Northern Hemisphere.To achieve this Blue-Action will take a transdisciplinary approach, bridging scientific understanding within Arctic climate, weather and risk management research, with key stakeholder knowledge of the impacts of climatic weather extremes and hazardous events; leading to the co-design of better services.This bridge will build on innovative statistical and dynamical approaches to predict weather and climate extremes. In dialogue with users, Blue-Arctic will take stock in existing knowledge about cross-sectoral impacts and vulnerabilities with respect to the occurrence of these events when associated to weather and climate predictions. Modeling and prediction capabilities will be enhanced by targeting firstly, lower latitude oceanic and atmospheric drivers of regional Arctic changes and secondly, Arctic impacts on Northern Hemisphere climate and weather extremes. Coordinated multi-model experiments will be key to test new higher resolution model configurations, innovative methods to reduce forecast error, and advanced methods to improve uptake of new Earth observations assets are planned. Blue-Action thereby demonstrates how such an uptake may assist in creating better optimized observation system for various modelling applications. The improved robust and reliable forecasting can help meteorological and climate services to better deliver tailored predictions and advice, including sub-seasonal to seasonal time scales, will take Arctic climate prediction beyond seasons and to teleconnections over the Northern Hemisphere. Blue-Action will through its concerted efforts therefore contribute to the improvement of climate models to represent Arctic warming realistically and address its impact on regional and global atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

The WaterWorks2015 proposal responds to the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenge 5 2015 Call topic Water-3 [2015]: Stepping up EU research and innovation cooperation in the water area. WaterWorks2015 aims at pooling resources from the 32 participating research programme owners / managers of 23 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of sustainable water use in agriculture and forestry. It's a collaboration between the Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs), Water JPI “Water Challenges for a Changing World” and FACCE JPI “Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change”. Achieving a “sustainable water use in agriculture, to increase water use efficiency and reduce soil and water pollution” is at the intersection of the two JPIs, contributing to the implementation of their respective Strategic Research Agendas. WaterWorks2015 includes 9 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include: • Increasing the value of relevant national and EU R&D funding by concerted and joint planning, implementation and evaluation of national research programmes; • Pooling financial resources from participating states towards the definition and implementation of a Co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary Call for research and innovation proposals. The aim of the Call will be to support the implementation of initiatives and environmental policies, in particular those related to water and agriculture & forestry, as a way to increase water use efficiency and to reduce soil and water pollution; • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water and agriculture/forestry-related research and innovation activities; • Supporting the implementation and the development of the two Joint Programming Initiatives, seeking synergies in overlapping research issues.

The overall objective of INTAROS is to develop an integrated Arctic Observation System (iAOS) by extending, improving and unifying existing systems in the different regions of the Arctic. INTAROS will have a strong multidisciplinary focus, with tools for integration of data from atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and terrestrial sciences, provided by institutions in Europe, North America and Asia. Satellite earth observation data plays an increasingly important role in such observing systems, because the amount of EO data for observing the global climate and environment grows year by year. In situ observing systems are much more limited due to logistical constraints and cost limitations. The sparseness of in situ data is therefore the largest gap in the overall observing system. INTAROS will assess strengths and weaknesses of existing observing systems and contribute with innovative solutions to fill some of the critical gaps in the in situ observing network. INTAROS will develop a platform, iAOS, to search for and access data from distributed databases. The evolution into a sustainable Arctic observing system requires coordination, mobilization and cooperation between the existing European and international infrastructures (in-situ and remote including space-based), the modeling communities and relevant stakeholder groups. INTAROS will include development of community-based observing systems, where local knowledge is merged with scientific data. An integrated Arctic Observation System will enable better-informed decisions and better-documented processes within key sectors (e.g. local communities, shipping, tourism, fisheries), in order to strengthen the societal and economic role of the Arctic region and support the EU strategy for the Arctic and related maritime and environmental policies.

The ERA-NET NEURON Cofund will coordinate and align European and international research funding programmes in the area of brain-related diseases and disorders of the nervous system. Key activity is the implementation of an EC co-funded joint transnational call for research proposals. The mission of NEURON is based on the fact that disorders of the brain are the major cause for impaired quality of life, and they are a heavy burden not only for patients, their families and carers, but also a socioeconomic problem for society. By improving collaboration and by implementing a variety of additional activities (such as further joint transnational calls and support of early-career scientists) NEURON Cofund will decrease fragmentation of research programmes and improve the funding situation for neuroscience researchers thereby strengthening the search for novel therapeutic approaches to fight brain disease; NEURON Cofund will also develop and provide concrete plans for (i) expanding data sharing, (ii) promoting common data elements for the establishment of patient registries, and (iii) involving stakeholders and relevant existing initiatives such as patient organizations. The aforementioned challenges will be addressed in a network of 22 funding organizations across 14 European Member and Associated States and Third countries.