Choose LIFE!

Apply now for LIFE Funding! The LIFE programme is the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action. LIFE contributes to the implementation, updating and development of EU environmental and climate policy and laws by co-financing projects with European added value. Since its creation in 1992, LIFE has been through a number of different funding periods. The current funding period 2014-2020 has a budget of EUR 3.4 billion and the 2019 LIFE Call for project proposals will be launched at the beginning of April and published on the LIFE Calls website.

To help potential project partners to prepare for the 2019 call the European Commission is organising an Information & Networking Day on the 2019 LIFE call for project proposals on 30 April in Brussels - #EULife19 - at the Charlemagne Building. The event is open to potential applicants presenting project proposals on green technology, nature protection and climate action and registration is open now.

Participants will be invited to a morning information session on the 2019 LIFE call, covering the significant changes to the programme compared to previous years.

The afternoon will be dedicated to networking with fellow participants to share experience, match with potential new partners and meet representatives of the LIFE programme from the European Commission.

The main topics in the 2019 call will cover:

• Environmental technologies and solutions including water, waste, air quality, soil, forest, health
• Climate change adaptation
• Climate change mitigation
• Nature conservation and biodiversity
• Climate and environmental governance and information initiatives

The agenda

The #EULife19 event will open with a review of the policy drivers of the LIFE programme led by Julien Guerrier, Director of EASME (the European Commission's Executive Agency for SMEs) before the 2019 programme call for action grants: priorities and novelties will be outlined.

There will be an opportunity for questions on the programme calls before a session on tips for a successful application.

After lunch an afternoon of  networking  and consortium building is foreseen with participants interested in applying for LIFE funding having the chance to find potential project partners or seek advice from EASME experts and National Contact Points in one-to-one meetings.

Why should you participate?

• To find and meet potential partners for your next LIFE project
• Take the chance to meet experts from the EASME)
• To get advice from LIFE National Contact Points

Register now! Registration is open until 25 April 2019.

Save the date: 14 September for Societal Challenge 5 InfoDay

On 14 September 2016 the European Commission is holding an Information Day and Brokerage event covering the 2017 calls for proposals in Horizon 2020's Societal Challenge 5: ‘Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials’ in Brussels. The actual call will be launched in autumn 2016.

Societal challenge 5 is a key area of interest for SusChem and features in the SusChem Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda. Interested stakeholders from the research community, businesses and public administration are invited to register as soon as possible for this briefing in Brussels and to start consortium building.

A draft agenda for the meeting is available. The event takes place in the European Commission's Charlemagne building at rue de la Loi 170, Brussels and you can register here.

The event will open with two plenary sessions: the first introducing Societal Challenge 5 on Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials followed by a session on effective proposal submission; and the second session covers open data and risk management issues.

This will be followed by parallel sessions covering the following topic areas:

• Nature-based solutions & Cultural heritage for sustainable growth
• Climate services and decarbonisation, The Arctic dimension and earth observation
• Raw Materials
• Circular economy

A full list of call topics for Societal Challenge 5 for 2017 can be found here.

In the afternoon there will be an extended brokerage and matchmaking session.

Live webcast
If you can’t make it to Brussels on 14 September the morning plenary sessions and the parallel sessions will be webcast live (links available nearer the event) and after the event video recordings with sound and integrated slide presentations will be made available online too.

For more information contact the event organisers.

Gaseous Industrial Effluents and Industrial Symbiosis

The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) has launched an invitation to tender for the extension of the services of the European Sustainable Chemicals Support Service (ESCSS) to additional Model Demonstrator Regions. This phase 2 of the ESCSS will have a special emphasis on facilitating the recovery of Gaseous Industrial Effluents (GIEs) as non-fossil feedstock for sustainable chemicals production. 


This Phase 2 of the ESCSS follows up on Phase 1 launched in February 2016. This extension of the services of the ESCSS will focus on how recovery of GIEs as an alternative to fossil feedstock can be best exploited to produce sustainable chemical products.

The GIEs of interest for the extension are gases originating in combustion and exothermic process as effluent gas from energy intensive industries, such as steel or cement, and could include CO, CO2, NOX, SO2, H2 and others.

Phase 1 aimed to help regions establish and further develop sound strategies towards sustainable chemical production in Europe by taking advantage of domestically available feedstock, such as biomass, waste or CO2. The experiences from this initiative will be shared with other interested European regions to provide practical guidance on how to strengthen cross-sectorial cooperation between chemical industries and other industries and sectors, notably, agriculture, forestry, energy intensive industries, waste management and recycling, and can help many regions in Europe to move towards a circular and low-carbon economy by using renewable resources for chemicals production.

Six "Model Demonstrator Regions" were selected following the Call: Andalusia, Groningen-Drenthe, Kosice, Scotland, South and Eastern Ireland, and Wallonia.

Phase two
This Phase 2 aims to deepen the support services provided by the ESCSS. Special emphasis will be laid on the use of various GIEs as a potential feedstock for the manufacturing of sustainable chemicals in Europe for the following reasons:

• GIEs are the least developed alternative feedstock. Relatively little information exists about the economic potential of transforming GIEs into chemicals and about the impact on CO2 and other Green House Gases (GHGs) reductions
• The recovery of GIEs as an alternative feedstock for chemicals production requires new forms of cross-sectorial cooperation - industrial symbiosis - that are very different from the use of biomass or the recovery of waste. 

At policy level, there is relatively little awareness about the potential of GIEs recovery and how to support the new forms of cross-sectorial cooperation that is needed to better exploit it.

The use of GIEs is challenging because of the need for a deeper integration of different industrial activities leading to industrial symbiosis. Industrial symbiosis will facilitate investments, in particular in resource efficiency, circular economy and energy infrastructure.

Recovery of GIEs is also a challenge in terms of ecological and economic viability; there is therefore a need for deeper reflection on this issue, taking into account policy objectives, such as, strengthening Europe's industrial base, ensuring the security of feedstock supply and further implementation of European policies related to climate change.

Potential IPCEI
In addition the Commission is supporting the elaboration of a potential Important Project of Common European interest (IPCEI), which engages major players from several Member States and companies from various industry sectors to speed up the transformation of CO2 into value for a rejuvenated European economy and to gain global technology leadership in clean technologies.

This potential IPCEI will be designed as a transnational integrated project across public and private sectors that can propel Europe to global leadership in the transformation of CO2 into value-added products and services. The Commission has already hosted a workshop as well as informal meetings with Member States and industrial stakeholders involved in the elaboration of this IPCEI project. The results from this discussion are being used by the Commission to develop new ideas on how to further promote the concept of the circular economy in the specific field of GIEs.

The overall objective of ESCSS Phase 2 is to prepare a road map that aims at valorising the concept of recovery of GIEs in Europe as alternative to fossil feedstock to produce sustainable chemicals. This will also contribute to the industrial policy objective of modernising EU manufacturing industries and enabling industrial symbiosis in Europe, and further implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan.