Additional Cefic-LRI Grants for 2013 Announced

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 the associated risks. Requests for proposals in a range of research areas were published in June and now two further topics have been published for research commencing in 2014.

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 addition to the LRI programme for 2013 announced in June, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) is now accepting further grant applications to carry out research in the following areas:

• LRI-AIMT4: Use of non-animal data to supplement and strengthen read-across
• LRI-C3: Epigenetics - Normality in Toxicologically Relevant Species

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

Applications
The submission deadline for these two extra research areas is 10 January 2014. 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.

LRI events
Dr. Bruno Hubesch, Cefic-LRI Manager  will be chairing the session on low dose toxicity at the 34th Annual European Meeting of the Toxicology Forum (ToxForum) that takes place on 22 to 24 October in Brussels.

ToxForum aims to be recognised as the leading international toxicological organisation promoting and encouraging dialogue amongst all stakeholders on public health issues.

And don’t forget the 15th Cefic-LRI Annual Workshop that takes place on 20 to 21 November 2013, also in Brussels. The 2013 workshop will discuss how a science-informed approach to decision-making can contribute to relevant policy initiatives. The event will showcase the results and outcomes of several LRI projects completed in 2012-2013. The key areas of discussion will be thresholds of concern, bio-monitoring, domestic exposure, endocrine disrupters, nanomaterials, toxicogenomics and sediment testing.

You can find more information on the workshop here or go straight to registration here.

More information on LRi
For further information, please contact Dr. Bruno Hubesch, Cefic-LRI Manager, or the LRI Secretariat or visit the Cefic-LRI website.

Chemical Innovation to play a critical role in Smart Cities

Today (October 14) the High-level Group (HLG) of the Smart Cities and Communities (SCC) European Innovation Partnership (EIP) presented its Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) to the European Commission. Chemical innovation can provide a range of concrete solutions to the challenges of improving our urban built environment and infrastructure and enable the realization of the truly Smart Cities of tomorrow.

With about three-quarters of European citizens living in or around cities, it is essential that Europe gets this right. “We need more structured EU dialogue on how to balance the diversity and complexity of city requirements with the industrial needs for a broader market scale of integrated technological concepts, from the retrofitting of buildings to ICT-enabled buildings to create a European market of affordable solutions,” said Dr. Gernot Klotz, Executive Director for Research and Innovation at Cefic and a SusChem board member. “A potential 50 000 individual solutions for the needs of 50 000 individual cities is an unsustainable path. There is a clear need to bring cities together to enable industry to supply broader affordable solutions.”

Strategic plan
The Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) marks a major milestone achievement for the Smart Cities and Communities High-level Group. The group brings together cities, industries and stakeholders across Europe to discuss ways to improve the standardization of innovative new solutions for urban districts and to accelerate their deployment across European cities.

The meeting (above) was hosted by Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and statements were made by Commissioners Siim Kallas (Transport), Günther H. Oettinger (Energy) and Johannes Hahn (Regional Policy). The chemical industry is represented on this important policy group by Giorgio Squinzi, CEO of Maipei and recent past president of Cefic.

The SIP outlines eleven ambitious targets in three specific areas that are expected to contribute to the broader development of sustainable mobility, sustainable districts and built environments, and integrated infrastructures and processes across Energy, information and communication technologies (ICT) and Transport.

“We appreciate the efforts and the result of the High Level Group in having a strategic implementation plan delivered within six months, on an extremely diverse and complex topic such as the future of cities in Europe” continued Dr. Klotz.

Chemistry: concrete contributions
Chemistry lies at the very heart of the built environment in every city and provides the fundamental building blocks for ICT, Energy and Transport. For example, new advanced materials for housing such as smart coatings and insulations are making houses more energy efficient, while advanced light-weight materials and printed electronics for mobility are making cars more connected, safer and more energy efficient.

These applications are expected to make a significant contribution towards the EIP’s goals. It is hoped that the SIP proposals will be implemented in full to address the full scale of “smart” city enabling technologies and to prioritize the creation of jobs and growth in Europe.

