The AMBRA project promotes the sustainable development of mountain rural areas in the Italy–Austria cross-border region, in line with Specific Objective 2.7 of the Interreg Italy–Austria Programme 2021–2027 on strengthening ecosystem resilience. 
Scientific Rationale 
AMBRA is based on the principle that biodiversity and agroecological practices are key to resilient ecosystems. The project examines whether cultivating traditional mountain crops, such as fruit berries, and alpine plants can reduce environmental pressures while delivering ecosystem services. These crops may also supply raw materials for fibers, pigments, and functional ingredients, supporting circular economy value chains. 
Another focus is whether rural biorefineries can generate sustainable business opportunities for mountain communities, preserving landscapes, enhancing ecosystem services, and counteracting depopulation. 
Research Questions 

• Do agroecological practices with traditional crops improve ecosystem resilience compared to input-intensive conventional methods? 
• Can rural biorefineries achieve sustainability across environmental, social, and economic dimensions? 
• Do such models help retain population and strengthen ecosystem services? 

Cross-Border Cooperation

Partners from South Tyrol, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Land Salzburg, and Land Tyrol combine expertise and exchange practices to provide knowledge and tools for a sustainable development across the programme region.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Matteo Mario Scampicchio — Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences
Project Duration: 01/03/2025 - 28/02/2027
Project Partners:  FONDAZIONE AGRIFOOD & BIOECONOMY FVG, Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg, Fachhochschule Salzburg GmbH, Universität Innsbruck, Montagna Leader S.c. a r.l.

The vast ecological and economic consequences by the current bark beetle outbreak are of increasing importance in all programme regions in both countries. The two most damaging bark beetles are Ips typographus and Hylobius abietis. They are present in the whole transnational area, so a common solution would benefit not only both countries but the whole alpine area, which is currently threatened by these two pest species. The collaboration between universities and enterprises on both regions will provide a good sharing of know-how and tests in different areas, in order to define solutions that can be adopted in both sides of the alps.

Up to now there is no effective solution for the control of spruce bark beetles and pine weevils, currently the only way to reduce the population is to cut attacked trees and extract the log or at least the bark from the site. More effective solutions, that are technically and economically feasible, also with the contribution by private subjects, need to be explored and tested. A solution, based on natural extracts, has been tested in a pilot study showing promising results, so there is need to test and diffuse this solution in order to find the way to stop the tremendous damage caused by the bark beetles.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Hannes Schuler — Competence Centre for Plant Health
Project Duration: 01/01/2025 - 01/03/2027
Project Partners:  Rigoni di Asiago srl (Lead Partner), Università degli Studi di Padova, BOKU Wien Department für Wald- und Bodenwissenschaften

Climate change (CC), causing rising temperatures, leads to increased dynamism and persistence of agricultural pollutants in the atmosphere, especially in Alpine environment. The aim of the project is to implement a monitoring system for pollutants linked to the ‘Contaminants of Emerging Concern’ (PEC) checklist, which includes different classes of substances in the air and their destination in water. Based upon this, some best practices will be then proposed to reduce PEC impacts on the environment, biodiversity and human health.
The activities of unibz will be related to WP5 (Instrumental analysis of chemical-based plant protection treatments) and organised as follows:
a. Overview of the problem of the risk of PSP contamination from a regulatory point of view and of the technologies available for its limitation, as well as of the commonly adopted practices for conducting treatments in urban neighbourhoods;
b. Identification of the most representative commercially available machinery architectures in the survey areas, to be subjected to standard drift generation tests.
c. Development of the most appropriate methodology for conducting these tests in a controlled environment, guaranteeing the comparability of the performance of the different machines, as well as conducting the tests and the consequent characterisation of PSP emissions.
d. Dissemination of the results of the tests, with the aim of discussing, identifying, and disseminating ‘best practices’.
 
Principal Investigator: Prof. Fabrizio Mazzetto — Competence Centre for Mountain Innovation Ecosystems 
Project Duration: 01/02/2025 - 01/03/2027
Project Partners: ARPAV Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e Protezione Ambientale del Veneto (Lead Partner), Università Cà Foscari Venezia, Universität Innsbruck

Sustainable tourism, despite the obvious potential, still plays a rather marginal role in the programme area of Interreg Italia-Austria. The project On Tour proposes to address this problem and has set itself the objective of strengthening both the demand for and the supply of sustainable tourism, by improving the visibility of sustainable touristic operators.

The project’s activities consist of an analysis of the transnational label market, the tourism market and the role of tour operators within this scope. Based on this analysis, a tool is to be created which enables SMEs in the tourism sector to choose the right sustainability label based on their specific needs.  Additionally, the participating SMEs will receive training on how to market their positioning as a sustainable business towards the consumer. Training will consist of workshops, excursions to best practice facilities and a roundtable with regional marketing agencies. In this way and by appointing a “sustainability coordinator” in each pilot region, the project wants to facilitate an exchange of expertise and build up an active and competent network that can act as one powerful stakeholder.

