May 2020

WATER RETENTION AND NUTRIENT RECYCLING IN SOILS AND STREAMS FOR IMPROVED AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

Project Coordinator: Lund University

Summary of Key Features
•4 and 3 world-leading water retention and nutrient capture experts, respectively.
• 5 world-leading research institutions and 8 leading centers of water and soil research.
• Framework for 11 key technologies supported by models and a serious game.
• 23 partners including 10 companies (interdiciplinarity and multi-actor approach).
• 10 well-developed case studies supported by national infrastructure and projects.
• International experts on stakeholder engagement and communication.
• Considerable in-kind funding and €560,000 direct co-funding by farm GN to build a reservoir.

‘The WATERAGRI project is about researching the new frontiers in integrated water resources management of small agricultural catchments to improve both European agricultural production and the status of local ecosystems. Our consortium is committed to significantly improve agricultural water management.

Prof. Miklas Scholz, WATERAGRI Coordinator

WATERAGRI is a new H2020 Research & Innovation project worth EURO 7,000,000, starting in May 2020 and lasting for 4 years. The project aims are to re-introduce and enhance sustainable solutions for water retention and nutrient recycling to enable agricultural production that can sustain growing populations and cope with present and future climate change challenges. The project will generate a deeper, more detailed and integrated understanding of the hydrological processes shaping water resources in Europe. To achieve these ambitious aims, WATERAGRI will further develop traditional drainage and irrigation solutions and re-introduce nature-based solutions such as integrated constructed wetlands, bio-inspired drainage systems and sustainable flood retention basins in the agricultural landscape, leading to better retention of both water and nutrients. WATERAGRI will evaluate specific water and nutrient retention needs with the farming community, develop a set of affordable and easy-to-implement technologies, test them in the field and deploy a sound business framework for their effective use by the framing community.

year: 2021, 2016, 2015

Henley Business School
International Study Visit

Mr Sebastian Puculek (Innowell's CEO) had the privilege of being one of the Business Coaches for the team of young experts visiting virtually Wrocław and working on the consultancy project for one of the entrepreneurs enrolled in the programme.

Henley is 70 years old and is the UK's oldest business school and one of the top-ranked MBA providers in the world. They have significant experience and expertise indeveloping managers and senior leaders, and more recently in developingentrepreneurs and access to potential investors.
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Mr Sebastian Puculek (Innowell's CEO) had the privilege of being one of the Business Coaches for the team of young experts visiting virtually Wrocław and working on the consultancy project for one of the entrepreneurs enrolled in the programme.
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The trip, which was organised by prof. Andrew Godley, Mr Keith Heron, Director of the MSc Entrepreneurship Programme and Mr Konrad Sawras Entrepreneur, Business Coach and Project Manager, provided students with a hands-on, real-life consultancy experience by working in teams with students from the Wroclaw University of Economics. Throughout the week, students attended talks across a broad range of different topics, such as business value propositions and how to understand customer's needs.
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The students were given a chance to engage and consult entrepreneurs to deepen their understanding of different business operations and the ever-changing challenges faced by businesses. The main objective in these consultations was to assist entrepreneurs in finding a sustainable way to monetise, commercialise and develop a new marketing strategy to take their operations to the next level. The students worked in their teams to develop ideas about valuable solutions to the problems raised by the different businesses and then presented their solutions and strategies to entrepreneurs from numerous sectors (including technology, agri-food, sport, last-mile delivery).

year: 2021

SUMO - Safe & trusted Urban MObility networks

For our customer TU Berlin we consulted and helped with the proposal preparation of the EIT Urban Mobility Innovation call for proposals.

The overall purpose of the Innovation Programme is to take innovative ideas, improves them, and puts them into practice. EIT Urban Mobility aims to ensure safe urban transport, provide better data exploitation, increase modal shift, drive take-up of active transportation, promote community self-help, and facilitate behavioural change.

