Insights
Stay up to date with the latest ERINN Innovation updates, including news from our projects and valuable insights into our work and impact.
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- Horizon Europe
- Project News
- Marine
June 29, 2022
EU-Funded PREP4BLUE Launches – Will Prepare Mission Ocean and Waters for Successful Start
Five EU European Missions have been proposed as a novel way to enable solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing our world. Funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program, PREP4BLUE is a €4.9 million, three-year project (Coordination and Support Action) and the first building block to Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030. This Mission seeks to protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, prevent and eliminate pollution of our ocean, seas, and waters, and make the Blue Economy sustainable, carbon neutral, and circular. PREP4BLUE aims to inspire, engage, and involve citizens and stakeholders to interlink, leverage, and optimise activities among the projects, in particular its specific Lighthouse areas: Mediterranean Sea, Baltic and North Seas, Danube River basin, and Atlantic/Arctic Sea basin. The project partners are leading European organisations and thought leaders that complement each other in experience, expertise, and stakeholder reach across marine and freshwater areas. Project Coordinator, Natalia Martin Palenzuela, Director of International and European Affairs at the Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (Ifremer) said, “To engage research and innovation as a key catalyst for achieving the Mission’s objectives, a new direction must be taken towards participatory governance of this Mission, bold investment plans, and the co-design and co-implementation of solutions with citizens and stakeholders at its heart. PREP4BLUE seeks to enable this transformation during the first phase of the Mission (2021-2025).” PREP4BLUE commenced on 1 June 2022 with an initial virtual launch meeting for partners on 20 June. The launch of the Mission Implementation Charter will take place during the UN Ocean Conference on 30 June in Lisbon, Portugal. You can register to attend in person or watch it live virtually by visiting the European Commission’s Event page on the Charter launch. Follow project activities and news on Twitter @PREP4BLUE and on the project website, coming soon at PREP4BLUE.eu. Follow @eumissionoceanon Twitter to learn about opportunities to engage with this important initiative, and visit EU Missions in Horizon Europe to learn more about the EU Missions.
- Project News
- Renewable Energy
May 30, 2022
Testing of RES4BUILD integrated energy solution pilots underway with aim of decarbonising future energy systems in the built environment
Press release: 30 May 2022 As the EU-funded RES4BUILD project enters its final year, two pilot systems will undergo testing to investigate and fine-tune the project’s integrated energy solutions. With the recent focus on reducing dependence on external fossil fuels and accelerating the green transition in the European Union (REPowerEU Plan), RES4BUILD hopes its research can support the move to a clean energy future. The project is developing integrated renewable energy-based solutions tailored to the needs of users and installers with the aim of increasing uptake of such solutions for heating and cooling in buildings. The team is working to improve the performance and reduce costs of the most innovative components of the RES4BUILD solutions – integrating photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors with magnetocaloric and multi-source heat pumps, and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES), as well as optimising their performance through advanced control and building energy management systems (BEMS). The fully integrated system is currently undergoing testing at two sites – the Danish Technological Institute, Denmark and the National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos, Greece. In parallel to the technical work, JIN Climate and Sustainability and the Baltic Energy Conservation Agency are collaborating with end-users and other stakeholders in the Netherlands and Poland to explore the needs and challenges with respect to decision making and implementation of integrated energy systems in their building(s). This, together with a full life-cycle impact assessment of the integrated RES4BUILD energy system performed by the University of Stuttgart, and a market review by ARUP, will pave the route to market for integrated energy systems. RES4BUILD project coordinator, Michael Papapetrou notes “We are delighted to have the pilot plants up and running in Greece and Denmark. The data to be collected will be very valuable and will allow us to validate our calculations. The results so far are very encouraging, and we expect that in a refurbished multifamily building the RES4BUILD integrated energy system can deliver a significant reduction of CO2 emissions compared to a traditional solution where a gas boiler is used for heating and an AC chiller for cooling. The reduction ranges from 73% for Athens and 75% for Cork, up to 80% for Amsterdam or even 90% for Gdansk.” Several publications on the technologies as well as articles on the end user collaborations are available. For more information, visit the project website res4build.eu, or Twitter @RES4BUILD.
