Search Results (714)

This study aims to address the need to operationalize Industry 5.0 (I5.0) by developing a comprehensive Assessment Framework for the adoption of the Human Centricity, Environmental Sustainability, and Industrial Resilience pillars. While existing models largely focus on technological maturity, they fail to provide measurable tools for evaluating I5.0 adoption. To bridge this gap, the paper proposes an Assessment Framework based on a structured set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) developed within the EU-funded PROSPECTS 5.0 project. The methodology combines an extensive literature review, a workshop with relevant stakeholders, a Delphi survey with experts, and empirical refinement conducted through workshops involving 14 companies across multiple sectors and of varying sizes. The results highlight that organizations predominantly measure traditional indicators such as health and safety, energy consumption, and supply chain robustness, while underestimating emerging dimensions such as human empowerment, social inclusion, circularity, and advanced human–machine collaboration. The framework introduces a set of KPIs for each of the I5.0 pillars, supporting structured assessment across different industrial contexts while allowing sector-specific adaptation. The findings reveal a gap between the perceived importance of several sustainability and human-centric metrics and their actual implementation. This framework allows organizations to self-assess their practices, guide strategic decisions, and align technological growth with societal and environmental goals. Full article

An EU-funded project was implemented to enhance efficiency and reliability in the water supply system of Antalya city in Türkiye to support climate change adaptation by reducing Non-Revenue Water (NRW). Extensive fieldwork and targeted actions of continuous Minimum Night Flow monitoring, Active Leakage Control, pressure management, and replacement of aging meters were applied to identify and reduce NRW. The project demonstrated that the commonly used percentage water loss indicator in Türkiye, the regulatory performance indicator, is biased and that the Infrastructure Leakage Index provides a more accurate performance measure. Training and experience-sharing workshops were conducted for district, provincial, and metropolitan municipalities in addition to an international regional conference, strengthening institutional capacity for sustainable water loss management. The project demonstrated that substantial gains in efficiency, reliability, and climate resilience can be achieved through integrated water loss management, advanced monitoring technologies, and performance-based evaluation frameworks. Full article

Over the last two decades, social enterprises in Romania have taken on an increasingly important role in the production and provision of social goods and services for vulnerable groups. Although forms of the social economy have long existed in Romanian society, sustainability remains a constant concern, particularly in the context of dependence on European Union structural funds. This study identifies the multidimensional factors influencing the sustainability of social enterprises in Romania, combining a quantitative analysis of 121 certified social enterprises from the National Register (2016–2022) with qualitative case studies of 15 selected organisations. Revenue diversification was significantly associated with financial sustainability (β = −0.28, p < 0.01), whilst high dependence on EU funding (>50% of revenue) was negatively associated with long-term viability (HR = 2.18, p = 0.002). Participation in networks was associated with markedly higher five-year survival rates (87.2% for network members versus 69.5% for non-members). Six key sustainability strategies were identified: hybrid revenue models, integration into the value chain, community inclusion, adaptive leadership, strategic partnerships, and effective communication of results and impact. Environmental sustainability is addressed with preliminary proxy evidence from the qualitative component; systematic measurement of this dimension represents a priority for future research. The findings confirm the absence of an integrated support framework for the sustainable activities of the social economy and, in some cases, the limited capacity of public institutions to support vulnerable groups. Policy recommendations include phased funding mechanisms, transitional support instruments and the systematic development of regional ecosystems. Full article

Although the European Union positions the bioeconomy at the core of its sustainability transition and the European Green Deal, the cross-country distribution of bioeconomy value-added associated with mission-oriented public R&D support remains highly uneven. This paper investigates how national researcher capacity (as a proxy of absorptive capacity) shapes the macroeconomic effectiveness of bioeconomy-oriented public R&D support, and how societal climate-oriented environmental concern acts as a direct structural driver of bioeconomy value-added. Using a panel dataset of 27 EU Member States from 2008 to 2020, the study constructs an original bioeconomy-specific measure of government budget appropriations for R&D (GBARD) and estimates two-way fixed-effects models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for cross-sectional dependence. The findings reveal a clear capacity-dependent conditional moderation effect: public R&D support is significantly associated with higher bioeconomy value-added only when a critical mass of researcher capacity is present. Sectoral disaggregation demonstrates that business enterprise researcher capacity acts as the primary transmission channel linking public funds to the market, whereas higher-education capacity shows no statistically significant short-to-medium-term moderating effect, consistent with the academic research commercialisation time lags documented in the literature. Additionally, societal climate-oriented environmental concern is positively associated with bioeconomy value-added in the baseline models, consistent with its role as a demand-side factor fostering receptive conditions for bio-based transitions. The study concludes that increasing mission-oriented R&D funding alone is likely insufficient; to successfully cross the “valley of death,” public R&D should be accompanied by complementary policies that build private-sector absorptive capacity and cultivate green market demand. Full article

