KETs Impact: CO2 as a raw material – The Carbon4PUR Project

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our third highlighted success story features the use of CO2 as an alternative feedstock for the chemical industry. The article highlights a number of projects undertaken by Covestro with German government funding and European projects enCO2re, funded by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), and the SPIRE Horizon 2020 project Carbon4PUR that looks to turn industrial waste gases (mixed CO/CO2 streams) from energy intensive steel mills into intermediates for polyurethane plastics used for rigid foams, building insulation, coatings and other consumer products.

Carbon dioxide as a raw material for plastics

Innovative process technology reduces petroleum use

Availability of combined public funding appears crucial to mitigate the high risk of early research and complement own expertise with partnerships along the value chain.

Covestro has been working for many years on the development of technologies to turn CO2 into a valuable resource and for its implementation in making polymers. This “waste” gas is an alternative source of carbon and can substitute fossil raw materials and be used to make building blocks for polyols – a key starting material for polyurethanes. The first breakthrough came when Covestro’s researchers discovered the right catalyst and process for an economically and ecologically efficient reaction. As a first product stemming from the newly developed technology, CO2-based polyols for flexible foam found in mattresses and upholstered furniture are already on the market. Other kinds of products for further applications are under development – for example to obtain chemical building blocks and polymer intermediates for rigid foams and coatings to be applied in building insulation and coatings. The new technology, currently under investigation, is expected to reach Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 by 2020. The next step, after 2022, might be building an industrial plant for the production of CO2-based chemicals at large scale.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved?

Partnerships between research-based companies and application-oriented research organisations along the value chain are the key to success. With a portfolio of collaboration projects, expertise can be built up starting from low TRL levels. At Covestro, first samples of CO2-based polyols were produced on a mini-plant scale after only three years. Five years later, a demonstration plant with the capacity of 5,000 metric tons/year went on stream. To reach high impact, private investments have been complemented by public funding obtained from both German national sources and EU funds. 

Impact

With the new technology, the use of petroleum can already be reduced by up to 20% in the case of CO2-based foams and 25% in case of elastomers. Also, the carbon footprint is better than with conventional processes. In the latest project, substantial reduction of process energy consumption is also expected by as much as 70%. This is an important contribution to sustainability and achieving the circular economy and helps to close the CO2 loop. 

More information
Carbon4PUR - Turning industrial waste gases (mixed CO/CO2 streams) into intermediates for polyurethane plastics for rigid foams/building insulation and coatings (Horizon 2020/ SPIRE GA 768919)

enCO2re flagship project CroCO2PETs (Climate-KIC / European Institute of Innovation and Technology)

r+impuls Production Dreams (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research FKZ 033R150)

CO2Plus Dream Resource (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research FKZ 033RC002)

MatRessource Dream Polyols (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research FKZ 03XP0052)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

Commission launches public survey on Horizon 2020

The European Commission is inviting researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators to share their views on the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme via a new public consultation launched today (20 October). The public survey will run until mid-January 2017 and there is also a separate consultation on Euratom, the nuclear research and training programme funded under Horizon 2020. In addition some early hints on the orientation for the next EU research and innovation programme have been made.

The consultation, which should take no more than 20 minutes to complete, is part of a broad Commission initiative on the Horizon 2020 mid-term review that will evaluate the achievements of the €72 billion, seven-year Horizon 2020 programme so far and recommend any “course corrections” that could increase its impact through the last calls.

The results of the consultation will also feed into planning for Horizon 2020’s successor programme (aka ‘FP9’) for 2021 and beyond. The Commission will publish a summary of views from the consultation by mid-2017.

The Commission is also gathering views on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology until 20 November and a consultation on public-public and public-private partnerships under Horizon 2020 will also be launched in the near future.

Bohemia for FP9
The European Commission has launched the Bohemia Study, a foresight exercise aiming to ensure the next EU research programme (FP9) is equal to the challenges of the 2030s. The study taskforce will consult with stakeholders and sketch out which emerging technologies and new fields of research should be funded.

“We have asked experts to do a stock take of the different foresight studies by the likes of the OECD and the World Bank,” Robert Jan-Smits, Director-General for Research at the European Commission last week.

