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Supporting the digital transformation of Vocational Education and Training
Get PDFIn a rapidly evolving world, society faces multifaceted challenges, including digital transformation, which significantly reshapes how we work, learn, and engage within communities. The European Union's digital strategy, "A Europe fit for the digital age," aims to facilitate this transformation for citizens and businesses while aligning with the climate neutrality goal by 2050. Digital technologies impact various life aspects, necessitating the development of digital skills among workers and citizens to address the widening skills gap and labor market demands. Vocational Education and Training (VET) plays a crucial role in bridging education with the labor market, facilitating reskilling and upskilling to enhance EU's strategic autonomy and competitiveness.
VET's digital transformation is essential for maintaining competitiveness and enabling businesses, particularly SMEs, to leverage digital opportunities. The European Commission's initiatives, such as the European Skills Agenda and the Digital Education Action Plan, support VET's adaptation to the digital age. Research by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre explores enablers for VET's digital transformation, emerging trends, and the use of the SELFIE tool to foster collaboration between VET institutions and companies. This research informs policies to ensure EU VET systems remain competitive, offering quality training aligned with labor market needs. The studies highlight the importance of digital skills in VET and provide valuable insights for policymakers to address workforce competence requirements effectively.JRC.T.1 - Digital Economy and Societ
Artificial Intelligence approaches for disaster risk management
Get PDFTAKEAWAYS
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and applications could play a crucial role in enhancing the EU's ability to anticipate and prepare for disasters. However, it is essential that these models are interpretable and maintain a "human-in-the-loop" approach to support accountable decision-making.
• The Joint Research Centre (JRC) explores AI capabilities to support the EU’s Prevention, Preparedness, and Resilience-building strategies, including the Preparedness Union Strategy. Efforts focus on enhancing information and image processing, advancing AI-driven risk assessment, and strengthening early warning systems.
• The JRC's AI-powered approaches to disaster risk management can aid Member States by offering timely, data-informed, scientific decision support. Combined with collaborative workshops, this can boost national preparedness and response strategies.JRC.S.4 - Scientific Development Programme
EU harmonised test method: polarisation curve measurement of high-temperature fuel cell and steam electrolyser
Get PDFThis document outlines a test method for determining the current-voltage (I-U) characteristics of solid oxide cells and proton-conducting ceramic cells and stacks, operating in either fuel cell mode or electrolysis mode. The primary objective is to establish a commonly accepted method for characterising the performance of such cells and stacks using polarisation curve measurements.
The primary objective of this method is to establish a widely accepted protocol for characterising the performance of such cells and stacks using polarisation curve measurements.
The application of this test method enables an objective evaluation of the performance of various cells and stacks, facilitating meaningful technology comparison. It serves as a benchmark measurement for qualifying a cell or stack in a given application. Furthermore, it may play a role in quality control and quality assurance of cell and stack assembly units.
