The ERNACT network is delighted to announce the approval of two new digital transformation projects with North West Europe and Northern Periphery and Arctic Programmes.
The project (Ecosystems for Extended-lifetime of End-of-Use Electrical and Electronic Equipment) has a total budget of €8,150,000.00, with over €1 million euro allocated to the Northern & Western region of Ireland. E6 aims to increase the capacity of cities and regions in facilitating Re-use, Repair, and Refurbishment (RRR) practices for electrical and electronic equipment. Led by Saxion University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), 20 European partners are involved in the project, including three ERNACT members (Nièvre Numérique in France, Údarás na Gaeltachta and the ERNACT office in Donegal).
Focusing on the creation of a multi-component service hub equipped with six types of tools, the project seeks to enhance capacities in various areas such as awareness creation, assessment tools, skill development, new business models, data platforms, and methodologies. Additionally, it will implement six regional action plans to test this integrated approach with key actors, prioritising citizen involvement.
ERNACT will lead the communication and dissemination efforts of the project, while Údarás na Gaeltachta and Comhairle Na Ceanatar will develop a pilot hub-site in Galway to trial the project's tool set. The ERNACT network will support the RRR pilot ecosystem in Ireland from a communication perspective and contribute to scaling, upscaling, and sharing lessons learned throughout Europe. It will also faciliate the development of a joint training scheme and innovative training approaches utilising Augmented Reality.
MINDSET – Northern Periphery and Arctic
The total budget of this preparatory project is 99.807,50€. Led by the ERNACT network, MINDSET (or ‘Mission-oriented innovation towards digital and green transitions in the NPA communities’) aims to jointly develop a main project proposal that addresses major challenges in the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) regions to assessing suitable Mission Oriented Innovation (MOI) approaches.
The project is formed by three partners (ERNACT, Umeå University and University of Helsinki) to enhance innovation capacity in NPA regions through MOI, an emerging field that gives a better strategic and holistic orientation to Science, Technology and Innovation. The partnership will involve relevant stakeholders from the participant and other NPA regions to define the scenarios to be addressed by the implementation of the concrete missions in the main project.
Dr Caitriona Strain, ERNACT General Manager, emphasized that the E6 project aims to promote a transition toward a circular and resource-efficient economy, particularly in managing the growing waste from electrical and electronic equipment in North West Europe. “We're eager to collaborate within this extensive partnership to foster new circular ecosystems, spotlighting the Northern & Western region of Ireland," she commented. Dr Margaret Quinn, ERNACT Programme Manager, added that, “it is wonderful that the project will support development of a pilot hub in Galway, led the social enterprise Comhairle Na Ceanatar and Údarás na Gaeltachta, as part of the six repair and refurbishment ecosystems across North West Europe. This will bring new skills development and enable learning from communities of practices centred around these hubs, thereby transferring the RRR practices and models to other regions, significantly impacting this waste stream.”