Problem-Based Learning, Intercultural Communications and STEM in Higher Education

We are happy to see University of Thessaly presenting the outcomes of their PISH project.

Congratulations team! Nice work!

Duration: 01/09/2020 - 31/08/2023

Project Name: Problem-Based Learning, Intercultural Communications and STEM in Higher Education

Summary: In a PBL setting, students learn together as they solve problems. As classrooms become more multicultural, it produces challenges related to intercultural communications. Hence students tend to cluster with other students from the same cultural background. This makes it challenging for cross-exchange of knowledge across cultures when learning and it also robs the student of the needed intercultural competence required to operate in multicultural working environments. The project aims at providing online and offline tools that will enable students to develop the intercultural competence needed in a multicultural PBL learning environment.

Target Groups:

Objectives:

Visit the official website.

Workshop on Local Energy Communities – Exploring Research, Technologies and Regulations for their Implementation in Europe

Merit Consulting House, as a member of the consortium of MERLON Horizon 2020 project, is participating in the following joint event:

“Workshop on Local Energy Communities - Exploring Research, Technologies and Regulations for their Implementation in Europe”

The event is to be held in Brussels, on the 15th of May at VLEVA Auditorium. Visit the followign link for more.

European policy-makers and leading companies of the energy sector are participating this all-day event. Four Horizon 2020 projects that are currently conducting research activities on the implementation of energy communities and the exploitation of smart energy systems will be featured: COMPILE, MERLON, MUSEGRIDS & STORY.

The keynote speech of Jan Steinkohl from DG Energy of the European Commission will introduce the involvement of the projects in BRIDGE, a European Commission initiative which unites Horizon 2020 Smart Grid and Energy Storage Projects to create a structured view of the cross-cutting issues encountered in the demonstration projects.

Afterwards, a panel discussion will tackle the main points needed for the establishment of successful energy islands, focusing on innovation, integration between sectors and technologies, and regulation. Speakers include Torsten Knop (Head of European Regulation/Projects of Innogy), Leen Peeters (Managing Director of Th!nk E, Jure Ratej, Head of Research of ETREL) Tomas Kosicky (Head of Electrical Engineering at CellCube) and Stanislas d'Hebermont (Project Manager of REScoop).

In the afternoon, the discussion on energy communities will involve all the participants, giving the opportunity to stakeholders and policy-makers of the energy sector to debate around different topics:

  1. Innovative technologies;
  2. Impact of Clean Energy for All Europeans package;
  3. Potential replicability of local energy communities around Europe;
  4. Business cases needed in the different member states.

 

Full programme is available here

Awarding of MERLON project

We are happy to announce that another project, funded by the HORIZON 2020 financial instrument (Innovation Action), in which Merit Consulting House participates, has been awarded! MERLON will enable the realization of novel business models, allowing local energy communities to introduce themselves in local flexibility markets, while paving the way for the realization of novel Microgrid-as-a-Service models, assigning to local DSOs the role of “Aggregator of Aggregators” for the provision of added value services to the overlay distribution grid.

It equips local stakeholders (DSOs, energy cooperatives, prosumers) with innovative and highly effective tools for the establishment of robust business practices to exploit their microgrids and dynamic VPPs as balancing and ancillary assets toward grid stability and alleviation of network constraints.

The project, which will last for three years and has a budget of 7,5 million €, is being carried by a consortium of 13 partners from 8 different countries, with HYPERTECH (Greece) being the coordination beneficiary.

The project start day is very soon and we are ready to do our best to contribute to the partners’ effort towards the project’s success!

Awarding of BIMERR project

We are happy to announce that another project, funded by the HORIZON 2020 financial instrument (Research and Innovation Action), in which Merit Consulting House participates, has been awarded! BIMERR will design and develop a Renovation 4.0 toolkit which will comprise tools to support renovation stakeholders throughout the renovation process of existing buildings, from project conception to delivery.

It will comprise tools for the automated creation of enhanced building information models, a renovation decision support system to aid the designer in exploring available renovation options through the accurate estimation of renovation impact on building performance as well as a process management tool that will optimize the design and on-site construction process toward optimal coordination and minimization of renovation time and cost. The BIMERR toolkit will be validated and demonstrated in 4 buildings in 3 European Member States.

The project, which will last for three and a half years and has a budget of 7 million €, is being carried by a consortium of 16 partners from 10 different EU countries, with Fraunhofer FIT (Germany) being the coordination beneficiary.