Principal Investigator: Oswin Maurer — Faculty of Economics  
Project Duration: 01/03/2018 – 15/11/2021
Project Partner: Ökoinstitut Südtirol / Alto Adige (Lead Partner), Regionalverband Pongau, Consorzio di Promozione Turistica del Tarvisiano, di Sella Nevea e di Passo Pramollo
Project Website: ontour-interreg.eu

Social issues (demographic evolution, changes in lifestyle and work, health care) cannot be solved solely by market, state or company action, but the interaction of forces in the field is necessary. The concept of Social Innovation (SI) describes the ideas and measures needed to address those challenges that can be adopted and exploited by the social groups concerned. SI is the engine of social change and is often interpreted as a reaction or integration into an innovative technology-oriented policy. SI is different from these phenomena through a more pronounced orientation to the process and the regulatory nature, the high context dependence, the more "plasticity" of the address and the higher level of dependence on social relationships. Social innovation can also have economic effects. What we ask is how the social enterprise responds to these new challenges and what contribution it can provide for their overcoming.
Objectives to be achieved:

• Affirming the theme of the social enterprise in the border region, engaging with the market, state and society to identify, recognise and support the services provided by these social entrepreneurs
• Ensure that the SI project is recognised in the border region so that entrepreneurs have the resources and conditions available to allow them to fully exploit their social engagement, while still operating with an economic return
• To affirm the role of the SI as a supporting stakeholder alongside technological innovations in the Alpe Adria region.

The first part of the project consists in identifying the ecosystem of social innovation in the territory by mapping the actors working in the region.
The second parts consists in the developing and experimentation of a curriculum for the development and acceleration of social innovation projects. The curriculum consists in an ideation phase, called social impact lab that is a training programme with the aim to strengthen the initial idea of each project and develop a business model. This part wants to create awareness about social challenges and the possibility to address them through social innovation, moreover wants to identify some themes and ideas for further development in order to generate a social impact.

Principal Investigator: Alessandro Narduzzo — Faculty of Economics
Project Duration: 01/01/2018 - 30/04/2021
Project Partner: Universität Klagenfurt (Lead Partner), Fachhochschule Kärnten, build! Gründerzentrum Kärnten GmbH, t2i – trasferimento tecnologico e innovazione, Friuli Innovazione Centro di Ricerca e di Trasferimento Tecnologico, Università degli Studi di Udine
Project Website: siaa-project.eu

The digital transformation is one of the most significant, impactful and systemic changes in human history. It brings enormous challenges for the economy, companies, society, and individuals. Many of the new technologies like the Internet of Things, 3D-Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, etc. are disruptive and fundamentally change the way we do business, we communicate, and we live. Europe and especially peripheral regions lack behind in the digital transformation. The goal of the A21 Digital Tyrol Veneto project – carried out by the Austrian network A21 Digital, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and the University of Verona – is to propose relevant future strategies and to develop a roadmap with concrete actions for decision makers for a successful digitalization of the macro-region Tyrol- South Tyrol-Veneto. The project starts with a systematic analysis of the scientific and practitioner literature and of previous research projects on digitalization. A wide number of interviews (more than 60) are then conducted with experts and representatives of various stakeholders in the macro-region (companies, schools and research centres, and public administrations). The aims of these interviews are:

1. to identify, among the main trends associated with digitalization, those with high potential for the macro-region and requiring coordinated intervention by the various actors;
2. to highlight a series of actions aimed at exploiting the opportunities offered by digitisation and at successfully managing the underlying risks. Finally, some focus groups are organised in order to refine the strategies and roadmap developed based on the interviews. The final results of the project are summarised in a report and presented to all stakeholders in three events in Bozen, Lienz and Vicenza.

Principal Investigator: Dominik Matt — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/03/2018 - 31/12/2019
Project Partner: A21DIGITAL (Lead Partner), Università degli Studi di Verona
Project Website: a21digital.com/a21digital-tyrol-veneto

During the last years, public and private investments into research and development infrastructure for modern production technologies have been made (e.g. fab labs, smart production labs, robotic labs, etc.). But this infrastructure is mainly available for limited target groups, often only within the respective owner organisation of the infrastructure or for specific project driven purposes. Due to missing usage concepts as well as educational or training programmes, this situation results in limited usage and accessibility of the infrastructure. This situation is common for educational organisations and training institutions in Austria as well as in Italy

The project aims at the development of aligned and specialised qualification programmes and offers by invoking aforementioned infrastructure. The focus of the qualification programme is therefore on advanced manufacturing technologies (e.g. 3D-printing), application of robotics in manufacturing cells, application of innovative ICT technology in production (e.g. augmented reality and virtual reality) as well as data management and information management. The created qualification network establishes an aligned education format for the following three target groups: 1) teacher, 2) students and 3) companies (with a focus on SMEs).

