Research projects Archive

Filtering by: Advanced Digital Innovation Center - ADIC Center

ACQUAOUNT: Adapting to Climate change by QUantifying optimal Allocation of water resOUrces and socio-ecoNomic inTerlinkages

Agriculture is by far the most water demanding sector in the Mediterranean and a sustainable use of water, combined with economic growth, cannot be achieved without improving irrigation efficiency and water productivity. The current heavy depletion of water sources is leading to water scarcity and degradation, deterioration of ecosystem services, conflicts with domestic and industrial uses and, in general, it poses limitations to economic growth. These trends will be exacerbated by CC. The ACQUAOUNT project aims to improve IWRM and sustainable irrigation through the deployment of innovative tools, smart water services and solutions, for public and private use, while contributing to climate resilience.

ActFast: Actions for Climate Transition by Developing Future Aquaculture Strategies and Technologies

How to promote a sustainable future for fish production in Europe? This is the question at the heart of ActFast (Actions for Climate Transition by Developing Future Aquaculture Strategies and Technologies), a Horizon Europe project coordinated by the Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences at the University of Bologna. The project addresses the challenge by combining sustainable farming practices, environmental monitoring and Artificial Intelligence. A multidisciplinary team of 28 partners from 10 EU countries, plus Norway, Tunisia and Egypt, will collaborate to develop innovative strategies for future aquaculture. In this context, the Regional Ocean Forecasting Systems (ROFS) division will play a key role as work package leader, contributing substantially to the development of high-resolution climate projections and forecasting systems specifically for the aquaculture sector.

AGRITECH – National Research Centre for Agricultural Technologies

The National Center for the Development of New Technologies in Agriculture (Agritech) is based on the use of enabling technologies for the sustainable development of agri-food production, with the aim of promoting adaptation to climate change, reducing the environmental impact in the agrifood sector, the development of marginal areas, and to guarantee safety, traceability and security of the supply chains. The project is worth around 350 million euros, of which 320 million to be paid by the PNRR and involves 28 universities, 5 research centers, and 18 companies. The Center is structured in Hub&Spoke, with the University of Naples Federico II responsible for the national hub and 9 different spokes in the thematic areas: Plant, animal and microbial genetic resources and adaptation to climatic changes Crop Health: a multidisciplinary system approach to reduce the use of agrochemicals Enabling technologies and sustainable strategies for the smart management of agricultural systems and their environmental impact Multifunctional and resilient agriculture and forestry systems for the mitigation of climate change risks Sustainable productivity and mitigation of environmental impact in livestock systems Management models to promote sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems Integrated models for the development of marginal areas to promote multifunctional production systems enhancing agroecological and socio-economic sustainability New models of circular economy in agriculture through waste valorization and recycling New technologies and methodologies for traceability, quality, safety, measurements and certifications to enhance the value and protect the typical traits in agri-food chains.

ARCA: ARtificial intelligence platform to prevent Climate change natural hazArds

Forest monitoring stands as a crucial endeavor for the well-being of our planet and human communities. The project, named ARtificial intelligence platform to prevent Climate change natural hazArds (ARCA), aims to address forest monitoring by developing an innovative system utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI). The primary objective is to create a transnationally applicable platform through pilot initiatives in wooded areas, employing cutting-edge technologies to combat the risks posed by climate change-induced natural hazards. The project relies on advanced algorithms based on Machine Learning (ML) and diverse networks made of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. These technological components work collaboratively to model specific forests and proactively mitigate the impact of natural hazards such as windstorms, drought, and wildfires. The digital platform comprises wireless sensor networks (WSNs), video cameras, drones, and LiDAR remote sensing, all contributing to a comprehensive forest modeling approach.

Blue-Cloud 2026 | A federated European FAIR and Open Research Ecosystem for oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters

The Blue-Cloud 2026 project builds on the existing pilot Blue-Cloud project (Oct 2019 – Sep 2022) and it evolves its pilot Blue-Cloud ecosystem into a federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR and Open Data and analytical services instrumental for deepening research of oceans, the EU sea, coastal and inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) for accessible web-based science, serving the needs of the EU Blue Economy, Marine Environment and Marine Knowledge agendas.

Climateurope2 – Supporting and standardizing climate services in Europe and beyond

Climateurope2 aims to develop future equitable and quality-assured climate services to all sectors of society by: a) developing standardisation procedures for climate services; b) Supporting an equitable European climate services community; and c) Enhancing the uptake of quality-assured climate services to support adaptation and mitigation to climate change and variability. The project will identify the support and standardisation needs of climate services, including criteria for certification and labelling, as well as the user-driven criteria needed to support climate action. This information will be used to propose a taxonomy of climate services, suggest community-based good practices and guidelines, and propose standards where possible. A large variety of activities to support the communities involved in European climate services will also be organised.