The Chemical Industry is ready to engage longer-term in the work of the EIP and has offered five concrete solutions for Chemistry-based initiatives for energy efficiency in buildings, which were selected as top key innovation by city officials at the last Smart Cities and Communities Stakeholder Platform conference.

The five key chemistry-based products proposed by SusChem to help improve building efficiency and help reach the EU 20-20-20 targets are:

• High-reflectance indoor coatings
• High-reflectance and durable outdoor coatings
• High-performance insulation foams 
• High-performance vacuum insulation panels
• Phase-change materials (PCM)

These five key chemistry-based products have been adopted as a Key Innovation by the Smart Cities and Communities Stakeholder Platform. Combined these products can offer substantial energy savings of up to 40% at an acceptable investment.

“All these solutions are assessed for technical feasibility and impact. What remains is the real life testing of these technologies in European cities and the chemical Industry is ready for this next step,” said Dr. Klotz.

Urban opportunity 
This Smart Cities and Communities EIP offers a great opportunity to reduce the complexity of city requirements and creates a market pull along industrial value chains as well as accelerating the creation of jobs and growth in Europe.

“It is only by working together that we can bridge the innovation gaps and stimulate the convergence of industrial value chains in the Energy, Transport and ICT sectors to find and implement the best solutions for smart cities. This is Europe’s unique strength and competitive edge over other regions of the world” concluded Dr. Klotz.

The EIP still has to improve its potential by including manufacturing as well as services in order to stimulate innovation for a broader European economy. This can happen through creating market pull and improvement to the SIP by giving manufacturing a more prominent role.

A public launch event for the SIP is being planned for 26 November in Brussels that will outline European funding and business commitments.

This is just the beginning of a large scale programme of work by all the partners and many others. An important part of that work will be the "Lighthouse Projects" - cities which will demonstrate and deliver Smart City solutions on a large scale. These Projects will be partly financed by the European Commission's Horizon 2002 Research Funds. Further business and public funding will help to spread these new solutions to other cities and economies of scale will help to make these "innovative" and "high tech" solutions the norm and available more easily to all cities and neighbourhoods.

The Commission is expected to invest around €200 million to create Smart Cities projects in the next two years.

Smart Cities
The Smart Cities and Communities EIP (SCC) is a partnership across the areas of energy, transport, and ICT with the objective of catalyzing progress in areas where energy production, distribution and use; mobility and transport; and ICT are intimately linked and offer new interdisciplinary opportunities to improve services while reducing energy and resource consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) and other polluting emissions.

The HLG acts in an advisory role to the Commission and consists of senior representatives of industry, cities, civil society, relevant EU initiatives in this area and member s of the European Commission as members. The group is led by the three European Commissioners for Energy, Transport and the Digital Agenda.

For more information on SusChem activities in support of the Smart Cities and Communities initiative, or to discuss potential collaborations in this area, please contact SusChem Coordinator Jacques Komornicki at Cefic. The new SusChem report can be downloaded here.

CO2 is a Resource for the Future of Europe

The Second Conference on CO2 as Feedstock for Chemistry and Polymers took place in Essen, Germany on 7 – 9 October 2013. The conference discussed a new paradigm for industrial chemical production: the CO2 (carbon dioxide) economy with CO2 no longer seen as a waste product but increasingly as a renewable feedstock for chemicals, fuels or polymers. In the longer term new CO2 chemistry can enable artificial photosynthesis to produce chemical products from ambient CO2. This is an increasingly important area of interest for both SusChem and the SPIRE PPP.

Dr. Gernot Klotz, Executive Director for Research and Innovation at CEFIC (the European Chemical Industry Council) and Member of the SusChem Board, spoke in the opening panel of the conference, together with representatives of the National Energy Agency and of the German government, to describe the importance of CO2 as a potential renewable feedstock for the chemical industry in Europe.

