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airLED
As business markets become national and international in scale, airports and their adjacent areas are increasingly being viewed as catalysts for local economic development. Anticipation of new business activity also calls for appropriate spatial planning. Yet few types of economic development have been as poorly predicted and implemented as development around airports.
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ClusterCOOP
Innovation is a crucial driving force for economic growth, relevant to every economic sector. Europe needs to improve its performance in innovation to sustain a high and rising standard of living. Clusters provide conditions conducive to innovation and can leverage this potential and increase their excellence if they create linkages with other clusters exploiting complementarities.
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GUTS
The challenge GUTS partners are facing is how to reconcile economic development and accessibility of their cities with an improving quality of life, environmental protection and fighting climate change. Currently 31% of all air pollution is coming from transport.
The project tackles this problem through a pioneer approach, following the line of the Commission Directive on promotion of clean and energy efficient road transport vehicles (COM2007). continue reading
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GovernEE
The specific objective of the project is to improve the energy efficiency (EE) in public buildings in general and historic buildings in particular. The special focus on historic buildings is important as (1) little progress has been made in this respect although it is a crucial problem in most European cities; (2) it is often the case that public institutions are located in historic buildings; so it is of high relevance for responsible decision-makers; (3) the task is demanding and requires special expertise as there are very specific regulations to be fulfilled complicated by the fact that generating energy from fossil fuels to heat these buildings is rather expensive; (4) there are also social implications e.g. inhabitants moving out of historic building blocks due to high energy costs although for the proper maintenance of these buildings it is crucial for them to remain inhabited.
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TAB
The central concern of the TAB project is air pollution. It impacts at the local level but may be caused far away from where the main effects are realised and may be aggravated by the effects of climate change, particularly severe weather events. All TAB partner cities/regions have a strong industrial character with large human populations. They suffer from three main types of air pollution sources, industry, traffic and household heating, and ambient levels of particulates that exceed national averages. A key impact is the increasing burden of air pollution on the environment and human populations.
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Q-Ageing
The radical change of the age structure can be identified as a social phenomenon present throughout Europe. It means that while the number of the elderly employees (55 -64) is growing, the ratios of the elderly (65 -79 and above 80) are increasing; the ratio of the active employees is decreasing. Finding solution for the socio-economic problems induced by this situation is an urgent task at local, national and European level.