- ERINN News
- Job Opportunity
November 23, 2021
Project Officer opportunity with ERINN
ERINN is seeking a Project Officer to join its growing team. The Project Officer will be responsible for carrying out ERINN’s day-to-day role in specific European projects, ensuring their success for both ERINN and our partnerships. Initially, the projects will have a wetland focus, however ERINN’s project portfolio ranges across a variety of sectors including marine, food, health, climate, and energy. ERINN’s roles in projects typically include leading positions in project management, dissemination, communication, education, stakeholder engagement and knowledge management and transfer. Application Deadline: 12/12/21 at 17.00. The position is available to start in February/March 2022. Note: Once ERINN offices re-open in line with public health advice, the position would require the successful applicant to work from the Dublin office on a regular basis in a hybrid format. For more information on the opportunity, click here to visit the full job description.
- ERINN News
- Land Restoration
October 26, 2021
ERINN Innovation collaborates on Accelerate Green programme to boost Irish SMEs focused on sustainability
In an exciting milestone for LIFE IP Peatlands and People, the launch of Pillar 2’s accelerator programme took place on Monday 11th October 2021, attended by Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Robert Troy. Peatlands and People is a 7-year LIFE Integrated project with three pillars – an ecological pillar (Peatlands Excellence), an economic pillar (the Just Transition Accelerator) and an education pillar (the People’s Discovery Attraction). The restored and rehabilitated peatlands are expected to store more carbon, protect biodiversity, improve water quality and support other benefits, while the Accelerator and Discovery Attraction aim to support economic growth and create space for social action. ERINN Innovation is one of the five key project partners. The Accelerator will provide a range of supports to SMEs to encourage the development of ideas into new products, services and enterprises. It will aspire to evolve so as to provide an incubator infrastructure to help businesses to test and adopt ideas and technologies for a Just Transition – ensuring the transition to a climate-neutral economy happens in a fair way. The Just Transition Accelerator is led by project partners Bord na Móna and ERINN Innovation who, following a tender process, appointed Resolve Partners to run the first accelerator programme. The programme – Accelerate Green – is the first Irish accelerator dedicated to scaling companies leading the response to climate action and sustainability by developing products and services based on green innovation. It will be located at Bord na Móna’s existing office complex in Boora, Offaly. The accelerator programme is currently accepting applications from the following: Established Scaling Climate Tech Companies High-growth SMEs pivoting to the climate change economy Earlier Stage Innovation-Driven Enterprises Technology, Engineering Science Renewables/Carbon reduction, Waste/Circular, AgTech Applications close on 10th December with the programme due to begin on 1st February 2022. Potential applicants are encouraged to register their interest and book office hours to discuss the programme. For more information, please visit: accelerategreen.ie. For more information on LIFE IP Peatlands and People, please visit: www.peatlandsandpeople.ie Image from the Accelerate Green launch event (L-R): Rebecca Doyle of ERINN Innovation, LIFE IP Peatlands and People Project Manager; David Murphy CEO of ERINN Innovation; Robert Troy, Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Declan Clarke of ERINN Innovation, LIFE IP Peatlands and People Pillar 2 Just Transition Accelerator Lead; John MacNamara of Bord na Móna, LIFE IP Peatlands and People Project Coordinator; Dr Christine Domegan of the Whitaker Institute NUI Galway, LIFE IP Peatlands and People Pillar 3 People’s Discovery Attraction Lead; Tom Donnellan, Bord na Móna CEO; and Suzanne Nally of the NPWS, LIFE IP Peatlands and People project partner rehabilitating peatlands under Pillar 1 Peatlands Excellence.