DT#3: Coastal Digital Twin

The IRIDE Cyber Italy Coastal Digital Twin (DT#3) is an advanced Digital Twin designed to support decision-making in coastal management by integrating Earth Observation data, numerical models and artificial intelligence techniques. The project addresses critical coastal challenges such as erosion, flooding and water quality degradation, providing data-driven insights and predictive simulations to support policymakers, environmental agencies and researchers. The system will enable real-time scenario simulations and risk assessments through a web-based interface, allowing stakeholders to explore different mitigation strategies and improve coastal resilience. Developed as part of the IRIDE Cyber Italy initiative, this Digital Twin serves as a prototype for future expansions, with the potential to be applied to other coastal areas in Italy and beyond. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and high-resolution environmental data, the DT#3 aims to enhance sustainable coastal planning, infrastructure optimization and climate adaptation efforts.

EarthGenerator a foundation model for Earth system modelling

EarthGenerator will deliver a foundation model of the Earth system, extending the WeatherGenerator model by integrating atmosphere, ocean, and land in a single, physically consistent model. By adopting a generative AI approach, EarthGenerator will provide a general-purpose capability adaptable to multiple downstream tasks from seasonal forecasting to multi-annual climate projections with minimal additional training.

EDITO-Model Lab, Underlying models for the European DIgital Twin Ocean – EDITO-Model Lab

EDITO-Model Lab will prepare the next generation of ocean models, complementary to Copernicus Marine Service to be integrated into the EU public infrastructure of the European Digital Twin Ocean that will ensure access to required input and validation data (from EMODnet, EuroGOOS, ECMWF, Copernicus Services and Sentinels satellite observations) and to high performance and distributed computing facilities (from EuroHPC for High Performance Computing and other cloud computing resources) and that will be consolidated under developments of Destination Earth (DestinE).

ENMASSE: Enhancing NEMO for Marine Applications and Services

The Enhancing NEMO for Marine Applications and Services (ENMASSE) project represents a pivotal initiative aimed at advancing the capabilities of the NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) modelling platform. This enhancement is designed to address specific scientific and operational requirements set by the Copernicus Marine Service (CMS) program for the development and delivery of more precise and sophisticated ocean modelling products. These products are intended to support a wide range of applications, including marine safety, climate prediction, and ecosystem monitoring, ultimately contributing to informed decision-making and sustainable ocean management.

EOSC Beyond: advancing innovation and collaboration for research

EOSC Beyond is a 36-month project coordinated by the EGI Foundation with the ambition to support the growth of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in terms of integrated providers and active users by providing new EOSC core technical solutions that allow developers of scientific application environments to easily compose a diverse portfolio of EOSC Resources offering them as integrated capabilities to researchers.

ESiWACE3 – Center of excellence for weather and climate phase 3

Extreme weather events and climate change are two of the main threats for society of the 21st century. Extreme weather events caused over 500 thousand casualties and over 2 trillion USD economic damages in the past 20 years. A failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation targets is ranked among the leading threats to global society. At the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, leaders from 194 countries of the world unanimously acknowledged the serious threat posed by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Society must now become resilient to changes in climate over coming decades, which requires making quantitative estimates for future changes of weather patterns and climate extremes. This includes exceptional weather events such as violent windstorms and flash floods, but also persistent anomalies in planetary-scale circulation patterns, which lead to pervasive flooding in some regions and seasons, and long-lived drought and extremes of heat in others. Numerical models of the Earth system represent the most important tool to anticipate and assess these kinds of threats. One of the main factors that is limiting the skill of these models is limited resolution, and resolution, in turn, is limited by computational power that can be leveraged by these models. The first two phases of the ESiWACE Centre of Excellence (COE) have pushed the resolution of global Earth system models to unprecedented levels. This includes the first global atmosphere models that were able to run at ~1 km resolution in the first phase of ESiWACE and coupled atmosphere/ocean models that were able to

FUTURA: Future of Climate Change Scenarios of the Earth System, Impacts and Socio-Economic Outcomes for Assessment and AND Society

For the first time, all major European modelling and infrastructure efforts are coordinated within a dedicated project to develop and deploy a sustainable and unified system for delivering future emissions and land-use scenarios, and climate and impact projections. This system is referred to hereafter as the’climate pathways system’. It is designed to support climate research, international assessments, and climate policy for the coming decades. FUTURA explores how to design a new cyclical scenario generation protocol built from process-resolving models complemented by emulator and AI approaches. It shifts from causal-chain modelling workflows to a unified system that unifies multi-annual process-driven iterations complemented by the ability to run fast annual iterations. We address how to best align this system with policy timeframes, and how to effectively leverage the model and data multiverse to advance understanding while supporting researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. The FUTURA climate pathways system represents a significant step towards the sustained and responsive delivery of climate projections in support of climate assessment and policy.

