Project Summary

The main challenge of the Project FENESTRAE is to create and strengthen cross-border cooperation between EU member States and Western Balkans, within the challenging framework of energy transition, the transformational opportunity offered by the European Green Deal, aiming at carbon neutrality within 2050. In fact, research and development, clean energy, buildings and renovations - which are some of the pivotal elements of the European Green Deal -, will be a significant part of this proposal. On the other hand, FENESTRAE will be in line with the IPA ADRION programme, designed with an approach based on the sustainable development principle. This project can be considered a joint measure to improve innovation capabilities of the area, exploiting digital, scientific and innovation skills of partners and enabling potential economic transformation processes. The experience of partners in the field of innovative technologies for smart buildings (University of Ljubljana, University of Patras and Polytechnic University of Bari), especially devoted to the design of innovative envelopes (transparent and opaque), from design to energy and visual comfort assessments, ensure a critical mass with a focus on areas of mutual interest like energy, sustainable environment, innovative production technologies and advanced materials. On the other side, the other project partners (GAL Molise, Biznes, Smart Village and NOVUS) have significant experience in development initiatives. Such an inedited consortium of scientific knowledge in the area, also witnessed by the scientific outputs of researchers involved in this initiative, would be an unprecedented opportunity to activate positive fallouts in terms of technology transfer, job creation, entrepreneurship promotion (SMEs, start-ups), and widespread awareness in citizens in such delicate terms as that of energy and its use. The initial activities of the FENESTRAE Project would deal with an accurate investigation on existing regulations and technical standards in the field of energy uses in the building sector and their mitigation and is expected to produce relevant proposals of actions contributing to the harmonization of standards in such a relevant field, in view of the energy transition and decarbonization, within 2050. The involvement of partners skilled in communications and dissemination will boost the multi-level governance of the proposal as well as the cooperation between Adriatic and Ionian partners, reaching a heterogeneous range of stakeholders that could be interested in the outputs of this virtuous innovation network, according to the horizontal principle of the quadruple helix (research, public and business sectors and civil society). Training and exchange activities among the partners will complete the first part of the Project activities, after intense interactions. Promotion and development of innovative technologies (commercially and non-commercially available yet) on which the expertise of the partners involved is already significant, like electrochromic, photo(electro)chromic, thermochromic materials and devices, and materials enabling the smart behaviour of building envelopes, together with ICT technologies devoted to their effective control, will be a relevant part of the partnership interaction during the project. A dedicated activity in this common area of specialization would exploit the skills acquired over the years. For each technology proposed, full awareness of potential benefits deriving from building integration will be achieved by means of numerical simulations on specific buildings, selected by partners and stakeholders. Data obtained, technology features and beneficial effects on indoor comfort, energy savings would be reported and publicly available, through workshops, public seminars in schools and municipalities and other dissemination opportunities created ad hoc by partners in each country. The final part of the Project activities will aim at a scale-up of advanced technologies at the basis of the proposed solutions, in pilot actions including installation of several prototypes of materials and devices, to easily demonstrate the impact of such systems on users’ comfort and mitigation of energy use as well, also including applications to non-conventional buildings like greenhouses that largely rely on glass performance and are equally demanding in energy terms. The main objectives of this initiative would include: Increased skills of local operators; Increased awareness about available technologies to promote a mitigation of energy use; increase of cooperation to address challenges in common areas of specialization; the creation of a transnational partnership and a permanent network to promote innovations and upscaling from lab to market; long-term employment of young people involved in the project; boost green and digital innovation among partners with novel cooperation models.