Cefic-LRI Grants 2013 open

The Long-range Research Initiative (LRI) is a major voluntary initiative of the European chemical industry to support its competitiveness and innovation potential. The LRI programme aims to identify and fill gaps in the understanding of the hazards posed by chemical substances and to improve the methods available for assessing any associated risks. The topics in which proposals for research during 2013 are requested have just been announced.

LRI sponsors high-quality research, published in peer-reviewed journals, and seeks to provide sound scientific advice on which industry and regulatory bodies can draw to respond more quickly and accurately to society’s concerns.

In the context of its LRI programme for 2013, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) is accepting grant applications to carry out research in the following areas:

• LRI-B14: Skin sensitisation - chemical applicability domain of the Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA)
• LRI-B15: Efficiency of Risk Management Measures (RMM)
• LRI-ECO23: Combining passive sampling and toxicity profiling to assess mixture toxicity of surface waters
• LRI-ECO24: Prediction of Non-Extractable Residues (NER) using structural information 
• LRI-ECO25: Development of soup tests for the risk assessment of NER in soil
• LRI-EMSG58: Quality assessment of the epidemiological evidence of adverse effects to humans of endocrine active substances in the environment
• LRI-N4: Grouping nanomaterials and establishing criteria for Safe by Design
• LRI-S3: Benefits and risk evidence streams for decision makers

Further details of each research area can be found by following the links on each topic.

More information
The deadline for applications is 1 September 2013. Project specifications, budget details and application forms can be found on the Cefic LRI website. Only proposals that fit the project specifications and are submitted via the official LRI application form will be considered.

The scientific evaluation and selection of applications for funding are managed by a scientific committee provided by ECETOC. In particular, within LRI, ECETOC has the responsibility of maintaining three “core teams”: health effects, human exposure & risk assessment and environment.

For further information, please read the complete LRI Requests for Proposals on the Cefic LRI website, or contact Dr. Bruno Hubesch, Cefic-LRI Manager, or the LRI Secretariat.

EFIB 2013 – Get your Brochure now!

The European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Biobased Economy 2013 (EFIB2013) takes place in Brussels from 30 September to 2 October at the Square conference facility. A full brochure for the event is now available – get your copy now!

With over 1,000 biotechnology professionals expected to attend, a growing exhibition hall with 50 exhibitors, over 14 hours of one-to-one networking available and a brand new Technology Showcase Theatre the EFIB has clearly continued to evolve for 2013.

"EFIB is the most important event on the calendar for the biobased economy," says Ian Hudson, President of DuPont EMEA and a member of the executive committee of Cefic and a board member at EuropaBio – joint organisers of the event with Smithers Rapra.

Diverse agenda
The new brochure shows the wide range of activities on offer at EFIB 2013 including:

• Choose the conference agenda to suit your interests with 8 dedicated conference sessions focused on policy, finance, innovation and including a dedicated session on BRIDGE: the SusChem supported  proposal for a €3.8 billion Public Private Partnership (PPP) for the biobased industries
• Be the first to witness the latest innovation and product development at the ‘new for 2013’ Technology Showcase in the Exhibition Hall
• Take part in CEO Question Time and put your questions to the ‘movers and shakers’ in strategic positions to move the industry forward
• Visit over 50 exhibitors and see for yourself first-hand what the European and wider industrial biotechnology industry has to offer
• Take advantage of the one-to-one Partnering at EFIB2013 to make efficient use of your networking time, during over 14 hours of active partnering sessions

Get the brochure
Find out more about EFIB2013 in the brand new event brochure including the full programme, workshop agendas, exhibition floor plan, Technology Showcase Theatre agenda, one-to-one Partnering, prices, event highlights and travel information.

Water EIP: First Action Groups selected

The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water has announced the successful applicants from the first call for expressions of interest for establishing Action Groups. More than sixty proposals were submitted for evaluation.

Nine Action Groups were selected out of 64 applications at the end of May 2013. In total, over 700 individual organisations participated in the first call for expressions of commitment demonstrating the relevance of the EIP Water. The successful projects were:

• W4EF: Framework for evaluation and reporting of the energy impacts on water
• Renewable Energy Desalination (RE-Desalination)
• Anaerobic membrane Bioreactor for Recovery of Energy and Resources
• Industrial Water Re-use and Recycling
• Smart Pricing and Drought Insurance Schemes in Mediterranean Countries
• CITY BLUEPRINTS: Improving Implementation Capacities of Cities and Regions
• WaterCoRe: Regional governance of water scarcity and drought issues
• ESE - Ecosystem Services for Europe
• FINNOWATER

Officials from ten different Directorates General of the European Commission participated in the evaluation of the proposals. The selected Action Groups were deemed to fulfil all requirements and showed the most promising approaches, combining innovative ideas with partners across the innovation value chain and demonstrating the potential to deliver concrete results.