GANANA: Europe-India Partnership for Scientific High-Performance Computing

High-Performance Computing (HPC) is a major enabler of progress in many domains of science, including UN Sustainable Development goals towards improving population health and climate action. HPC is driving breakthroughs in genomics, drug discovery, and personalized medicine, as well as geophysical hazard simulations, improving preparedness for disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, and supports weather and climate predictions. Europe is among the world leaders in HPC and with initiatives such as EuroHPC JU is advancing the usage of exascale computer systems for research. India is expanding its HPC capabilities through the National Supercomputing Mission, focusing on indigenous technology and fostering academic, industrial, and governmental collaborations. Combining Europe’s advanced infrastructure with India’s growing expertise offers opportunities for innovation in those strategic areas of climate modeling, disaster management, and healthcare. Shared resources and expertise can enhance predictive models, accelerate responses to pandemics, and foster technological and economic growth. The GANANA project is establishing a long-term partnership collaboration by uniting European HPC centers of excellence (BioExcel, ChEESE, ESiWACE3) and Indian institutions (C-DAC, IMD, ISR, NII, AIRAWAT) with the objectives to: • Strengthen the links between research communities in the priority domains by supporting existing and establishing new collaborative activities. • Setup and operate a range of activities in support of expertise exchange, capacity building and sharing of computing resources. • Develop selected leading software packages by extending their functionality, optimise HPC performance and scalability, deploy on target architectures, improve usability and data integration. • Expand the outreach, broaden the participation of external collaborators and

GRINS – Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable

The green, digital and sustainable mobility transitions and the associated societal transformations require a far from trivial process of adaptation. The actors of the system, firms, households and public administrations, face complex and changing environments and need to make choices under uncertainty, often under limited information and often facing limitations in their ability to process it and use if proficiently. To respond to these needs – GRINS – Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable Extended Partnership will offer tools to support fundamental and applied research for firms and households and for policy analysis and evaluation of the actions of public administrations. The project is designed following the priorities set by the Italian National Research Plan (PNR) and in strict adherence with the fundamental underline goals that inspire the whole EU-NRRP action: favouring resilient, inclusive, and sustainable growth.

interTwin – An interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine for Science

interTwin co-designs and implements the prototype of an interdisciplinary Digital Twin Engine (DTE), an open-source platform that provides generic and tailored software components for modelling and simulation to integrate application-specific Digital Twins (DTs). Its specifications and implementation are based on a co-designed conceptual model – the DTE blueprint architecture – guided by the principles of open standards and interoperability. The ambition is to develop a common approach to the implementation of DTs that is applicable across the whole spectrum of scientific disciplines and beyond to facilitate developments and collaboration. Co-design involves DT use cases for High energy physics, Radio astronomy, Astroparticle physics, Climate research, and Environmental monitoring, whose complex requirements are expected to significantly advance the state of the art of modelling and simulation using heterogeneous distributed digital infrastructures, advanced workflow composition, real-time data management and processing, quality and uncertainty tracing of models, data fusion and analytics. As a result, a consolidation of software technologies supporting research will emerge. The validation of the technology with multiple infrastructure facilities will boost the accessibility of users to technological capacity and the support of AI uptake in research. interTwin builds on the capacities of experts from pan-European research infrastructures and the long tail of science, an Open-Source Community of technology providers that will deliver TRL 6/7 capabilities to implement the interdisciplinary DTE, experts of the European Centre of Excellence in Exascale Computing, and infrastructure providers from the EGI Federation, PRACE and EuroHPC supporting data and compute intensive science. interTwin key exploitable results will

IRIDE Lot 1

The IRIDE program is an innovative project undertaken by the Italian government in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) to leverage resources from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Phase 2 of IRIDE Lot 1 started in October 2024 following the successful implementation of the IRIDE Precursor Phase. The main purpose of the project is to deliver an operational portfolio of geospatial services and develop digital tools for End and Pilot users within the Thematic Services S1-Coastal and Marine Monitoring, S2- Air Quality, S5- Hydro-Meteorological-Climate, S6- WaterManagement. The operational services allow mapping, monitoring and forecasting of various characteristics of coastal areas (including geomorphological, land use, flooding, habitats etc.) as well as operational model validation, operational air quality monitoring and forecast, pollutant emissions monitoring and assessment, re-analysis of air quality at national scale, hydro-meterological mapping and monitoring atmospheric structure, greenhouse gases and others essential climate variables monitoring, lightening monitoring, flood forecasting and sediment management, etc.

