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M-ERA.NET 3 aims at coordinating the research efforts in the participating EU Member States, Regions, and Associated States in materials research and innovation, including materials for future batteries, to support the circular economy and Sustainable Development Goals. A large network of national and regional funding organisations from 25 EU Members States, 4 Associated States and 6 countries outside Europe will implement a series of annual joint calls to fund excellent innovative transnational RTD cooperation, including one call for proposals with EU co-funding and additional non-cofunded calls. Continuing the activities started under the predecessor project M-ERA.NET 2 (3/2016-2/2021), the M-ERA.NET 3 consortium will address emerging technologies and related applications areas, such as - for example- surfaces, coatings, composites, additive manufacturing or integrated materials modelling. Research on materials supporting the large scale research initiative on future battery technologies will be particularly highlighted as a main target of the cofunded call (Call 2021) with a view to supporting in particular SDG 7 (“Affordable and clean energy”) by enabling electro mobility through sustainable energy storage technology and SDG 9 (“Industrial innovation and infrastructure”) by enhancing scientific research and upgrading the technological capabilities of industrial sectors. Several relevant action plans and initiatives will serve as programmatic guides for M-ERA.NET 3 when defining the joint activities, such as the Circular Economy Action Plan, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the EC communication “A clean planet for all”, and the “European Green Deal”. The total mobilised public call budget is expected to reach 150 million € with additional private investment of 50 million €. Thus, the leverage effect of the EU contribution will reach a factor of 13, exceeding by far the minimum required factor of 5.

Recent literature has underlined the interplay among climate mitigation, adaptation, and finance, as well as between climate action and other development agendas, including sustainable resource use, human development and equity, and environmental pressures. Such an interconnected policy environment requires an integrated ecosystem of disciplines, methods, and tools. Despite the significant evolution of integrated assessment models (IAMs) in the last decade, there remain several criticisms on their design, use, and adequacy to respond to unaddressed and emerging questions in the light of the Paris Agreement and net-zero ambition. These include openness, legitimacy, and ownership, as well as technical feasibility to represent demand-side and broader societal transformations, cross-sectoral interactions, physical impacts and adaptation, climate finance and labour dynamics, and other sustainability goals. DIAMOND will update, upgrade, and fully open six IAMs that are emblematic in scientific and policy processes, improving their sectoral and technological detail, spatiotemporal resolution, and geographic granularity. It will further enhance modelling capacity to assess the feasibility and desirability of Paris-compliant mitigation pathways, their interplay with adaptation, circular economy, and other SDGs, their distributional and equity effects, and their resilience to extremes, as well as robust risk management and investment strategies. This will be done via integration of tools and insights from psychology, finance research, behavioural and labour economics, operational research, and physical science. We will develop a transdisciplinary scientific approach to legitimise the implementation process and co-create research questions that stretch the frontiers of climate science, as well as establish vibrant communities of practice to transparently open model enhancements and to develop capacities, thereby lowering the entrance barriers to the established IAM community.

Rare diseases (RD) are diseases that affect not more than 5 per 10 000 persons (according to the EU definition). 7000 distinct rare diseases exist, affecting between 6% and 8% of the population (about 30 million EU citizens). The lack of specific health policies for rare diseases and the scarcity of the expertise, translate into delayed diagnosis, few medicinal products and difficult access to care. That is why rare diseases are a prime example of a research area that strongly profits from coordination on a European scale. At present only few European countries fund research on rare diseases through specific dedicated programmes. Therefore, the funding of transnational collaborative research is the most effective joint activity to enhance the cooperation between scientists working on rare diseases in Europe and beyond. The E-Rare consortium was built to link responsible funding bodies that combine the scarce resources and fund rare disease research via Joint Transnational Calls (JTCs). The current E-Rare-3 project proposal will extend and strengthen the transnational cooperation by building on the experience and results of the previous E-Rare-1&2 programmes. The consortium comprises 26 institutions from 17 European, Associated and non-European countries. Its international dimension will be directly translated into close collaboration with IRDiRC and other relevant European and international initiatives. IRDiRC guidelines and policies will be implemented in the four JTCs and representatives of the IRDiRC Scientific Committees will be invited to join the Advisory Board of E-Rare-3. Members of the EUCERD group will be involved in identifying rare disease research needs. Patients’ organizations from Europe (represented by EURORDIS) and beyond will be invited as a key partner towards collaborative efforts for research promotion and funding. The collaboration with European Research Infrastructures will be consolidated to enhance efficient and participative research.

Green2Ice will investigate the deepest and oldest ice and basal sediments drilled from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Ice cores have been drilled the last 55 years, but the deepest ice containing basal materials has been preserved until now, and still holds undeciphered paleoclimatic messages. The breakthrough of Green2Ice is to develop and apply cutting edge dating methods on this unique sample collection and hence to reconstruct the age and the stability of the GrIS. A hypothesis to test is if the present GrIS formed at the time of the Mid Pleistocene Transition, 1,2 - 0.8 million years ago. One innovation of Green2Ice is to gain paleo-information of the past size of the GrIS to constrain future tipping points. This knowledge will reduce the uncertainty on estimates of future sea level rise. Green2Ice will bring together four PIs from three world leading institutions with complementary skills to lift this strongly interdisciplinary program. We will drill a replicate core at GRIP, to supplement the available material from five existing ice cores and ensure retrieval of sediments and rock material from beneath the GrIS summit. We will develop, improve and apply novel dating techniques (cosmogenic and radiogenic nuclides, OSL/IRSL, modeling of gas and isotope diffusion) to place constraints on past waxing and waning of the GrIS. State-of-the-art methodologies on fossil remains, organic matter, in situ produced and consumed greenhouse gases, and ancient bio-molecules will provide insights on the types of ecosystems and environmental conditions that emerged during ice-free conditions. Interpretation will include ice sheet modelling with data benchmarking to establish the climatic sensitivity of the GrIS. Earth system modelling and collaboration with the groups preparing the IPCC AR7 will bring the knowledge of the past into the future. The rare and unique basal ice and material can only be used once. This is the main high risk high gain component of Green2Ice.

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.