By emphasising market-oriented business solutions, innovation can provide valuable evidenced-based data from demonstrations and living labs to support regulatory, policy and behavioural changes to improve urban life quality.  
From over 250 urban mobility challenges identified by European cities, a grouping of  9 “Challenge Areas” was recognised and refined over six months of open discussion with core EIT Urban Mobility partners and a broader public audience.  
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For the Call for Proposals 2022, four challenge areas will be supported directly by Innovation: Active Mobility, Sustainable City Logistics, Future Mobility and Mobility & Energy. Additionally, there is one restricted area for the continuation of existing projects.
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SUMO project will increase the feeling of safety and wellbeing of the travellers and contribute to modern and citizen-oriented urban transport networks. This will increase the attractiveness and the use of public transport and thus, contribute to a safe and supportive society and sustainable and climate-friendly city development.

year: 2020

GNSS tomography as an important source of meteorological data (TANGO/NCBR)

Project Coordinator: Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences

The scope of the work performed included, among others, the preparation of an analysis and a report, which includes the organization of the process of implementing the solution in the economy:

1. Performed analysis of the market potential of the technology
2. Performed analysis of potential business models
3. Identification of competitive advantages
4. Determination of the product commercialization path,Identify potential external sources for the project financing, including identifying possible calls in the Research & Innovation or Innovation Action type.
5. Analysis of potential business partners and recommendations.

Moreover, Innowell was involved in preparing the expertise for nowcasting and numerical models of a weather forecast. The expertise included the following analyzes:

1. Analysis of meteorological observations provided by the Ordering Party from the tomographic model of the troposphere in terms of their compliance in time with conventional meteorological observations, pressure, temperature, wind and synoptic situation
2. Analysis of the meteorological forecasts provided by the Ordering Party derived from the assimilation of the tropospheric tomographic model in terms of their compliance in time with conventional meteorological observations, pressure, temperature, wind and synoptic situation,
3. Analysis of the source code of the tropospheric tomography assimilation operator provided by the Ordering Party in terms of its compliance with the adopted coding standards in the Weather Research and Forecasting Data Assimilation module and the correctness of the weights used,
4. Indication of potential applications of the model in meteorological practice with an indication of the use cases.
   
   Regarding the project’s communication and dissemination results, we helped our customer build the communication strategy and implement its elements through the project’s conference and organization of business meetings, plus preparation and performing of a business even

Regarding the project’s communication and dissemination results, we helped our customer build the communication strategy and implement its elements through the project’s conference and organization of business meetings, plus preparation and performing of a business even

years: 2018/2019

Integration of Geodetic and imAging TecHniques for monitoring and modelling the Earth’s surface defoRmations and Seismic risk

Project Coordinator: Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences

The GATHERS project has been funded under Horizon 2020 – Work Programme 2018-2020
15. Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation WIDESPREAD-03-2018: Twinning.

The overall objective of GATHERS is to enlarge the number of research-intensive sections at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of The Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (UPWr) and establish strong networks with the most outstanding Universities of geospatial sciences in Europe.
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This specific challenge is to enhance networking activities between the research institutions of the Widening countries and internationally-leading counterparts at the EU level. Driven by the quest for excellence, research-intensive institutions tend to collaborate increasingly in closed groups, producing a crowding-out effect for many promising institutions.
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Twinning aims at significantly strengthening a defined field of research in a university or research organisation from a Widening country by linking it with at least two internationally leading research institutions from two different Member States or Associated Countries.
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One of the critical disciplines of Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences (UPWr) are geospatial sciences (represented by Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics – IGG). Currently, eight competitive projects are run in the Institute, however, most projects are related to one research field: Global Navigation Satellite System. IGG needs to embark on a new area of expertise, multi-technique ground deformations and seismicity monitoring to develop further.
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Current challenges in the field are related to the deformation rate and scale, a non-linear character of terrain movements, seismic magnitude, differentiation between the sources of surface deformations, requiring an enhancement of the methodological approaches, and substantial expertise in the interpretation of the results.
The overall objective of the project is a further development of the geospatial sciences to enlarge the number of research-intensive sections at IGG, foster the development of leaders, finally establish strong networks with the best Universities in Europe to form competitive research applications in H2020. WUELS’ IGG ambition is to be amongst the top geospatial sciences research institutions over the next three years, to become one of the leading centres of excellence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

year: 2019

strategic analysis of the institution to help prepare the proposal in the first national programme, “Inicjatywa Doskonałości – uczelnia badawcza” (IDUB).

For our customer, one of the leading universities in the Life Science discipline, we have performed a strategic analysis of the institution to help prepare the proposal in the first national programme, “Inicjatywa Doskonałości – uczelnia badawcza” (IDUB).
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The IDUB program was introduced by the new Act - Law on Higher Education and Science and is one of the critical elements of science and higher education reform.
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The program's priority was to select and support universities that will strive to achieve the status of a research university and will be able to effectively compete with the best academic centres in Europe and the world.
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In 2019, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education conducted the first competition under this program. As a result, ten universities out of 20 eligible to participate in the contest have an annual increase in funding in the amount of 10% of the subsidy from 2019 for the implementation of development plans included in the competition applications in 2020–2026. The other universities that participated in the competition receive a subsidy increased of 2%.

year: 2022

EJP SOIL - Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soils

For our customer, one of the leading universities in the Life Science discipline, we were helping to prepare a grant application for the EJP SOIL external call.