Dr. Klotz stressed the need for a change in our mentality towards CO2: “Europe can no longer afford to look at CO2 as waste to be disposed of, for example by burying it underground, but we must recognize CO2 as a renewable source for the future.” CO2 as feedstock for chemistry can be used in many different ways, such as renewable energy storage and as an ingredient to make polymers and new materials.  The next step will be to make CO2 a key enabler for artificial photosynthesis via chemical processes.

Resource innovation

“Innovation is about change,” said Dr. Klotz. “If Europe wants to be competitive on the world scene it must urgently change its approach to innovation. Other regions of the world, such as the United States and Asia, are racing to develop a competitive economy based on renewable resources. CO2 is the only renewable resource Europe has in abundance, and can play a vital a role in ensuring Europe’s future as a competitive economy.”

“European countries must cooperate now to ensure that a broader vision for a CO2 economy in Europe is born and implemented. This would enable us to design and produce new, innovative technologies and products in the coming years and to immediately use its advantages by bringing together economy, goods, growth and social welfare.”

Dr. Klotz argued that this new approach requires all players in society to align to support the initiative. New European initiatives can create a space for a new mind-set for resources, efficiency and innovation in Europe, including new uses for CO2. For example, the Public Private Partnership for Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) aims to enable new technologies and best practices in important stages of existing, large-scale value chains that will contribute to a resource efficient process industry. CO2 could play a breakthrough role in this context.

Typically in the EU there are many efforts made to advance the innovative capacity of industry, but they are often fragmented. CEFIC has brought together all relevant stakeholders to jointly create a roadmap that will help Europe to achieve global leadership in innovation.

“If Europe aims to achieve global leadership in sustainable technologies together with jobs and growth the progress we make in the next 10 years will be of critical importance,” concluded Dr Klotz.

Dr. Klotz will also be speaking at a forthcoming conference on this topic at the end of October. The Carbon Dioxide Utilization Summit takes place from 30 to 31 October at the Hotel Marivaux Brussels and will feature the use of CO2 as a feedstock for fuels and chemicals.

More information
To get more information on the potential role of CO2 in the future of Europe’s economy, competitiveness and energy efficiency, please contact Dr Gernot Klotz, Executive Director for Research and Innovation at CEFIC, or Sophie Wilmet, Innovation Counsellor at CEFIC.

The SusChem Newsblog and Twitter feed (@suschem) uses the hashtag #useCO2 to highlight news and information on CO2 utilization technology and innovation that crosses our desk.

EU Week of Regions and Cities

The eleventh European Week of Regions and Cities is taking place this week (from 7 to 11 October) across Brussels. Jointly organised by the EU's Committee of the Regions and the European Commission’s DG for Regional and Urban Policy, the week highlights many areas of interest for SusChem – in particular Smart Cities and Mobility.

At the heart of European Week of Regions and Cities are the Open Days 2013 a series of events that takes place at venues around Brussels and feature examples of innovative initiatives to boost sustainability and competitiveness in regions and cities across the EU.

To coincide with the week a special issue of European Parliament Magazine’s Regional Review has been published with many articles focusing on regional policy from the Commission and parliamentary figures.

European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn has invited all regions and cities to use this year's event to "learn more about the priorities of the next phase of the structural and investment funds". He underlined the aim to "ensure that the EU invests in key areas of growth to stay competitive in an ever more globalised economy".

The chair of the European Parliament's Regional Development Committee, former regional policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, MEP, also called for the EU's regions to "be placed at the heart of the industrial renaissance process".

SusChem: innovation for growth
With the closer integration of structural and regional funds with research and innovation funding via Horizon 2020 it is clear that the opportunity for increased innovation –led growth in the EU regions will become a reality. And SusChem is willing to take a leading role in this exciting development.

In particular SusChem and the chemical sector have a portfolio of current and future solutions for the challenges of developing Smart Cities and the regeneration of the urban environment.

Coinciding with the EU Week of Regions and Cities our new website on Innovation-for-Growth has been launched. Within this website there are specific mini-sites on major societal challenges including Smart Cities for Europe and mobility.

