Regional partner for #useCO2 Project

The Smart CO2 Transformation (SCOT) project is supported under ‘Regions of Knowledge’ in FP7 to develop a Strategic European Research Agenda aimed at improving the technical and economic performance of emerging CO2 transformation technologies. The project was launched in October 2013 by four partner regions in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK and it now requires the participation of an additional partner (regional authority or organization supported by a region). Could this be you? 

Reducing CO2 emissions, protecting the environment and our resources, while reducing consumption of scarce raw materials are some major challenges facing society. The EU has adopted ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050. So far, most attention from policy makers and others has been paid to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies that aim to concentrate CO2 emitted from large industrial sites and store it in deep geological sites.

The SCOT project is complementary to this approach but focuses on an emerging research area with great economic growth potential: the recycling of CO2 through its transformation into valuable products via chemical or biological technologies – a topic close to SusChem and SPIRE’s research agendas and the subject of many SusChem tweets with the hashtag #useCO2 and previous SusChem blog articles.

In addition to significantly reducing net CO2 emissions, this approach brings the benefit of reducing the consumption of non-renewable resources and CO2 is no longer considered as a waste but as a significant resource.

SCOT is the first ever European regional initiative in the field of CO2 recycling. The consortium gathers four regions which are strongly committed and already well advanced in this emerging area of CO2 recycling. Through a stronger coordination of their individual efforts, the SCOT project aims to:

• define a Strategic European Research Agenda aimed at improving the technico-economic performance of emerging CO2 transformation technologies and at developing new breakthrough solutions and market applications
• attract additional EU clusters, regions and investors to participate in multi-disciplinary research programmes and other collaborative actions defined in a Joint Action Plan
• propose structural policy measures to favour the transition to a new European society based on the paradigm of “CO2-as-a-resource”, and significantly improve the EU’s overall competitive position and environmental performance on the international scene. 

Partner profile

The SCOT consortium has a dedicated Work Package on internationalization and mentoring. And the new project partner will benefit from this aspect of the project. The mentoring activities will be divided into two separate sets of actions: developing research and clustering capacities in the mentored region, and reinforcing the clustering/networking capacities of more advanced regions through a mutual exchange of best practices

Such mentoring activities will be the ideal opportunity for the mentored region to:

• reinforce its research and innovation capacities in the area of CO2 recycling, 
• and to learn how to structure and operate an innovation-driven cluster. 

The deadline for submitting an application to join the project is 3 January 2014 and the selection will happen by 10 January.

Further information on participation can be found on this link and interested parties can find the details of the application process here. Alternatively contact Talia Brun at Axelera.