- Project News
- Marine
October 7, 2021
New EU project launched to harness the power of marine microbes and their bioactive molecules
Researchers and commercial partners from 10 European countries are uniting to develop new, sustainable methods to protect fish, algae and sponges from diseases, by harnessing the power of disease-suppressive marine microbes and the bioactive substances they produce. Bioactive substances have actions in the body that may promote good health. Researchers expect to find applications in the pharmaceutical, agriculture and aquaculture industries. Funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, MARBLES is a €7.5 million, 5-year project that will develop new methods for the sustainable collection and use of biological resources from marine environments and assess their commercial potential. MARBLES aims to create eco-friendly solutions as viable alternatives to the synthetic chemicals currently used in pharmaceutical, agriculture and aquaculture settings. In particular, the project will assess the potential of microorganisms derived from marine sponges, microalgae and fish for disease suppression, both the microorganisms themselves and their bioactive natural products will be assessed. These disease-suppressive microorganisms will be obtained from “microbiomes”, which are the complex collection of microorganisms that live in and around their marine hosts. Among other benefits, these microbes and the natural products derived from them will help to increase the efficacy of fish production, therefore reducing the pressure on harvesting wild fish, and will help the transition of the agricultural crop sector towards bio-based and circular solutions. The marine environment remains a largely untapped and poorly understood source of natural products with potential for application in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Challenges include finding and identifying the bacteria and their molecules, extracting their active ingredients in a sustainable, effective way, and the commercial and regulatory difficulties of bringing a discovery from the lab to market. In the context of an increasing global population and the current climate and biodiversity crises, there is an urgent need to sustainably harness new compounds with pharmaceutical and nutritional applications. These are the issues that MARBLES will address. MARBLES project coordinator, Professor Gilles van Wezel from the University of Leiden (the Netherlands) said: “MARBLES will have a significant impact across European pharmaceutical and food industries. The project will unlock some of mother nature’s secrets, and harness marine biodiversity’s potential to address some of society’s greatest challenges. Our diverse team will ensure the project’s outcomes will have practical applications in a range of settings. I’m looking forward to sharing our developments!” MARBLES partners will hold an inaugural project meeting from 7-8 October 2021 at Kasteel Oud Poelgeest (the Netherlands). The project will run until April 2026.
- Horizon Europe
- Project News
- Land Restoration
October 6, 2021
WaterLANDS: New European Green Deal project launched to lead largescale restoration of European wetlands
An ambitious project has been launched to tackle largescale restoration of Europe’s wetlands, with €23 million of funding from the EU Horizon 2020 Programme Green Deal. WaterLANDS (Water-based solutions for carbon storage, people and wilderness) will restore wetland sites across Europe which have been decimated by human activity and lay the foundations for scalable protection across much wider areas. WaterLANDS will undertake hands-on restoration of specific wetland sites, covering an initial 10,500 ha, and create best practice models that can be applied to wetland restoration at other sites. By engaging with local communities and stakeholders, the project will ensure that wetland restoration results not only in environmental gains, but also social and economic benefits for the communities involved. The five-year project is led by University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland and brings together 31 other organisations from research, industry, government and non-profit sectors in 14 European countries. Commenting on the project’s significance, WaterLANDS project coordinator Dr Craig Bullock, Research Fellow in Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin, said: “Previous attempts at wetland restoration have often been too localised or too fragmented to make a significant difference to the re-establishment of wetland ecosystems and species. In WaterLANDS, we aim to co-create a more effective means of restoration which captures ecological, social, governance and financial aspects, to connect habitats and communities across Europe, ensuring both thrive for many generations to come.” Comprised of diverse ecosystems including peatlands, fens, riparian marshes and coastal estuaries, wetlands are home to 40% of the world’s species. They also store and capture carbon, remove environmental pollutants, and protect communities from flooding. Wetlands are particularly vulnerable to damage from human activities. Europe has already lost up to 90% of its original wetlands, resulting in massive biodiversity loss, water and food shortages, devastating floods and fires, coastal subsidence and erosion. The largescale, integrated approach developed in WaterLANDS will address these challenges to ensure the resilience and health of both wetland habitats and the communities who rely on them. Funding for WaterLANDS is part of the European Commission’s Green Deal ambition to make Europe the first climate neutral continent by 2050 with a sustainable economy that leaves no one behind. The project will officially launch in December 2021. Please follow @WaterLANDS_EU for the latest updates
