Collective projects

Most of the biowaste produced in cities (such as garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises), as well as sewage sludge from urban wastewater treatment plants are processed into compost and biogas used for energy recovery or even landfilled without fully exploiting in a smart and innovative cascading fashion its potential as feedstock for valuable and precious compounds. New and emerging processing technologies can enable the recycling and valorisation of urban biowaste into higher-value biobased products (e.g.

The northern seas of Europe - the Baltic Sea and the North Sea - are at the forefront of the global surge to enhance and realise marine and maritime potential. This enormous economy is directly and critically dependent on the quality and extent of the ecosystem services provided by the two regional seas and their coasts.

Aquatic biomass from the seas and oceans, rivers and lakes has a large potential to ensure future food and nutrition security and to supply raw materials for other high added value chains and products, such as bioenergy, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics while factoring in environment and climate change risks. These so-called provisioning ecosystem services could ensure private and public benefits, while demonstrating synergies or trade-offs with a broader range of ecosystem services.

“Social sciences and humanities research will be fully integrated into each of the priorities of Horizon 2020 and each of the specific objectives and will contribute to the evidence base for policy making at international, Union, national, regional and local level. In relation to societal challenges, social sciences and humanities (SSH) will be mainstreamed as an essential element of the activities needed to tackle each of the societal challenges to enhance their impact”.

There are signs that conventional conceptions of democratic governance are disrupted. The legitimacy of traditional democratic institutions appears challenged by decreasing trust in their capability to provide solutions to pressing societal problems. Also phenomena such as rising populism and extremism, including violent extremism, pose a challenge to sound democratic deliberation and to liberal-democratic norms.

Extreme ideologies can lead to social disruption, distrust and lack of empathy, diminished civic capacity, social tensions, clashes, hate speech, hate crime, conflicts and violence. The challenge is to produce a solid knowledge base on how extreme ideologies and accompanying behaviours affect the social fabric, bonds and cohesion of our societies, communities and cities. A better, more operational understanding of why, when and how extreme ideologies lead to societal polarisation is needed.

New and emerging markets outside Europe offer huge opportunities for the European industry. To compete effectively in these markets, European companies and especially SMEs need to develop partnerships with innovation players in these economies from early on and to develop receptiveness for local success. This is crucial to better understand the specific market context and the consequent needs and demands of emerging users and consumers.

Recent trends in nationalism, protectionism and regionalism are affecting international commitments and policies. They also put added pressure on the political and operational capacities of global governance institutions created in the mid-twentieth century for critical yet partly different purposes. This raises the prospects of shifts, including in responsibility, in global and transnational governance. The challenge is to identify coherent responses and to effectively coordinate their implementation with stakeholders.

Mainstream political parties are being increasingly perceived as not addressing adequately the challenges faced by the EU and its Member States. At the same time, support for populist parties, movements and ideas is on the rise. The challenge is to analyse the phenomenon of populism and its consequences for European democracies and the European project. In addition, innovative ways of understanding and addressing the causes of populism as well as strategies for strengthening democratic values and practices need to be identified.

Years after the crisis and near-zero interest rates, resilient economic growth is still low in Europe. Boosting economic growth requires concerted actions to simultaneously stimulate supply and demand side economic policies. From the supply side, the “productivity puzzle”, namely the deceleration of productivity growth despite technological advances, has regained the attention of policy and academic communities.