All the submitted Action Group proposals have received detailed feedback and the European Commission has strongly encouraged the partners involved to further strengthen their proposals and submit them again during the next call for expressions of commitment. Some general information on the proposals submitted for evaluation in the first call can be found here.

The EIP’s annual conference will be organised in November which will be an opportunity to showcase ideas and seek further consortium partners, and the second call for action groups will be published at that time.

Detailed information about all nine successful Action Group proposals, their origins and other details can be found here.

Ad-hoc Group
In separate news the EIP on Water has established an ad-hoc group as part of the task force set up to develop the EIP’s Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) to identify  barriers and bottle necks to innovation in the sector and propose some new solutions. SusChem and Cefic via Antonia Morales Peres is heavily involved in this initiative with Thomas Track of Dechema.

For more information on the EIP and other SusChem work on water issues, please contact Antonia Morales Perez at Cefic.

SusChem Materials Priorities: What are the next steps?

Feedback from the workshop session on Materials at the SusChem Stakeholder meeting is being analysed and incorporated into the SusChem Materials Working Group report. For the second half of 2013 the identified topics will be further assessed and the scope of future research and innovations calls developed. And your participation is encouraged! 

Following the initial analysis, from June to the end of 2013 SusChem will be engaging with key value chain partners through a series of focused workshops to refine the research and innovation agenda and set the basis for successful collaborative project calls early in Horizon 2020.

SusChem News will keep you informed of workshop dates and venues etc.

Of course Horizon 2020 is just one possible route to develop collaborative R&I projects and SusChem is willing and able to facilitate development of materials research programmes under other regional, national or multi-national funding initiatives.

To obtain a copy of the full SusChem Materials Working Group report, please contact the SusChem secretariat.

How can I get involved?
If you want to join the SusChem Materials Working Group and share your expertise and knowledge to enhance the future European materials research and innovation agenda, or have a specific interest in a particular priority topic, please get in touch with SusChem coordinator Jacques Komornicki at Cefic directly.

“Please join us in our quest to ensure European materials research and innovation can make a significant impact on competitiveness and sustainability in Europe and develop more circular, resource efficient value chains,” concludes Jacques.

SusChem Materials Priorities: The Analysis Process

The process leading to the selection of SusChem’s priority topics in Materials for Horizon 2020 was the result of ongoing dialogue with stakeholders and value chain partners. Here the process is described more fully.

Advanced materials are defined as one of Europe’s Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) by the European Commission and have been a priority research theme for SusChem since its inception.

Recently, as part of its revised strategy, SusChem has grown its engagement with value chain partners to develop ‘through-the-value-chain’ initiatives that can make a significant impact at European level extending beyond single sectors or individual companies. This ‘innovation ecosystem’ approach has led to proposals for major Public-Private-Partnership initiatives (PPPs) such as SPIRE and BRIDGE.

In the materials area SusChem has adapted this way of working via its Materials Working Group to look at a value-chain approach to assess priorities for the field of advanced materials.

Priority analysis
The following three prioritised value chains were identified :

• Automotive
• Building Construction and Refurbishment
• Energy Production and Storage

In addition the group identified the concept of circularity of material flows in the economy as an area of important cross-cutting organisational and technology development.

“The current, typical linear value chain approach of extraction – concentration – transformation – use – disposal is clearly unsustainable and developing a circular approach, where waste is used as a resource, is key to developing a more resource efficient and sustainable society,” comments Jacques Komornicki.

The whole analysis process searched for areas where chemistry-led projects can be pursued with a multi-stakeholder innovation approach. And where clear added value for a European-level – and EU-funded – effort can be demonstrated.

The analysis resulted in the identification of four provisional research, development and innovation topics that are considered to be key priorities for inclusion in early calls for Horizon 2020.

To obtain a copy of the full SusChem Materials Working Group report, please contact the SusChem secretariat. More information on how you can get be involved can be found in this article.