The websites outline the challenges facing society in urban environments and regions and then describes the variety of solutions that chemistry and the chemical sector can or will be able to provide in the near future to boost EU citizen’s quality of life while also providing jobs and growth.

There is also a SusChem Smart Cities flier available.

More information
For more information on SusChem activities in the built environment take a look at the Innovation for Growth website or contact the SusChem secretariat.

BioBased Industries Initiative at EFIB 2013

The European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology 2013 (EFIB 2013) took place last week from 30 September to 2 October in Brussels and the SusChem inspired Bioeconomy PPP was centre stage. This sixth edition of EFIB, organised by SusChem founding partner EuropaBio, was by far the biggest yet and underlined the remarkable expansion of interest in industrial biotechnology across Europe and globally in recent years.

EFIB 2013 took place in The Square conference facility in central Brussels and was one of the highlights of European Biotech week. Over 600 delegates attended and an extensive biotech market place saw more than 45 exhibitors and 20 technology showcase presentations. And, of course, two whole days of conference sessions.

Biobased Initiative
The BioBased Industries Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) is seen as a major opportunity for European biobased industries and an essential element to achieve a sustainable chemical sector. The initiative is one of the new JTIs that will be established under Horizon 2020 and was explicitly mentioned in the Communication on the Industrial Innovation Package published in July.

The Biobased Industries JTI, previously known as the BRIDGE 2020 public-private-partnership (PPP) proposal, has the primary aim of developing new and competitive biobased value chains that can replace the need for fossil fuels and also have a strong impact on rural development in Europe.

A dedicated session on the BioBased Industries JTI at EFIB 2013 was chaired and introduced by Marcel Wubbolts of DSM and a SusChem board member (on left of photo below). He described a biobased market that could be as large €200 billion by 2020 with the potential to create one million new jobs in Europe on the same timescale.

The role of the JTI is to demonstrate the production of innovative and sustainable biobased chemicals and materials that would be made using locally sourced biomass. The JTI will examine five value chains with each using a flagship project to provide validation at at least demonstration level.

The Biobased Industries Consortium (BIC) is the body that will be tasked with establishing the JTI once the formal go-ahead is given by the European Commission. Membership of the BIC is growing with 48 full members (mostly industrial), 57 associate members (including research and technology organisations and universities), 8 EU trade or sector associations and 3 European Technology Platform members including SusChem.

Wubbolts explained that the BioBased Industries JTI was currently presenting its strategic innovation roadmap to Member States and preparing initial research and innovation calls. If all goes to plan, the JTI will formally start in 2014 with the first calls out in mid 2014 and initial projects commencing in Q3/ Q4 2014.

Perspectives
Barend Verachtert, acting Head of the Biotechnologies Unit at the European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation (in centre of photo) gave the Commission’s perspective on the Biobased Industries JTI declaring that: “Worldwide the bioeconomy race is on!”

But while third country investments had largely focused on food the EU focus was on integrated biorefineries – one of SusChem’s original visionary projects from 2004. The target was to produce at least 30% of EU chemicals from renewable sources by 2030, compared to around 10% today, Verachtert stated.

He also emphasised the strong regional potential for biobased industries and this raised a significant challenge to organise at both EU and national / regional level.


The BioBased Industries JTI was needed as a catalyser to create new value chains involving cross-sectorial collaborations between previously unrelated sectors. Verachtert highlighted the need for large-scale demonstration facilities and activities to help market uptake of biobased innovations and the notion of establishing a circular economy where waste (for example from agriculture) was transformed into value (such as chemical products).

He also was hopeful of final decisions on the JTI before end of 2013. Horizon 2020 should be officially adopted 10 December and this will allow the BioBased Industries JTI to start for real on 1 January 2014.

The view of a Member State was given by Jose Manuel Gonzalez of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (on right in photo). He indicated that the JTI was extremely well aligned with Spanish national biorefinery objectives: a sector with huge industrial potential.

