"The Mediterranean countries, including Jordan and Lebanon, face significant energy challenges which mainly emphasise their need to secure energy supply, to satisfy elevating electricity demand due to increasing demographics and economic development and protect the environment. These challenges weight more considering that Jordan and Lebanon have little indigenous energy resources. The exploitation of vast solar radiation of the Mediterranean countries could curb electricity demand and also provide a renewable source to generate power. In light of these facts, the proposed project aims at the enhancement of the capacities of two Mediterranean organisations, the National Energy Research Center (NERC) of Jordan and the Lebanese Association for Energy Saving & for Environment (ALMEE) in order to engage in high quality research, implement research projects and provide scientific services in the fields of a) technological integration of solar heating and cooling and PV technologies (grid-connected and stand-alone) in buildings, b) simulation models and optimization of solar heating and cooling systems and PV technologies into building operations and c) energy modeling and decision support regarding the energy planning in municipal and regional scale emphasizing the adoption of PV and solar thermal technologies in buildings and oriented to support energy policy formulation. The capacity build will be provided by the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) to the Mediterranean organisations. It will be targeted to improve scientific knowledge through secondments and training, recruit researchers, enhance equipment, create partnerships and disseminate at EU, Mediterranean, national and international level. The capacity building will result in making the Mediterranean partners capable of conducting high-level research, network, diffuse information, provide scientific services and exploit their research products."