FER - Active research projects

2027

Obrisani Korisnik — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:32:48 GMT

FoodMAPP – Localised, transparent and efficient food supply chain

The European strategic plan to fight climate change requires impactful changes to the food industry and a reduction in food waste, as well as a change in the fragile, complicated supply chain of industrial-scale food producers and the creation of a novel, fair and sustainable food industry. The project is funded from Horizon Europe MSCA Staff Exchange call and is coordinated by UNIZG-FER through LARES. It aims at the transformation of food supply by enabling and promoting transparent local provision from local producers, including family farmers, and processors directly to consumers. It will gather extensive market intelligence from all stakeholders to understand market demand and preferences towards localised food supply transparency. This research will inform the development of a dynamic searchable map-based platform enabling local providers to supply and sell produce directly to consumers.

RESURGENCE - Industrial Water Circularity: Reuse, Resource Recovery and Energy Efficiency for Greener Digitised EU Processes

The overall objective of RESURGENCE is boosting the transformation of EU process industries into Wastewater (WW) Resource Recovery Facilities (WWRRF) to achieve 3 of the key EU 2050 objectives: climate neutrality, circularity, and competitiveness (3KC). For this purpose, a comprehensive portfolio of modular & flexible treatments and digital technologies will be developed to maximise water and energy recovery & efficiency, increasing Industrial Wastewater (IWW) valorisation. To this end, a variety of IWW will be addressed in RESURGENCE with different characteristics - high organic and/or inorganic (metal) content, high concentration of suspended solids, presence of persistent organic pollutants, extreme pH, low-quality heat - to demonstrate the versatility of the RESURGENCE concept. In a cross-cutting approach, an array of cutting-edge digital tools and solutions will be deployed as well, to provide fast and intelligent prediction in a decision support tool (DST), based on water and energy efficiency models, new sensors, optimization, AI-based tools, and Digital Twins. Through these combined green and digital solutions, maximum IWW valorisation will be achieved, recovering water, energy (heat, biogas, H2 and electricity) and a range of feedstocks: bioactive phenols, biopolymers; materials (cellulose, lignin, latex and, acrylic polymers); inorganic substances (phosphate and N); metals (Mg and Cu;critical raw materials Mo, Fe and Ca); as well as biochar and Metal Organic Framework from sludge. To ensure techno-economic feasibility and wide application, RESURGENCE technologies will be cross-sectoral, modular & easily integrable with current ones, so that, existing IWW treatment plants can incorporate the new solutions and advance towards near Zero Liquid and Landfilling Discharge, bringing substantial environmental, social & economic benefits while ensuring competitiveness, together with a positive impact on EU science & innovation and regulatory framework.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement N. 101138097.

UNIZG-FER/LARES is in RESURGENCE focussed on the development of a decision support tool for optimal joint sizing and operation of wastewater treatment subprocesses in the industrial wastewater treatment chain, and on short-term ahead optimal integration of the wastewater segment of the industry plant into the total plant operation.

NACHIP - North Adriatic Clean Hydrogen Investment Platform

Hydrogen Ecosystem of the North Adriatic region comprising Croatia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Autonomous Region of Italy, and Slovenia, is expanding thanks also to a newly launched initiative North Adriatic Clean Hydrogen Investment Platform (NACHIP). NACHIP focuses on validating and demonstrating clean hydrogen technologies across three key value chains: manufacturing, urban areas, and mobility. NACHIP aims to pilot solutions for generating, converting, transmitting, storing, and utilizing clean hydrogen.
A grant of 7.6 million euro has been awarded through the I3 Instrument, which aims to empower innovation with advisory and financial support, and guide projects in joint smart specialisation areas toward successful commercialisation and scale-up. The grant is provided by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The Fund supports interregional portfolios of companies’ investments bringing innovation to the market at high technology readiness levels (TRL 6-9) to reshape EU interregional value chains.
Through NACHIP 12 consortium partners led by Jožef Stefan Institute will implement a replicable acceleration concept, integrate and scale advanced hydrogen-related technologies, first, by focusing on five pilot projects and, next, by involving up to 18 interested SMEs into the three target value chains. NACHIP will support their integration into the ecosystem by the means of cascade financing, predominantly destined to less developed regions of the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) ecosystem. In the future, a governance model based on local hydrogen alliances will be validated and replicated to strengthen target value chains, particularly in the urban areas.

UNIZG-FER develops in NACHIP through LARES a decision support tool relied on mathematical optimization that at the same time sizes the investment in green hydrogen production and provides its optimal operation. In this way the investment is de-risked and optimally built in the local hydrogen ecosystem.