SusChem proposes Priority Materials Topics for Horizon 2020

SusChem has published the results of its preliminary analysis of research needs for materials in the early calls of Horizon 2020. The analysis is the result of ongoing dialogue with stakeholders and value chain partners undertaken by SusChem’s Materials Working Group and was discussed at the SusChem Stakeholder workshop in mid-May.

From analysis of the size of opportunities and societal challenges faced by Europe SusChem has focused on three prioritised value chains:

• Automotive
• Building Construction and Refurbishment
• Energy Production and Storage

“The SusChem working group then examined these value chains more closely, segmenting sub areas of potential research and analysing the importance of developments for the future, looking at current coverage in the areas by global research activities and identifying significant research gaps,” said Jacques Komornicki SusChem coordinator and Innovation Manager at Cefic.

The results were reviewed at a SusChem Materials Working Group workshop held in March 2013 and further discussed at a workshop that was part of the SusChem Stakeholder event in mid May.

Priority topics
Four provisional research, development and innovation topics considered to be key priorities for inclusion in early calls for Horizon 2020 have been identified. They are:

• Advanced structural composites for cost effective volume production of complex high performance lightweight parts
• Circular economy and how this concept can be developed within the three identified key value chains (and elsewhere) of importance to the chemical industry and society
• Thermal energy conversion and storage (including solar cooling)
• Stationary electricity storage 

These four topics are generally perceived as being at technology readiness levels 4 to 7 (TRL 4 – 7) and therefore have potential for industrial impact in the short to medium term (see diagram above).

Two other topics were also identified as of continuing interest but at a lower TRL. These are:

• Self-healing materials
• Printed electronics

SusChem will maintain a watching brief in these two areas in order that partners can consider more specific developments possibly via funding from sources such as the Future and Emerging Technologies area. You can find more on the analysis process for selecting the priority topics here in a related blog article.

In the working group report proposals for all six topics are described in terms of:

• The general ambition and time frame envisaged
• The Key Stakeholders that should be involved
• Value chain specifics
• The proposed programme
• What the Chemical Industry brings to the topic area

More information?
To obtain a copy of the full SusChem Materials Working Group report, please contact the SusChem secretariat.

This is also the place to find out how you can get involved with the ongoing analysis and work being undertaken by the Working Group to prepare for the first Horizon 2020 calls in 2014.

Sustainable Surfactants and the Bioeconomy

CESIO 2013 - the 9th World Surfactant Congress and Business Convention – has convened in Barcelona from 10 to 12 June and Pádraig Naughton Innovation Manager - Resource and Energy Efficiency at Cefic is participating today (12 June) in a panel discussion entitled: ‘BioEconomy – Opportunities and Challenges'. SusChem News caught up with Pádraig before he be departed for Barcelona.

The bio-economy and the use of bio-based feedstocks and energy are seen by many as major contributing solutions to societal challenges such as climate change, availability of fossil-based resources and the competitiveness of Europe for the future. And the surfactant sector is no exception.

Europe has a strong research and development tradition and Pádraig is confident that the development of the technology and knowledge to meet these expectations will be forthcoming and Europe can play a leading role in the world.

However, Europe's recent track record on commercialisation of new technology does not instill confidence that we can convert newly developed expertise in the bioeconomy into local growth and jobs. Other regions are also working hard in this field and are ramping up their investment. Pádraig’s contribution addresses concerns in this area and is entitled ‘BioEconomy: Growth and jobs for Europe or elsewhere?’

Balanced approach
An integrated, balanced approach is needed, building on Europe’s strengths and identifying and addressing the gaps to reach a long-term vision for the future of this region argues Pádraig.

“In order to create growth and jobs in the European economy, it is essential to ensure sustainable business through market pull, rather than technology push,” he says. “Past EU developments have a good track record in research and development and technology development, but too often we have not been able to reap the benefits locally.”

Pádraig’s talk will address the consequences of this weakness and the barriers that need to be addressed to cross the “innovation valley of death” to a sustainable bioeconomy in Europe.

He is hopeful that Europe can rise to the challenge in a united manner and that large-scale collaborative research and innovation has a role to play in this. “Conducting innovation and creating long-term value from these efforts is a primary goal of Horizon 2020,” concluded Pádraig.

What is CESIO 2013?
CESIO 2013 is organised on behalf of the European Committee of Organic Surfactants and their Intermediates (CESIO) a sector group of Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council.

The Congress offers a one-of-a-kind location to meet the relevant actors in the global surfactant industry, its suppliers and customers, and service companies to share expertise, discuss market trends, learn about new developments and to network within the supply chain, consultants and academia.