Nearly 80 projects were submitted to the first external call of the European Joint Program "EJP SOIL - Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soils". The highest of the 11 selected was "SOMPACS - soil management effects on Soil Organic Matter Properties And Carbon Sequestration", led by prof. Jerzy Weber from the Institute of Soil Sciences, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection at the University of Life Sciences in Wrocław, in cooperation with INNOWELL.

It is the second time INNOWELL hit the highest score, and its project was selected to be 1^st on the ranking list after the GATHERS project.

The project aims to determine the methods of soil management that, under different soil and climatic conditions in Europe and the USA, enrich the soil with fractions of organic matter most resistant to microbial decomposition. Plants absorb CO2 from the air, incorporating carbon into their tissues, which, after the plant dies - as a result of complex biochemical processes - transform into soil organic matter, contributing to carbon sequestration. The planned research will also focus on the balance of organic carbon in the soil, which is optimized by agrotechnical methods, as well as on determining the stability of soil organic matter depending on management conditions in various climatic conditions.

year: 2022

Horizon Europe Twinning

For our customer, one of the leading universities in the Life Science discipline, we were helping to prepare a grant application for the Horizon Europe Twinning call.

The first Twinning call under Horizon Europe closed on the 18th of January 2022. This was the most ambitious Twinning call to date and it generated significant interest. It collected 391 proposals for a total requested contribution of over EUR 555 million from the EU. The total available budget for this call was EUR 149 million.

Twinning aims to foster networking activities between research institutions from Widening countries and first-rate counterparts from EU Member States or Associated Countries. Through Twinning, the selected Widening research institution will collaborate with at least two research institutions from two different EU Member States or Associated Countries.

It is the second time INNOWELL won the Twinning project, after very successful application (15/15) of the GATHERS project (UPWr). The SEASONED project in the Horizon-Widera area is estimated at EUR 1.5 million. The leader of the project is the University of Life Sciences in Wrocław, and the partners are Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche from Spain, Syddansk Universitet from Danish Odense and Basque Culinary Center from San Sebastian, Spain. This team is complemented by Redinn - a partner from Italy, who will be responsible for communication activities. Additionally, the implementation of the project will be supported by members of the advisory board composed of eminent experts in food sensory analysis.

The project's overall aim is to improve the knowledge, skills, and competencies of the research staff of UPWr in the field of the sensory evaluation of food and consumer behaviour with special attention to newly designed innovative processed food products with health-related properties. The project also aims to establish an international network among leading universities and centres in food sensory analysis to prepare competitive research applications/proposals within the EU and global challenges (UN SDGs).

UPWr’s ambition is to develop and reach the top of the sensory evaluation centres' competencies and become the leading centre of excellence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). As a result, at the end of the project and far beyond the project duration, UPWr wants to establish a Consumer Behaviour Centre (CBC). This will be a unique platform dedicated to scientists (ESRs including the MSc and PhD students, ERs, other scientists from national and international units), business partners and consumers from this part of Europe.

year: 2022

International Interdisciplinary Doctoral School

For our customer, one of the leading universities in the Life Science discipline, we were helping in the preparations of the International Interdisciplinary Doctoral School - at the HEART of BioBased University (I2PhD @ BBUniHEART). With the project budget of PLN 2 097 125.00
Its main objectives are:

• increasing the internationalization and interdisciplinarity of the Doctoral School
• increasing the number of students and supervisors from abroad
• intensification of activity in the field of interdisciplinary, international research and development projects, which will translate into the acquisition of new international projects;
• increasing the visibility and recognition of the UPWr Doctoral School in the European and non-European academic world;
• increasing access to new knowledge, technologies and know-how created and developed outside the borders of universities and the country;
• increasing the international mobility of doctoral students, resulting in the establishment of long-term links between foreign universities,industry, leading international research centres and doctoral schools;
• increasing the competencies of the management team by participating in tailor-made, innovative programs for building leadership skills;
  improving the quality of teaching.
• increasing the competencies of the management team by participating in tailor-made, innovative programs for building leadership skills;
  improving the quality of teaching.

The project is led by dr hab.inż. Małgorzata Korzeniowska, university professor and was funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange NAWA.