The foresight exercise, which will be completed in the second part of 2017 is led by Matthias Weber of the Austrian Institute of Technology. The group has started to work on two scenarios, which are based on a “broad review” of forward-looking reports and analyses.  One scenario sees Europe and its research and innovation investment as one of the key global drivers of change in climate and energy policy, urbanisation, digital healthcare and disease prevention, and security and resilience, while the second scenario is slightly more pessimistic tone and foresees the “perseverance” of current trends and the intensification of existing challenges.

The Commission’s foresight exercise will look at how key individual sectors will evolve by 2030, to identify potential and challenges ahead. These sectors include healthcare, mobility, energy, and controversially the future of security and defence. One cross-cutting area for focus could be autonomous systems.

Wanted: Ideas for re-using CO2

The Climate-KIC flagship programme EnCO2re (Enabling CO2 re-use) working for sustainable production and circular economy has launched its first open call for proposals to the public. This call is aimed at projects that will begin in September (or earlier) and produce meaningful results within 2016. The selection process is two part, but to take part you need to be quick as the first submission deadline is 27 May.

EnCO2re will add new workstreams in the second half of 2016 and is looking for:

• Projects related to any element of the CO2 value chain, from capture to conversion, and logistics
• Organisations that bring industrial and/or start-up perspectives with pathways to commercialisation
• Technologies and demonstrations for CO2-based products, especially intermediates and polymers
• Business-model innovations that support the development of a CO2 re-use value chain
• Other innovations, including incentives, that advance progress toward large-scale re-use of CO2

Two phase
The call is structured in two phases. The first phase requests a short Expression of Interest using a common template by 27 May.  In the EnCO2re Call profile you can find more details on the call.  You will find some help and guidelines for completing the EoI here.  Successful ideas that meet the call interests and requirements will be invited soon after 10 June to submit a full proposal by 1 July.

Because the programme is an open innovation programme and would like to be as inclusive as possible, all parties interested in joining enCO2re are urged to submit an EoI, even if they do not have a project that can begin in 2016.  All submissions should be emailed to Ted Grozier at Climate-KIC.

About EnCO2re
EnCO2re is an innovation and market development programme for CO2 re-use. Their vision is a balanced and prosperous market for re-used CO2, beginning with a focus on polymers and chemical intermediates. Their ambition is large-scale CO2 re-use through the establishment of a CO2 value chain.

EnCO2re was co-initiated by Climate-KIC and industry partner Covestro, forming a consortium of 12 European partners from industry and research sectors. The programme has a comprehensive approach towards CO2 re-use and comprises activities in technology development, product development, technology acceptance, ecological assessments and market development.

EnCO2re is pronounced like the French word encore, meaning “again,” in reference to the re-use of CO2 the programme aims to enable.

The initial open innovation consortium consists of 12 European partners: Bayer Technology Services, Chalmers University of Technology, Covestro, Imperial College London, Johanneberg Science Park, Engie Labs, Mines ParisTech, RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, TU Delft, University of Copenhagen and Wuppertal Institut.

MATCH for Materials

The latest newsletter of the MATCH Horizon 2020 project has been published.  The MATCH project was initiated to strengthen and deepen the Alliance4Materials strategy by building a broader stakeholder network. The project is coordinated by Italian Centro Sviluppo Materiali and the consortium consists of 18 partners from nine countries representing the six related European Technology Platforms (including SusChem) and several major European material research organisations.

This second issue of the newsletter highlights some recent European materials research and innovation news including features on research group activities, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Raw Materials initiative, and events. You can download and subscribe to the MATCH newsletter here.

Material foundation
The European Commission has set the ambitious goal to re-industrialise Europe and to raise industry's share of the GDP to 20% by 2020. Innovation in cross-cutting applications of advanced materials, including in the transportation, health care, energy and consumer goods sectors, provides an opportunity for Europe to reindustrialise and secure jobs. One of the key objectives of MATCH is to enable the connections between the scientific creativity represented by academia and European enterprises focusing on market needs.

Another important objective of MATCH is to promote the alignment of national and European materials research policies and funding. MATCH has the goal of creating a single interactive and informative platform for the international materials research community.

MATCH is pushing for the creation of a strong, sustainable, inclusive network where any European Materials players, whether from Industry, Research or academia, can feel comfortable and gain real value for their interests and expectations in respect of materials research, development and innovation. The MATCH partnership promotes the integration of concerted and strategic challenges of national, regional and European needs in the field.