- Project News
- Marine
August 6, 2021
Biogears Final Prototype Developed And Sea Trials Commence
In June 2021, the BIOGEARS project reached a key milestone; the final prototype biobased ropes ‘biogears’ were finalised. The biogears ropes seek to provide an alternative to the petrol-based (non-recyclable) commercial ropes ubiquitous on the market. The biogears were manufactured at project partner ITSASKORDA’s facility in the Basque Country, Spain. Three prototypes were developed, all comprising of biobased material. The next phase of the project is to trial the biogears in mussel and seaweed Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) in offshore and sheltered marine areas. These trials began in July 2021 at AZTI’s experimental longline facilities sited at SE Bay of Biscay and AZTI’s experimental raft sited in Mutriku. Trials will run until July 2022. With this prototype and resulting trials, the BIOGEARS project aims to reduce the current technological gaps and extend the potential use of sustainable materials in the sector. The results of the project support creating a biobased value chain under the EU Bioeconomy Strategy framework. To find out more about the process of developing and deploying the biogears, please visit: https://biogears.eu/biogears-final-prototype-developed-and-sea-trials-commence/ To read more about the prototype development please visit: biogears.eu, Twitter, LinkedIn or subscribe to news
- ERINN News
- Horizon Europe
- Coastal Communities
July 21, 2021
ERINN joins Horizon 2020-funded SCORE project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities
The four year project, SCORE (Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities), outlines a comprehensive strategy, developed via a network of 10 coastal city ‘living labs’, to rapidly, equitably and sustainably enhance coastal city climate resilience though an Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBA) supported by sophisticated digital technologies. The intensification of extreme weather events, coastal erosion and sea-level rise are major challenges to be urgently addressed by European coastal cities. Deaths caused by extreme weather in Europe could rise from 3,000 a year between 1981 and 2010 to 152,000 between 2071 and 2100 if mitigation pathways are not enacted to increase the resilience of European cities and settlements, based on a study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal. To tackle this challenge, SCORE coordinated by Dr Salem Gharbia from the Institute of Technology Sligo (Ireland), will lead a consortium of international scientific institutions, cities, and SMEs in a new €10m Horizon 2020-funded research project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities. The SCORE interdisciplinary team consists of 28 world-leading organisations from academia, local authorities, Research Performing Organisations, and SMEs encompassing a wide range of skills including environmental science and policy, climate modelling, citizen and social science, data management, coastal management and engineering, security and technological aspects of smart sensing research. ERINN is part of the communications and knowledge transfer team within SCORE. Senior Project Manager, Jane Maher leads ERINN’s involvement with the project. The project will involve citizen science in providing prototype coastal city early-warning systems and will enable smart, instant monitoring and control of climate resilience in European coastal cities through open, accessible spatial ‘digital twin’ tools. The project seeks to advance the control of climate resilience in cities in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Slovenia and Poland. After a recent “Kick-Off” meeting in July 2021 with academics from across Europe, Dr Gharbia said: “SCORE will provide Europe with expandable and transferable solutions to increase climate resilience against extreme events in coastal cities. Together with our partners, we will establish a network of coastal cities that will work together and learn from each other to tackle climate change. In SCORE we want to put every effort to mitigate the effects of climate change now and in the years ahead” SCORE will establish an integrated coastal zone management framework for strengthening the Ecosystem-Based solutions and smart coastal city policies, creating European leadership in coastal city climate change adaptation in line with The Paris Agreement. For more information on the project, please follow @SCORE_EUproject on Twitter or SCORE on LinkedIn. NOTES FOR EDITORS: ABOUT SCORE PROJECT Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities (acronym: SCORE) Call: H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020 Topic: LC-CLA-13-2020 SCORE is a €10m Horizon 2020-funded research project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities lead by Dr Salem Gharbia of the School of Engineering & Design at IT Sligo. The overall aim of SCORE is to design, develop, monitor and validate robust adaptation measures in coastal and low-lying areas to protect them from increasing climate and sea level risks, including coastal flooding and erosion, to enhance their overall long-term resilience. SCORE outlines a co-creation strategy, developed via a network of 10 coastal city ‘living labs’ (CCLLs), to rapidly, equitably and sustainably enhance coastal city climate resilience through Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBAs) and sophisticated digital technologies. SCORE will establish an integrated coastal zone management framework for strengthening EBA and smart coastal city policies, creating European leadership in coastal city climate change adaptation in line with The Paris Agreement. SCORE will provide innovative platforms to empower stakeholders’ deployment of EBAs to increase climate resilience, business opportunities and financial sustainability of coastal cities. The SCORE interdisciplinary team consists of 28 world-leading organisations from academia, local authorities, RPOs, and SMEs encompassing a wide range of skills including environmental science and policy, climate modelling, citizen and social science, data management, coastal management and engineering, security and technological aspects of smart sensing research. SCORE is a four-year project starting in July 2021. List of cities involved in the SCORE Horizon 2020 project: Sligo and Dublin, Ireland; Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon and Oeiras, Portugal; Massa, Italy; Benidorm, Spain, Koper, Slovenia; Gdansk, Poland; and Basque Country, Spain.
- Project News
- Marine
May 20, 2021
No more haunting by ‘ghost nets’: bio-based and biodegradable nets could be the solution
Celebrating European Maritime Day (20 May 2021), researchers in Paphos, Cyprus organised a clean-up operation to collect ghost fishing nets and derelict fishing gear from the local seabed. Two partners from the EU-funded SEALIVE project, the NGO, AKTI Project and Research Centre and the environmental research and consultancy, ISOTECH Ltd organised the event in cooperation with local organisations, the Paphos Fishermen Association and the diving organisation, CYDIVE. “Ghost nets” are nets that have been either accidentally or deliberately lost, abandoned or discarded in the marine environment. While these nets, and other derelict or abandoned fishing gear, no longer serve any purpose for the fishing industry, the nets continue to entangle fish and other marine animals. This can have devastating effects on marine ecosystems. Fishing nets have been identified as an item of particular concern as part of the European Directive on Single-use Plastics that will come into effect in July 2021. The Directive includes actions to target the collection and recycling of old fishing nets. However, the collection of fishing nets that are lost accidentally at sea remains a challenge. SEALIVE is working to address these issues by developing bio-based fishing nets made from green alternative materials such as micro-algae. Production of the nets is more sustainable compared to those based on traditional fossil fuel plastics. The nets will also be compostable at an industrial scale. This is particularly important because recycling infrastructure for fishing nets is currently not available in most countries and the recycling of traditional fishing nets can be both labour-intensive and financially non-viable. SEALIVE’s goal is to enable a transition to biodegradable, compostable nets, coupled with supporting infrastructure for the collection of old nets. This will create a market for otherwise useless fishing nets, providing an additional incentive for the fishing industry to move to sustainable methods of disposal. In addition, if biodegradable nets are lost or discarded in the marine environment, they will degrade much faster than conventional nets, limiting their “ghost net” potential. ISOTECH will work with Cypriot fishermen to test SEALIVE’s biodegradable fishing nets in real-life conditions for 12 months. The results from this pilot test will help to evaluate the effectiveness and operability of the nets and contribute to the advancement of research and the development of more market competitive products. Commenting on the event, Ms. Anna Tselepou, representing AKTI, said “We are proud to work with our local and international partners to develop better, more sustainable ways of protecting our oceans. Fishing has always been important to Cyprus and we are working to enable and support our fishermen to move to more environmentally friendly practices that will protect our marine heritage for generations to come.”
About
ERINN Innovation is a value-driven company owned by the staff who support research and innovation to have impact.
Information
ERINN Innovation Ltd
Company No.: 600883 (Ireland)
Company No.: 600883 (Ireland)
Directors
David Murphy (IE/UK)
Laura Richardson (IE)
Marieke Reuver (NL)
Michael Papapetrou (GR/IE)
Reid Hole (NO)