The assessment of the “Do No Significant Harm” (DNSH) principle in European Union (EU)-funded projects currently relies on narrative justification, which generates subjective evaluations, inconsistent results, and high administrative effort. This study aims to develop an operational framework and project-level tool to standardize how environmental impact is measured across multiple sectors and project types. The methodology applies a stepwise, non-compensatory approach, combining typology-based filtering, financial thresholds derived from carbon intensity and sustainability coefficients, checklists, spatial analysis, and quantitative indicators such as the circular economy transition metric. Each environmental objective is evaluated independently, ensuring that compliance cannot be offset by positive performance in other areas. The framework was preliminarily validated using a dataset of 1406 projects implemented in Romania, indicating its potential to distinguish low-risk from high-risk projects, reduce evaluator subjectivity, and improve the proportionality of analytical effort. While the tool is tested on Romanian case studies, its design allows for application across various European funding programmemes. The tool supports early-stage screening, encourages green procurement, and aligns project planning with EU environmental objectives, including climate mitigation, adaptation, water resource protection, pollution prevention, circular economy, and biodiversity conservation. The proposed methodology provides a clear, reproducible, and practical approach, offering evaluators a consistent mechanism for DNSH compliance verification and integrating environmental protection into project design and implementation. Full article

Aviation contributes approximately 2.4% of global CO₂ emissions and 3.5% of total effective radiative forcing when non-CO₂ effects are included, yet Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) accounts for less than 0.5% of European jet fuel consumption. This paper investigates why the gap between policy ambition and deployment persists, asking (i) how misaligned instruments across ReFuelEU Aviation, RED III, CORSIA, and the UK RTFO impede high-integrity production pathways, and (ii) what convergence mechanisms can reduce fragmentation beyond Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA)-dominated supply. Applying the Multi-Level Perspective framework, the study triangulates comparative policy analysis with a stakeholder survey (n = 45) across SAF producers, airlines, policymakers, and investors. Results identify regulatory fragmentation, capacity constraints, and funding barriers as near-equally weighted obstacles, while disaggregation reveals actor-specific priorities: policymakers emphasise regulatory complexity, airlines emphasise funding, and producers emphasise capacity. Most producers declined to disclose volume projections, interpreted here as strategic ambiguity under regulatory uncertainty. Three convergence mechanisms are proposed: harmonised carbon-intensity registries, standardised book-and-claim accounting, and joint feedstock certification protocols. The findings align aviation decarbonisation with SDGs 7, 9, 12, and 13. Without coherent policy architecture, SAF deployment risks entrenching low-ambition compliance pathways that undermine the EU’s contribution to the 2030 Agenda. Full article

The European Union’s Farm-to-Fork (F2F) Strategy sets an ambitious agenda for a socio-ecological transition, positioning agriculture as a critical sector for achieving sustainable food systems. However, its implementation faces significant systemic barriers that hinder its transformative potential. This paper applies a diagnostic framework, derived from the H2020-funded PHOENIX project, that identifies six key challenges to democratic innovations in environmental governance: prolonged timeframes for tangible results, the complexity of environmental issues, the need for transcalar cooperation, the imperative to foster behavioural change, limited deliberative dialogue, and the need to build mutual trust. Through a review of public policies and scholarly literature, this analysis evaluates how these challenges manifest within the F2F Strategy, impacting farmers and the broader agri-food system. The findings demonstrate that barriers to F2F implementation are not solely technical or economic but are deeply linked to governance fragmentation, uneven knowledge flows, and deficits in trust relations. Crucially, the study reveals that Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) and associated Education and Training (ET) consistently emerge as pivotal enabling mechanisms to mitigate these constraints. The research generates actionable recommendations to reinforce F2F by redefining the roles of innovation, education, and multi-level collaboration in building resilient and sustainable EU agri-food systems. Full article