IRIDE Lot 4

The IRIDE program is an innovative project undertaken by the Italian government, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), to leverage resources from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Following the successful implementation of the IRIDE Precursor Phase, the Phase 2 started in October 2024. The main purpose of the project is to deliver an operational portfolio of geospatial services and develop digital tools for End and Pilot users within the Thematic Services S7-Emergency and S8-Security. The operational services allow mapping, monitoring and forecasting of critical events such as earthquakes, floods, extreme weather events, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, landslides, avalanches, mudflows, tsunamis, and other natural or man-made disasters. Additionally, the program includes Maritime Surveillance, focusing on oil spill detection, sea pollution management, and vessel tracking, ensuring comprehensive support for emergency and security needs.

NBFC: National Biodiversity Future Center | TERRA

NEVERMORE: New Enabling Visions and tools for End-useRs and stakeholders thanks to a common MOdeling appRoach towards a climatE neutral and resilient society

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Climate Change 2021 is a “code red for humanity” according to the UN Secretary-General. It is thus essential to work on a climate resilient society. This entails both climate neutrality and mitigation of those impacts of climate change that are making themselves felt already. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of improved translations of scientific insights into policy and social practice.

OFIDIAPlus: Operational Fire Danger preventIon plAtform Plus

The overarching goal of the OFIDIA Plus proposal is to enhance understanding of knowledge, accessibility, and facilitation gaps that hinder the widespread adoption of sustainable fire prevention actions in the cross-border area. The project aims to develop and demonstrate innovative tools and solutions to support policymakers and all actors in the firefighting system, promoting behaviors that prioritize prevention and ecosystem protection. The project actions target the Italian regions of Puglia, Calabria, Basilicata (Matera province only), and the Greek region of Epirus, aiming to enhance environmental resilience and quality of life.

PNRR MER B31 – Pilone 1: Marine Ecosystem Restoration – Osservazione modellistica – Sistemi modellistici integrati per il monitoraggio del mare

Le attività del MER mirano a ripristinare e monitorare gli ecosistemi marini italiani e a garantire la sostenibilità delle attività economiche connesse al mare. Gli interventi di osservazione e modellistica riguardano lo sviluppo di sistemi che consentono l’integrazione tra dati raccolti e modelli previsionali, per ottenere informazioni dettagliate sulle condizioni future degli ecosistemi marini.

PNRR-HPC – “SPOKE 4 EARTH & CLIMATE”: National Centre for HPC, Big Data and Quantum Computing

Within Spoke 4, the scientific activity of CMCC, and of the Spoke affiliated partners, will be mainly aimed at developing a shared interdisciplinary framework for advanced Earth System Models and numerical experimentations. The framework will be focused on digital infrastructures and efficient workflows to streamline the production, facilitate the training, accelerate the understanding, and improve the quality of climate simulations and predictions.

RethinkAction – CRoss-sEcToral planning enHanced by a decisIoN-maKing platform to foster climate Action

RethinkAction focuses on supporting the objectives of the EU Green Deal translating its action plan in relevant and practical actions and solutions related to land use, as opportunities able not only to support climate neutrality and adaptation, sustainable use of the land resources, and biodiversity restoration, but also actions for social improvement, fostering equality and just transition for all designing the road map to green recovery after COVID.

RI-SCALE: Unlocking RI potential with Scalable AI and Data

Data and AI are the fuel of scientific discoveries, and Research Infrastructures (RIs) are at the forefront of this process, generating massive and increasingly more complex datasets. However, the growing size, diversity, and velocity of research data and software demand large-scale infrastructures and technical expertise from those on the user side. RI-SCALE will address this challenge by delivering Data Exploitation Platforms (DEPs). These scalable environments will co-host scientific data with preconfigured AI frameworks and models on powerful compute resources and unlock full data and AI potential for scientific users, RI operators and industry. RI-SCALE will design and develop the DEP technology with four RIs: ENES, EISCAT, BBMRI and Euro-BioImaging. DEP instances will be deployed for environmental and life sciences, validating the technology through 8 scientific and 4 technical use cases. These will run on national e-infrastructures from the EGI Federation and (pre)exascale machines from EuroHPC. RI-SCALE will collaborate with Destination Earth, EUCAIM cancer images data space, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, EOSC and Gaia-X to ensure interoperability within the broader landscape. The project will also facilitate industry and university collaborations, provide training and consultancy events to increase the uptake of AI technologies by additional RIs and explore sustainable DEP operation models for RI communities.