In a question and answer session Marcel Wubbolts reiterated that the Consortium was looking for the JTI to be realised as soon as possible. But at the same time there was a need to manage the portfolio of proposed projects to ensure synergy and maximum impact.

BIC information
For more information on the BioBased Industries JTI visit the website or contact the BioBased Industries Consortium secretariat.

Sustainable Chemistry Vital for Raw Material Strategy Success

On 26 September 2013, the High Level Steering Group of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials issued its Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) describing how the European Union can act to ensure a sustainable supply of critical raw materials to Europe and make the EU a world leader in raw materials exploration, extraction, processing, recycling and substitution by 2020. 

From the very beginning, SusChem and Cefic have been closely engaged in the preparation of the EIP and the SIP, and the chemical sector has a clear role to play in ensuring the success of Europe’s Raw Materials strategy.

The SIP outlines detailed actions which the parties involved (EU member states, companies, researchers and NGOs) can use to enable technological and non-technological innovation in the raw materials value chain, both in Europe and in the international arena.

These actions include a wide range of initiatives such as new cost-effective exploration concepts and technologies, better recovery and recycling of demolition waste and finding substitutes for critical raw materials such as the indium used, for example, in touch screen technologies.

European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani (left), responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship, is leader of the High Level Steering Group and commented:

"Innovation in raw materials – be it in mining, processing, recycling, or substitution – holds the key to future growth and jobs. With today's proposal we underline that Europe is capable of addressing these important challenges, drawing on our innovative EU research capabilities, as bolstered by Horizon 2020. This will help our industry both create jobs and protect the environment."


Chemical sector
The Chemical industry welcomes the reference in the SIP to some critical raw material of particular interest for the sector, such as phosphate ore and olefins, which could have significant impact on the economics of competitiveness along the whole value chain.

The chemical sector is one of the identified mega-sectors in the European industrial landscape with a large impact in the value chain. The sector’s competitiveness relies on the availability of competitive raw materials for the production of chemical products that are used later in the production of cars, buildings, packaging materials, electric and electronic equipment, photovoltaic cells, and many others.

“There are a very large number of opportunities for cooperation with other sectors included in the EIP,” says Antonia Morales- Perez (right), Innovation Manager at Cefic and SusChem’s coordinator for raw materials work. “Raw material sectors such as minerals and metals, wood and natural rubber, are where the chemical sector can contribute with new technologies and products to improve the performance of activities such as extraction, processing/refining and recycling while reducing the environmental impact."

The future solutions to the current challenges in this area will clearly come out of collaboration between different sectors using their resources and synergies in the most efficient way.

Substitute
The second technology pillar of the EIP, Substitution of critical and scarce raw materials, opens opportunities for new materials development where, again, the chemical sector can be a key player.

“New materials for applications where the currently used critical raw materials can be substituted will have a double benefit,” explains Antonia. “First substitution will reduce the dependency on critical raw materials for these applications and, in consequence, release availability of the critical raw materials for other applications where substitution is not technically or economically possible.”

The FP7 project CRM-InnoNet (in which Cefic is a partner) will identify and prioritise which are the critical raw materials and the applications that can be more feasibly substituted. The focus for the project is mainly in the Energy, Transport and ICT sectors, but other applications such as catalysis are also being analysed.

“The scope of this project links directly to the second pillar of the EIP,” says Antonia.

The chemical sector also welcomes the SIP objectives to revise selected legislation and policy dialogues, these will help to remove barriers to innovation and support the competitiveness of the European industry.

Cefic has also been invited to participate in the Ad-hoc Group that will be revising the EU’s list of critical raw materials. The new version of the list should be published during the first quarter of 2014.

Get involved
A public Call for Commitments to be issued at the end of October 2013 will allow all potential stakeholders to express their intention to contribute to the implementation of the SIP. A Communication will follow in 2014, to explain how the European Commission, Member States, industry and academia intend to implement the SIP.