The Court of Justice of the European Union’s Grand Chamber judgement in Public.Resource.Org v Commission (“Malamud”) raises fundamental questions about the relationship between EU law and the European standardisation system. By holding that harmonised standards referenced in the Official Journal must be accessible to the public free of charge, the Court reaffirmed the principle that individuals must be able to know the norms governing their legal rights and obligations. While widely welcomed as a victory for transparency and the Rule of Law, the judgement poses significant challenges to the longstanding governance and funding model of European standardisation, which relies heavily on copyright-based revenues generated by European Standardisation Organisations and national bodies. This article examines the practical and institutional consequences of the Malamud ruling and explores viable compliance pathways for the EU standardisation system. After outlining the role of harmonised standards within the New Legislative Framework and their growing importance in regulatory regimes such as the Artificial Intelligence Act, it analyses the judgement’s implications for access to law and the copyright status of standards. The article then evaluates a range of implementation models, including Commission-hosted publication, read-only access portals, licencing buyouts, and expanded use of common specifications. It argues that a Commission-hosted publication model, supported by revised funding arrangements, offers the most coherent pathway to reconcile open access with the continued functioning of the European standardisation infrastructure, and proposes corresponding reforms to Regulation 1025/2012. Full article

Greece is facing a wildfire crisis that parallels many other countries in fire-prone regions around the globe. Recent wildfire data for Greece point to an alarming trend of increasing fire size and severity catalyzed by climate change, lack of forest and fuel management, urban expansion into wildlands around major population centers, and rural exodus from areas that traditionally supported fire-resilient land uses. Fire management in Greece has long emphasized suppression with relatively little attention to prevention and coordination. In this paper, we identify key factors that are slowing progress towards a solution to the Greek wildfire crisis, including the current legislative framework around wildfire management that has contributed to conflicts and inefficiency. We then discuss specific policies to rebalance the current suppression emphasis by integrating new prevention strategies aiming to create fire-resilient landscapes and reduce wildfire impacts, widely adopt the use of technology, and enhance stakeholder cooperation for more efficient fire suppression. We also highlight how optimizing landscape scale management of fuels is contributing solutions to the wildfire crisis, specifically from the EU-funded FIRE-RES project. Full article

This paper draws on primary research conducted within the international project New Governance for New Spaces—NONA, implemented under the Interreg Danube Region Programme with EU co-funding. The principles of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative are fully aligned with the research framework and outcomes. The study aimed to test the applicability of the NEB model in urban regeneration at four selected pilot sites in four mid-sized cities in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia) with a strong focus on participatory governance and co-creation involving stakeholders, local authorities, and citizens. It also examined appropriate financing and management models to support sustainable improvement and future development of these spaces. A central outcome of the research was the development of a comprehensive methodological framework outlining key steps and potential implementation scenarios, designed as a roadmap for medium-sized European cities. The methodology combined field research, surveys, the establishment of a Local Action Group (LAG), and the implementation of “soft interventions,” including creative competitions, site-based festivals, workshops, expert walks, and panel discussions and forums. These activities informed a set of beneficial practice recommendations, defined through clear requirements and expected outcomes. Full article

Recent discussions on the future of European Union governance highlight a growing emphasis on integrated policy frameworks that align agricultural, territorial, and socio-economic development objectives within unified strategic planning systems. One of the proposed innovations for the next EU programming period is the introduction of National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), which aim to coordinate several EU funding instruments within a single national planning framework. This article explores stakeholder perspectives on the development of integrated policy planning in this context. The analysis is guided by analytical propositions derived from the literature on policy integration and multi-level governance, focusing on how stakeholder interpretations influence strategic priority alignment, perceived policy trade-offs, and governance coordination capacity. The study is based on a qualitative focus group discussion involving policy stakeholders, researchers, and institutional representatives in Lithuania. Using thematic analysis, the study examines how stakeholders interpret integrated planning concepts, identify strategic priorities, and assess governance challenges associated with policy integration. The findings reveal three key issues shaping stakeholder perspectives. First, conceptual ambiguity surrounding strategic priorities such as competitiveness, regional vitality, and sustainability may complicate policy coordination. Second, perceived conflicts between economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability may be less pronounced than often assumed. Third, the implementation of integrated policy frameworks requires stronger governance capacity, including improved cross-ministerial coordination and shared monitoring systems. The article contributes to research on policy integration and multi-level governance by providing empirical evidence on how policy actors interpret integrated strategic planning frameworks and how these interpretations shape perceptions of governance capacity, policy trade-offs, and stakeholder participation in EU funding reforms. Full article