The project start day is very soon and we are ready to do our best to contribute to the partners’ effort towards the project’s success!

Awarding of PVadapt project

We are proud to announce that Merit Consulting House will be the coordinator in PVadapt project. Pvadapt is a new project, funded by the HORIZON 2020 instrument (Innovation Action), which got awarded a few days ago.

In the PVadapt project, combined innovations in modular construction and modular photovoltaics will lead to the creation of an adaptable and multifunctional BIPV system of substantially lower cost than conventional solutions. A flexible and low cost production of photovoltaics in automated processes will be employed to produce PV modules as well as elements with integrated heat pipe based heat recovery. These active energy components will be combined with passive and sustainable components with structural, mechanical, thermal and other functions to produce prefabricated BIPV modules. Prefabrication will be the key to achieving cost reductions, as well as guaranteeing quick installation with low disruption. To convincingly demonstrate the PVadapt solutions, 7 buildings of various typologies (residential, commercial, offices, and service stations in Spain, Greece and Austria) will have the technology installed and one new construction will be built in Portugal.

The project, which will last for three and a half years (1/10/2018 – 30/3/2022) and has a budget of 11 million €, is being carried by a consortium of 18 partners from 12 different EU countries, with Merit Consulting House being the coordination beneficiary. We are excited to have such a major role in the project and ready to work hard in order to produce high quality results.

See you in the kick-off meeting!

PLANET kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting of the PLANET H2020 project was held in Torino, in 29 and 30 November 2017, with the participation of all project partners:

The main objectives of the meeting were to get an overall overview of the project, clarify partners’ roles and responsibilities, discuss the project tasks and agree on communication channels, clarify administrative issues and ultimately initiate the work in the project.

Good luck to all PLANET partners!

Results of the Survey in Netherlands

The most remarkable result of the survey was that a clear majority of citizens would be willing to use a mobile app for interaction with the Local Council.

This percentage was even higher among citizens that have recently interacted with the Local council, or have voted in the last local elections, in other words, among ‘active’ citizens.

It is worth mentioning, that among other questions, citizens were asked to state their opinion on whether the communication with the local council consists a criterion for their vote in the next local elections.

A vast majority of those who consider communication as a criterion would be interested in using a mobile app for the interaction with the Local Council.

PLANET H2020 project just began

​Let’s pass the word! PLANET project, under HORIZON 2020 financial instrument, has just began!

Merit Consulting House sprl participates in the PLANET project, under HORIZON 2020 financial instrument (Research and Innovation Action), which has just been launched. PLANET aims to design and develop a holistic Decision Support System for grid operational planning and management in order to explore, identify, evaluate and quantitatively assess optimal strategies to deploy, integrate and operate conversion/storage systems on the distribution grid of several energy carriers within boundary constraints of real deployments outlined in the future energy system scenarios.

The project, which will last for three years (1/11/2017 – 31/10/2020) and has a budget of 4,0 million €, is being carried by a consortium of 12 partners from 7 different EU countries, with Technical University of Torino being the coordination beneficiary. 
Merit Consulting House sprl will be involved in the definition of the prosumer energy behaviour, including the human-centric building-level optimization and strategies. Merit Consulting House sprl will also contribute to the scenario validation and to the identification of new services that could be offered to the grid.

To learn more about the project, visit the site: https://www.h2020-planet.eu

Survey in the Netherlands on ​Civic Engagement

In the context of our partnership with Novoville, Merit Consulting House sprl launched a survey in Netherlands, last October, on the topic of civil engagement and willingness to use a mobile app as a communication method with Local Councils.

A sample of 400 individuals were asked to express their opinion on matters concerning socio-political issues, willingness to use an app etc.

Other objectives of the research were to record the interaction of citizens with their Local Council, to assess their satisfaction level by Local Council’s response and services, to rank the significance of city-related issues for which they usually address to the Local Council, to record the usual means of interaction between the Local Council and citizens and to examine the Local Council’s pre-action policy.
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​The results will be available soon!

FLEXCoop kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting of the FLEXCoop H2020 project was held in Brussels, in 10 and 11 October 2017, with the participation of all project partners:

The main objectives of the meeting were to get an overall overview of the project, clarify partners’ roles and responsibilities, discuss the project objectives and tasks and agree on communication channels and tools to be used.
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Good luck to all Flexcoop partners!