Moreover, throughout the project knowledge transfer about the setup of such formats and programmes are performed on a sustainable base. Therefore, the project will enable students, talents, start-ups and SMEs of the regions to face the challenges of smart production and digitisation.

Principal Investigator: Dominik Matt — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/05/2018 — 30/04/2021
Project Partner: Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Treviso Belluno (Lead Partner), t2i – trasferimento tecnologico e innovazione, Friuli Innovazione Centro di Ricerca e di Trasferimento Tecnologico, Fachhochschule Kärnten, HTL Wolfsberg

Project Website: www.eedu40.eu

The MC 4.0 Project improves the innovation base of SMART LIVING SMEs to face the new challenges of the competition and of the INDUSTRY 4.0 in the program area. Local bases are created to increase their ability to meet the specific needs of individual customers at affordable costs (MC - Mass Customization) through digitized personalization processes (4.0), which bring the customer closer to the production chain of SMEs, lowering costs, speeding up the times and ensuring the quality of the product. The digitization of the customization process goes through increasingly high performance product configuration tools - PRODUCT CONFIGURATORS -, which perform the strategic function of directly connecting customers with the company's back office.

To achieve these results, more than 120 Italian and Austrian SMEs are directly involved, and it is established a partnership which represents scientific and technological knowledge, needs of SMEs and industrial realities. The partners:

• develop MC 4.0 ASSESSMENT & GUIDING TOOLS specific for SMEs;
• design and launch the MC 4.0 DEA CENTERS, which bring the MC 4.0 in individual SMEs;
• structure and animate CLUSTERS of SMEs interested in MC 4.0;
• launch and sustain the MC 4.0 PLATFORM with services for MC 4.0, including B2C;
• establish sustainable cross-border NETWORK of MC 4.0 COMPETENCES for SMEs.

Principal Investigator: Andrea Gasparella — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 19/09/2019 – 31/05/2022
Project Partner: Apindustria Vicenza (Lead Partner), Università degli Studi di Padova, Fondazione Centro Produttività Veneto, ROEN EST Spa, Universität Klagenfurt, SelectionArts Intelligent Decision Technologies GmbH, Energieforum Kärnten
Project website: www.mc40.eu

The Project deals with sustainable public procurement (Green Public Procurement - GPP) with focus on the construction sector. Public procurement is one of the most important activities of the public administration and has a major impact on the local economy. For this reason, the member states of the European Union have been obliged to develop and implement national action plans for public procurement with the goal to reduce the environmental impacts occurring during the life cycle stages of products and services. In the reference markets of Italy and Austria a stagnant development concerning the implementation and execution of sustainable public procurement was especially identified in the construction sector. This because sustainability criteria in procurement are implemented in the most varied form at national, regional and local level, since the legal framework conditions are kept in such a way that the decision as to how these criteria are to be taken into account in procurement is largely left to the individual contracting authorities. As a result, the companies suffer from a lack of information and know-how, which leads to market entry difficulties. On the other hand, the lack of information about the future framework and requirements of a circular economy is also seen as a difficulty in implementation. In order to do justice to the complexity of the subject of circular economy, a systematic approach is required to prevent negative external effects and rebound effects.

The main goal of the project is therefore to design and set up a transnational network that bundles knowledge in order to act as a customized point of contact for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The network is going to be implemented in the form of a competence platform and tested in two pilot projects. However, the project Green Public Procurement for Buildings is limited to the supply chains of timber construction, concrete construction and cement producers as well as window construction.

Principal Investigator: Andrea Gasparella — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/10/2019 – 31/01/2022
Project Partner: Agenzia per l’Alto Adige – CasaClima (Lead Partner), Università degli Studi di Padova, Fachochschule Salzburg GmbH, Innovations- und Technologietransfer Salzburg GmbH, Agenzia per l’energia del Friuli Venezia Giulia

SEnSHome develops new smart home design and technologies for houses “as normal as possible” to be inhabited autonomously by people with disabilities, especially autistic people. The implementation of smart sensor networks will allow to

• recognise hazardous events
• monitor and regulate room conditions (comfort and well-being)
• develop a new design concept for independent living is to enable a self-determined life and ensure a high level of privacy to disabled people.

Principal Investigator: Andrea Gasparella — Faculty of Engineering
Project Duration: 01/10/2019 – 31/12/2022
Project Partner: Fachhochschule Kärnten - gemeinnützige Privatstiftung, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Eureka System s.r.l.
Project website: senshome.projects.unibz.it