2029

Obrisani Korisnik — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:49:35 GMT

UrbanSPARC - Smart and predictive urban landscape for resilience to climate change

Urban centers around the world are facing serious consequences of climate change that threaten the quality of life of citizens and have long-term negative impact on the city's infrastructure, ecosystems and economic stability. Localized weather forecasts and transformation into variables of importance for infrastructure using artificial intelligence enable timely adaptation. The project aims to increase the resilience of selected urban vulnerable sectors of the City of Zagreb to climate change through deep digitalization and correlation with meteorological conditions, mathematical modeling and optimization procedures, and to create a basis for more efficient processes and coordination of sectors in spatial planning with regard to expected climate change. The project is conducted in partnership with City of Zagreb. The project leader at FER is Assoc. Prof. Vinko Lešić, PhD.

ForeSCAPE - Artificial Intelligence for Efficiency and Resilience to Climate-Impacted Systems

Current and upcoming climate change significantly affects the identified vulnerable sectors in the form of reduced efficiency, increased costs and a necessary deviation from traditional management. The project focuses on technologies of climate-dependent sectors of 1) urban infrastructure, 2) transport, 3) agriculture and food, and 4) energy as directly or indirectly identified vulnerable sectors. The project aims to implement deep digitalization in the aforementioned sectors, establish new sensors and acquisition of measurements towards the creation of large amounts of data and correlate them with precise multi-modal weather conditions on site using machine learning methods. The mathematical models created will be used as a basis for more efficient management of processes within the sector and their mutual coordination, from individual to comprehensive multi-criteria optimization. The project envisages the creation of socio-technical laboratory pilots and the generation of large datasets as dynamic digital twins that will be openly disseminated to the scientific community.

2025

Obrisani Korisnik — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:31:22 GMT

DECIDE – Distributed Control for Dynamic Energy Management of Complex Systems in Smart Cities

In buildings, the world largest consumers, ICT is a fruitful area for integration of different technologies aimed to increase the energy efficiency, i.e. to achieve zero-energy buildings. High-tech equipment and highly expert staff are required, together with long-running modelling and consumption forecast procedures, which is the highest economic barrier for implementation of the new technologies, with return of unacceptable investment prognoses of above 10 years. By integration with renewable sources and microgrids, the buildings are becoming capable of active participation in the distributed energy market as energy-independent units, which finally enables the trend of smart cities.
The proposed methodology, aimed to be developed within the DECIDE project, uses two basic approaches: distributed optimal control among subunits of the same subsystem and hierarchical optimal control between different levels (subsystems). Distributed control implies the game theory application and mutual bidding of individual (local) interests of the subunits of a complex system.
The methodology starts with joining of these several approaches and aims at utilization of advantages of each approach, and also incorporates the acquired experience of LARES in its research work so far related to building and transport subsystems. Bases for the proposed methodology are set in preceding research collaborations with national and international scientific partners who have advisory roles in the project.

2026

Obrisani Korisnik — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:30:23 GMT

Dodola - Predictive control for efficient and flexible water distribution system operation

Traditional water distribution systems are often operated based on manual flow and pressure settings for individual pumps or valves, typically set by the operator’s experience or predefined schedules. Autonomous control loops are often added to regulate pump operations, ensuring water levels in reservoirs—and consequently, system pressures—remain within specified limits. Most systems are monitored through basic SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems, enabling operators to observe key parameters and make ad-hoc interventions when needed.
This type of system operation is quite conservative, relying on predefined control actions to ensure adequate pressure levels at system endpoints. However, it overlooks operational costs associated with energy consumption and water losses and fails to leverage the potential for participation in power grid ancillary service markets. Such opportunities arise from the flexibility inherent in managing water reservoir levels.
Dodola offers an innovative approach to minimizing water losses and optimizing electricity usage in water distribution systems.
Target groups include the applicant and partners, external collaborative research organizations and companies, as well as researchers at the international level and potential customers of Dodola solution.
The project will improve the cooperation between research organizations (University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing) and companies (Končar - Digital d.o.o. and Vodne usluge d.o.o.) and will also improve the capacity of the companies for research, development and innovation by conducting collaborative applied research on predictive control for efficient and flexible operation of water distribution systems.
The project is funded by the European Union through the Croatian National Resilience and Recovery Plan.

UNIZG-FER develops through LARES the artificial intelligence procedures mainly comprised of predictive control and machine learning that enable reliable water supply at minimized operating costs for the water distribution company.

HyEfRe - Hydrogen integration for efficient renewable energy systems

HyEfRe counteracts challenges related to low integration and balancing of fluctuating renewable energy sources (wind and photovoltaic), suboptimal energy efficiency and lack of carbon-neutrality in Central European energy systems, resulting in high energy prices and climate change. Sector-coupling via hydrogen is a promising solution to mitigate these obstacles. Transnational cooperation will reinforce local /regional learning curves for green hydrogen integration.
The project will increase affordability, efficiency and sustainability of renewable energy systems in central Europe by fostering an investment-friendly environment for renewable energy and green hydrogen technologies integrated with regard to energy efficiency and balancing, via an innovative holistic approach. The project partners will evaluate hydrogen potentials with new models and develop and test a new tool to calculate ideal parameters for technical plants. The project’s action plan for policy actors aims to reduce the regulatory barriers impeding a timely expansion of renewables and green hydrogen.
The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Central Europe Programme.