SusChem stakeholders that are interested in participating are invited to contact Antonia for more information and to coordinate input to SIP implementation.

Concrete
Concrete targets of the SIP include the launch of up to ten pilot projects to promote technologies for the production of primary and secondary raw materials, to find substitutes for at least three applications of critical and scarce raw materials as well as to create better framework conditions for raw materials in Europe. The SIP also lists actions to improve Europe's waste management framework conditions and excellence, and to reinforce EU knowledge, skills and raw materials flows; by developing an EU Raw Materials Knowledge Base and potentially setting up a European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC).

It is important that we move from today’s linear economy, where we mine, manufacture, use and throw away, towards a more "circular economy", where one industry's waste becomes another's raw material. The EIP will play an important role in achieving this transition.

SPIRE Brokerage and SusChem Survey

There are only a few places left for the SusChem Pre-Brokerage event taking place on 23 October in Brussels - so register fast to secure your place with SusChem at the Horizon 2020 table! If you are already registered you are invited to take part in a brief survey of research and innovation interests that will inform the meeting. Just prior to the SusChem event SPIRE will also be holding a brokerage event for members of the A.SPIRE consortium.

With registrations close to capacity, the 2013 SusChem Pre-Brokerage Horizon 2020 event already looks like being a great success. And the draft agenda has just been published.

The meeting kicks off from 9:00 at the Crowne Plaza Le Palace, Rue Gineste 3 in Brussels. Jacques Komornicki, SusChem Programme Manager at Cefic, will be the Master of Ceremonies for the day. Delegates will first get to hear the latest SusChem-relevant news on the first Horizon 2020 programme calls from Soren Bowadt of the EuropeanCommission's DG Research and Innovation.

Survey
This will be followed by an overview of the results of SusChem's survey of delegate intentions and areas of interest in Horizon 2020 from Jacques Komornicki.

This survey has just been launched by SusChem and is open to all registered participants for the Brokerage event.The survey, also known as the Expression of Interest Form, will be used to arrange the on-site 'speed dating' between stakeholders with similar interests. The survey should only take delegates around three minutes or less to complete and will help make the most of your Brokerage day. And the sooner participants complete it the better!

You can find the survey form here.

An explanation of the brokerage process and the various activities open to delegates throughout the day will then be given by experts from PNO. From thereon its over to the delegates who will be able to present their project ideas and start the process of finding the right collaborators to form a winning project team for Horizon 2020.

Following a hectic day of brokerage and discovering new ideas and project partners, delegates will end the day with more relaxed networking at the closing early evening cocktail session.

A.SPIRE Cocktail and Brokerage

A.SPIRE - the multi-sector industrial consortium behind the proposed SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency) Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) - will also be holding its first preparative event for the first calls of Horizon 2020 the day before the SusChem event. The A.SPIRE first Brokerage Event ‘Preparation for Horizon 2020’ will take place on 22 October also at the Crowne Plaza - Le Palace hotel.

The A.SPIRE Brokerage event will be an unique opportunity for the SPIRE community to learn the latest information about the 2014-2015 Horizon 2020 work programmes and calls to be announced in December or early 2014, to express their research interests and start creating partnerships by discussing potential project ideas.

An overview of the way ahead for SPIRE will be given by SusChem and A.SPIRE Chairman Dr. Klaus Sommer. There will also be presentations and discussions on project concepts related to the SPIRE roadmap in key components: Waste, Feed, Process and Applications.

The Brokerage Event will be opened by a cocktail and a networking event on the evening of 21 October at the Crowne Plaza – Le Palace hotel.

Participation in the A.SPIRE Brokerage Event is limited to the members of the A.SPIRE consortium. New members are welcome to join A.SPIRE at any time. You can find more information on how to get involved with here.

More information
For more information on the SusChem Pre-Brokerage event and our activities around strategic research and innovation in sustainable chemistry for Europe, please contact the SusChem secretariat.

For more information on SPIRE and A.SPIRE activities contact the SPIRE secretariat.