This test method is intended for use by both the research community and industry. Its application extends to evaluating research and development advancements, establishing priorities in research and innvovation, encompassing cost objectives, developmental milestones, and technological benchmarks. Moreover, it empowers stakeholders to make informed decisions concerning technology selection.JRC.C.1 - Battery and Hydrogen Technologie
Electric Network Frequency Match with Masking
Get PDFElectric Network Frequencys (ENF) analysis has emerged as a powerful tool for forensic investigations, providing timestamp and geolocation information of audio or video recordings based on the unique frequency pattern of the power grid. However, the forensic usability of ENF signals extracted from recordings can be compromised by noise, leading to inaccurate results. This paper proposes a novel approach to searching with masking for ENF signals. This algorithm acknowledges the potential inaccuracies in ENF extraction without sacrificing signal length. The proposed method presents significant implications for forensic investigation. It can effectively search for ENF patterns in noisy signals, increasing both the accuracy and the reliability of the ENF analysis by providing a valuable tool for law enforcement agencies and forensic experts. To support the validity of the method, we test it on different public datasets and demonstrate a noteworthy improvement in performance.JRC.T.2 - Cybersecurity and Digital Technologie
Certification of a new plutonium metal reference material: the CETAMA MP4 standard
No full textThis paper describes the production and certification of a new plutonium (Pu) metal reference material called MP4. The material’s certification was carried out through an interlaboratory comparison (ILC) involving eight expert laboratories. By performing extensive data analysis on the ILC’s results it was possible to establish the certified reference values for several quantities such as the Pu isotopic abundance and the Pu mass fraction. Thanks to its comprehensive set of certified values and its reduced mass compared to MP2, MP4 constitutes a novel and rare standard for Pu fissile material accountancy and nuclear safeguards activities.JRC.G.II.8 - Nuclear Safeguards and Securit
High-fidelity and high-resolution simulation of two different rod ejection accidents in a NuScale-like small modular reactor with conventional and accident tolerant fuels
No full textThis work presents a high-fidelity pin-by-pin simulation approach for a NuScale-like Small Modular Reactor core during a rod ejection accident (REA). We coupled 3D Monte Carlo neutron transport (Serpent), subchannel thermal-hydraulic (SUBCHANFLOW) and fuel performance (TRANSURANUS) codes using the Interface for Code Coupling (ICoCo), which is part of the EU’s Salome open source platform. To resolve fuel intra-assembly details, we simulated all the fuel rods and channels, subdividing them into axial slices and transferred calculated data between the codes using scalar fields saved in memory variables. Two different REA scenarios were modelled, and the behaviour of fresh-loaded cores with conventional UO2 fuel with Zr-4 cladding and accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials, U3Si2 fuel with FeCrAl cladding, were analysed. In both scenarios, the control rod was ejected within 0.1 seconds, followed by a SCRAM after two seconds. In the first moderate scenario, the control rod ejection occurred at 75% of the nominal power, whereas in the second accident scenario, it occurred at hot zero power (HZP) conditions. In the first scenario, the power increase was around 25%, while in the HZP case it amounted up to 600% and 300% of the nominal power for the core loaded with UO2 and ATF-fuel and cladding, respectively. Detailed calculations were conducted on a High-Performance Computer (HPC). The results demonstrated the robustness and flexibility of the coupled code system, providing full-core behaviour and rod-level safety parameters and predicting as needed during the safety analysis support of the licensing processes. This paper outlines the system setup, presents rod-level results and underlines the usefulness to assess the performance of SMR-cores loaded with different fuel types under various REA scenarios. In the scenarios considered, we did not observe significant fuel rod deformations, and the core loaded with ATF-fuel and cladding showed a large margin to melting.JRC.G.I.5 - Nuclear Science and Innovation for Energy and Healt
Raising Awareness of Earth System Tipping Points: Implications for EU Governance
Get PDFTipping points are critical thresholds in many nonlinear dynamic systems. When reached, the system moves to an irreversible and self-sustained reorganization into a new equilibrium.
As the world rapidly approaches 1.5°C of global warming, the risk of triggering catastrophic Earth System tipping points (ESTP) is escalating – a problem compounded by the present weakening around climate action. The broaching of ESTPs would have severe regional and global impacts on ecosystems, climate, and economy, and pose a significant new security threat to European societies.
Europe is vulnerable to the collapse of several tipping elements of the Earth system, including the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, Mediterranean and Boreal forests, European glaciers, and Greenland's Ice sheet, as well as the loss of tropical coral reefs.
To prepare for the far-reaching consequences of crossing these ESTPs, Europe requires anticipatory governance, which includes the development of early warning monitoring systems, improved integration of ESTP into socio-economic and financial risk models, and strategic foresight methods to enhance its ability to anticipate and respond to these systemic risks.
The workshop entitled: Raising Awareness of Earth System Tipping Points: Implications for EU Governance, held in Brussels on November 2024, brought together experts from various fields, including Earth-System sciences, mathematics, economics, finance and social sciences, as well as policymakers, to discuss the implications of ESTP for EU governance and explore ways to address these events.