UNIZG-FER is through LARES on HyEfRe focussed on developing an open software tool for optimal sizing and operation scheduling of renewable energy, conversion and storage setups around power-to-hydrogen (electrolyzers) and hydrogen-to-power (fuel cells) elements based on different technologies, for various local technical, market and regulatory conditions of Central Europe.

Danube Indeet - Integrated and decentralised concept rethinking energy and transport systems based on renewable energy in the Danube region

Danube Indeet suggests a concept that supports the expansion of renewable energy production and increase of renewable energy consumption in transport and industry sectors. The main idea is to integrate electrified transport and hydrogen production into the energy systems in order to efficiently make use of renewable electricity, without putting too much strain on the electricity grids.
During the project, local infrastructure frameworks will be analysed in each participating region and already existing approaches for renewable energy integration will be examined. The data feeds into a computation model based on mathematical optimisation to obtain ideal green infrastructure setup in terms of operation and economics. The model will be tested, validated and refined in six pilot regions as well as against theoretical scenarios. The results combined with the conclusion of the analysis of the legal framework provide ample basis for policy recommendations and the strategy for integrated energy and transport systems in the Danube region. To ensure embedding of project outcomes, further investigations will be conducted into the acceptance factors and levels behind vehicle-to-grid (V2G), hydrogen applications and other concepts touched upon by the project. These results will be disseminated, discussed and further taken up in the frame of policy cooperation and networking activities, thus contributing to a greener, more energy- efficient Danube Region.
The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Danube Region Programme.

UNIZG-FER acts on Danube Indeet through LARES who develops an open tool for sizing and operating green energy, hydrogen and vehicle charging infrastructure, based on currently scarce data on electric vehicles charging needs and local hydrogen needs by industry and transport. For the case of electric vehicles charging needs probabilistic framework is developed to transpose the charging data available from elsewhere around the globe into the Danube region.

MLBattProt - Machine learning based model of battery cell aging used in computational geometry for on-line battery pack health protection

In the project, a large amount of experimental data from a battery cell is used to create a mathematical model that describes the aging of a battery cell, which is predominantly manifested in its capacity reduction and increase in internal resistance. This model is then used in the project together with a classic model of a battery cell that models its current-voltage behavior and charge level to determine by using computational geometry procedures the so-called protection set, i.e. combinations of its charge states, currents, voltages and aging parameters at which the cell degradation rate is less than a given threshold. Such a set is then implemented in a battery management system (BMS) in order to calculate which battery charging profiles are acceptable over a certain short time horizon in advance, typically a few seconds. This gives other systems in the car full information on all the dynamic ways in which they can use the power from the battery without degrading it more than the specified threshold.

The project is funded by the European Union through National Recovery and Resilience Plan for Croatia.

The team of UNIZG-FER (LARES and Laboratory for Financial and Risk Analytics members) develops together with the team of coordinator Rimac Technology d.o.o. the entire procedure on one specific type of battery cell, but the process is universal due to the principles of machine learning and computational geometry used and is aimed to be applicable for different battery cells and their chemistries.

REWAISE – Resilient Water Innovation for Smart Economy

REWAISE creates a new “smart water ecosystem”, mobilising all relevant stakeholders to make society embrace the true value of water, reducing freshwater and energy use, resulting in a carbon free, sustainable hydrological cycle, to transition into a resilient circular economy.

A network of nine living labs, involving 5 major water utilities, demonstrates real-life, large-scale operational environments for technological innovations and new governance methods to secure a resource-efficient water supply for the EU. New business niches will be created, incentivizing water-related investments, and accelerating SME growth, by linking users with specific water needs, incorporating life cycle and cost assessments, and collective action in new governance frameworks for smart value creation and high social returns.

By incorporating paradigm shifts from a linear Roman heritage to a new circular, water-smart economy, REWAISE reveals the full Value of Water for Europe, considering 3 key components of the economic and societal value generated by integral water cycles: value in water, value from water and value through water.

The project is co-financed by the European Union through Horizon 2020 framework programme.

Within REWAISE UNIZG-FER through LARES develops mathematical optimization procedures for four main entities in the urban water cycle -- Drinking Water Treatment Plant, Water Distribution System, Sewage Water Network and Wastewater Treatment Plant. Through them operators of these plants and systems are advised how to run the plant in a short-term ahead in order to respect all technical constraints in dynamic environments while achieving optimal economical performance. Moreover LARES introduces and develops coordination procedures that allow economically optimal interplay between the plants and systems connected with the water stream.