The European Research and Innovation Days took place 24-26 September 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. The European Commission organized this policy event for “bringing together stakeholders to debate and shape the future research and innovation landscape,” in Europe.

Dr Andreja Kutnar, director of the InnoRenew CoE, and Dr Iztok Šušteršič, research group leader for the InnoRenew CoE’s Sustainable Building with Renewable Materials group, attended the event. Both participated in panel discussions to identify challenges and set objectives for future developments in the built environment, define the mission for the climate change social challenge, and meet with policy makers to discuss the need for further actions in Widening countries.

Dr Kutnar and Dr Šušteršič also participated in the discussion and announcement of new Horizon 2020 Teaming-2 projects that are starting establishment of their centres of excellence and had the opportunity to meet the teams behind them.

Also within the framework of the event, Dr Kutnar and Dr Šušteršič visited Horizon Village, a group of 21 “homes” addressing Horizon Europe policies, where they had the opportunity to talk with policy makers. In addition, they explored the exhibition “Science is Wonderful!” where “hands-on experiments, live demonstrations, face-to-face chats with researchers … shows how science impacts our daily lives.”