Cities increasingly use experimental and participatory approaches to address sustainability challenges, yet knowledge about Urban Labs (ULs) and Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in Central and Eastern Europe remains limited. This article provides the first nationwide overview of ULs and ULLs in Poland and examines their role in sustainable urban transformation. Using desk research based on systematic searches of official websites, government reports, EU programme databases, academic sources, and social media, 34 ULs and 15 ULL initiatives operating as of July 2025 were identified. The cases were geolocated and analysed in terms of funding, collaboration models, and thematic orientations. ULs were classified into four functional types, while ULLs were grouped by their main areas of activity. The results indicate two development paths: a centralised model linked to national programmes and a bottom-up model driven by NGOs, universities, and civic initiatives. Most cases are concentrated in metropolitan areas, remain rare in towns with fewer than 60,000 inhabitants, and depend on short-term external funding. Despite organisational diversity, the initiatives consistently use co-creation, stakeholder engagement, and rapid prototyping. The study provides a first empirical evidence base for Poland and identifies challenges related to institutional durability and the scaling of urban innovation. Full article

The digital transformation of healthcare requires stronger digital competencies among pharmacists, yet evidence on the effectiveness of structured training remains scarce. This study examines the impact of a blended digital health training programme delivered to practicing pharmacists in Bihor County, Romania, as part of the Romanian pilot of the EU-funded European Health Professionals’ and the DigitAl team SkillS (H-PASS) project. A single-group pre–post educational design was applied to pharmacists from Bihor County, Romania, participating in a modular digital health training programme delivered between May and July 2025. A total of 84 pharmacists completed both pre-training and post-training self-reported competency assessments comprising 18 items across three modules: digital innovation and change management, communication and collaboration, and data management and digital literacy. Paired samples t-tests, Cohen’s d effect sizes, Cronbach’s alpha, moderator analyses, and ceiling effect analyses were conducted using Python-based statistical workflows. Statistically significant improvements were observed across all three modules (all p < 0.0001), with large effect sizes (d = 1.04–1.30). Post-training internal consistency increased substantially, with overall Cronbach’s alpha reaching 0.74. The greatest item-level gains were recorded in adaptive communication, cultural adaptation of care, and data protection ethics. No significant moderation effects were found for age, gender, or years of experience. Course satisfaction showed a moderate positive correlation with competency gains (r = 0.528), while perceived improvement was not significantly associated with observed score change. A ceiling effect indicated greater gains among participants with lower baseline competencies. The Romanian implementation of the H-PASS training programme was associated with improved self-reported digital health competencies among practicing pharmacists, high-lighting its potential as a scalable model for digital upskilling in healthcare. Full article

This article analyses budgetary expenditures on agriculture and rural development in Poland in 2004–2025, i.e., after Poland’s accession to the European Union (EU). The study examines the size, real dynamics, and structure of total agricultural budget expenditures, including both national budgetary funds and EU funds allocated through the instruments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The analysis assesses the importance of EU budget funds for the level and structure of public expenditures on agriculture and rural development in Poland and attempts to determine the relationship between national and EU funds. The study employed time series analysis, structural analysis, and an analysis of the interdependence of variables (i.e., correlation and multiple regression). It was found that during the 22 years of EU membership, budgetary expenditures on agriculture, agricultural markets, and rural development in Poland were strongly determined by the volume of European funds, which accounted for the sharp increase in Poland’s agricultural budget compared with the pre-accession period. Compared with 2003 levels, expenditure rose by an average of 162% in nominal terms and 129% in real terms. EU funds also acted as a stabilising factor for the size of this budget throughout the analysed period. The proportion of European funds in Poland’s agricultural budget (PAB) rose sharply in the early years of Poland’s EU membership (2004–2011), increasing from 20.1% to 48.7%. However, it remained relatively stable in subsequent years, averaging 47.8%. Nevertheless, the appreciation of the Polish zloty against the euro caused the real value of these expenditures to decline, a trend that became apparent from 2017 onwards. This resulted in the need to increase expenditures from the national budget and led to national funds assuming a greater share of the financial burden of supporting agriculture. Between 2017 and 2025, the share of EU funds in the PAB fell from 43% to 33.1% (averaging 40.3%). The structure of expenditures within the CAP evolved over time as a result of changes in CAP priorities, although farmers’ income support as well as assistance for the modernization and improvement of the competitiveness of Polish agriculture remained key objectives. Full article

The growing need to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels has prompted the exploration of alternative propulsion technologies. Fuel cell (FC) systems offer a sustainable solution, generating only water vapor as a by-product. This paper presents a conceptual study, focusing on subsystem integration and safety aspects, for an 80-passenger, hydrogen-powered aircraft developed within the European Union (EU) co-funded NEWBORN (NExt generation high poWer fuel cells for airBORNe applications) Project. The designed configuration incorporates wing-mounted pods housing fuel cells, an electric motor, an inverter, a Thermal Management System (TMS), and Balance of Performance (BoP). This configuration is an effort towards environmentally friendly solutions, addressing climate change and paving the way towards greener aviation. Full article