This report provides a detailed account of the workshop discussions with each chapter presenting headline findings, presentation summaries and additional conclusions. This workshop report accompanies a Science for Policy Brief (Roman Cuesta et al, 2025), published in February 2025.JRC.D.5 - Food Securit
Defining and monitoring the bioeconomy - a socioeconomic perspective
No full textThis chapter emphasises the strong interlink between the diversity of bioeconomy visions that emerged around the world in recent decades and the framing of bioeconomy statistical frameworks. Today, two main visions of the bioeconomy coexist. One is science and technology centered, depicting the bioeconomy as a core element of the biotechnology industry. Associated bioeconomy statistical frameworks emphasise the role of research and innovation and information technology activities within their sectorial scope and delineate bioeconomy activities according to the processes they implement. The other vision is more centered on the objective of substituting non-renewable resources in the production of bio-based products and bio-based energy. Associated statistical frameworks restrict their scope to those activities that either produce or transform biomass. Using the example of the value-added indicator, the chapter shows that these two visions and associated frameworks yield very different estimates. A second part illustrates different development strategies across the European Union through the lens of the statistics of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, showing bioeconomy orientations in Europe distribute around the concentration/diversification and labour-intensive/labour-productive axes. The statistics used for that analysis are compared with four other quantification methods, highlighting (1) their complementarities for the monitoring of bio-based markets, bio-based services, bioeconomy sourcing activities (upstream activities), and (2) the use of economic multipliers for identifying the sectors that have the highest potential for generating additional outputs.JRC.D.4 - Economics of the Food Syste
Green Last-Mile Delivery: Adapting Beverage Distribution to Low Emission Urban Areas
No full textElectrifying urban last-mile logistics is an important step towards reducing carbon emissions which requires replacing conventional vehicles with low-carbon alternatives that offer comparable operational and cost characteristics. This study presents a methodology for evaluating the feasibility of electrifying an urban delivery fleet, using data from a major beverage company in Seville as a case study. Applying a fleet and route optimization algorithm for various vehicle combinations, we demonstrate that emerging electric vehicle options, combined with a redesigned fleet mix and an optimized routing, can already enable cost-efficient electrification of distribution activities in the city centre. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that full electrification of the company’s local distribution network may be possible by 2030, depending on the availability of larger electric trucks. Our results show that currently available electric vehicles can fully substitute conventional options in the case study context, with higher capital costs offset by lower energy costs in most cases. The electrification of urban logistics can yield significant environmental benefits, particularly if powered by a clean energy mix.JRC.C.6 - Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor
Impact of winter warming on CO2 fluxes in evergreen needleleaf forests
No full textCompared to drought and heat waves, the impact of winter warming on forest CO2 fluxes has been less studied, despite its significant relevance in colder regions with higher soil carbon content. Our objective was to test the effect of the exceptionally warm winter of 2020 on the winter CO2 budget of cold-adapted evergreen needleleaf forests across Europe and identify the contribution of climate factors to changes in winter CO2 fluxes. Our hypothesis was that warming in winter leads to higher emissions across colder sites due to increased ecosystem respiration. To test this hypothesis, we used 98 site-year eddy covariance measurements across 14 evergreen needleleaf forests (ENFs) distributed from the north to the south of Europe (from Sweden to Italy). We used a data-driven approach to quantify the effect of radiation, air temperature, and soil temperature on changes in CO2 fluxes during the warm winter of 2020. Our results showed that warming in winter decreased forest net ecosystem productivity (NEP) significantly across most sites. The contribution of climate variables to CO2 fluxes varied across the sites: in southern regions with warmer mean temperatures, radiation had a greater influence on NEP. Conversely, at colder sites, air temperature played a more critical role in affecting NEP. During the warm winter of 2020, colder regions experienced larger air temperature anomalies compared to the other sites; however we did not observe a significantly larger increase at colder sites due to winter warming. The varying responses of NEP across different sites highlight the complex interactions between climate variables such as air temperature, soil temperature, and radiation. These findings underscore the importance of integrating winter warming effects to more accurately predict the impacts of climate change on forest carbon dynamics.JRC.C.5 - Clean Air and Climat