Material targets 
MATCH focuses on four main targets, crucial for the promotion of European sustainable development and innovation actions. These are:

• The enlargement and improvement of the Materials network at EU level
• The multidisciplinary connection of Materials to a large number of fields relevant for European growth and where concerted management actions are needed
• The integration with existing and/or promotion of new Materials networks at National and Inter/Regional levels
• The integration of EU and national and regional networks in sustainable and effectively aligned network hubs

Through the MATCH project all organisations interested in materials research in Europe will have a single reference network through which to obtain information, contacts and guidance in an efficient and transparent way. Established and well-connected material research stakeholders will be able to intensify their activities and extend their collaborative activities at European level, realising the A4M concept for the “The Materials Common House”.

The project started in January 2015 and will continue for 30 months until June 2017. MATCH is funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It follows on from the previous Alliance4Materials initiative, the MatVal project, in which SusChem was also an active partner.

Innovation in Raw Materials Policies, Technologies and Strategies

The availability of raw materials and their sustainable use is of increasing concern in Europe and globally and is a significant focus for research and innovation activity. Cefic, together with ERRIN and the East & North Finland EU Office, is organising a seminar and brokerage event in Brussels on 22 October at Norway House to discuss and demonstrate how European Regions and the Chemical Industry can work together to address the challenges in this area.

With around 30 million EU jobs depending on the availability of raw materials, there is a need to bring innovation and new ideas into the sector in terms of policy initiatives such as the future Raw Materials Knowledge Innovation Community (KIC), the European Innovation Platform (EIP) on Raw Materials, and the SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industries through Resource and Energy Efficiency) PPP.

The supply and use of our raw materials must be smarter and more sustainable and, with recent increased attention on the concept of a truly circular economy, must be able to keep added value in products for as long as possible and work towards the elimination of waste.

The transition to a more circular economy requires changes throughout our value chains but also regional commitments - many of which are linked to smart specialisation strategies. This workshop will be an opportunity to get an excellent overview of EU policy and industry perspectives and how these perspectives are being implemented at the regional level.

The 22 October workshop will also be an excellent opportunity to network and to find collaborative partners for future Horizon 2020 calls in this topic. Registration is for the workshop is open now!

For more information on the workshop, please contact Antonia Morales at Cefic.

Material partners
In addition to Cefic the workshop is being organised by ERRIN and the East & North Finland EU Office.

Founded in 2001, ERRIN is a Brussels-based platform of Research and Innovation Organisations and Stakeholders based in the European regions. ERRIN aims to strengthen regional Research and Innovation capacities by exchanging information, sharing best practice, supporting European project development, helping to shape policy and raising its profile by working together for a partnership-based approach. ERRIN helps regions get their voice heard in Brussels!

The East & North Finland EU Office represents several regions of Finland in Brussels with a focus on regional policy, research, development and innovation policies, transport and energy policies, external relations, demographic challenges, industrial policies and international co-operation between the regions.

#SusChem10 Day 2: Sustainable Chemistry defining the Next Decade

The second day of SusChem's 12th Stakeholder Event was packed with presentations and discussions on a variety of new opportunities for sustainable chemistry research and innovation ranging from the new ability to combine funding available through European Union initiatives to the challenges for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enable increased energy and resource efficiency in the chemical and wider process industries. The afternoon brokerage session saw project presentations and 'speed-dating' as SusChem stakeholders looked to initiate collaborative contributions to the next round of Horizon 2020 calls and kick-off the next 10 years of SusChem success!

In his concluding remarks Chairman of the SusChem board, Dr. Klaus Sommer summed up the first decade of SusChem saying that: "When we started SusChem we had a lot of ground work to cover, but we  were successful in establishing SusChem as a voice to be taken seriously."

He praised SusChem's achievements including its three flagship projects under FP7 and its significant contributions to establish two PPPs - the SPIRE PPP and the BBI JTI - under Horizon 2020. Today the platform is working broadly with a number of other relevant European initiatives, such as the European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs), and is renewing its strategic plans via a new Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA) that reflects the new needs and challenges following the start of Horizon 2020, SPIRE and BBI.

Dr Sommer stressed that SusChem needed to be more proactive about communicating the benefits of sustainable chemistry and its beneficial impact for society. "The chemical industry represents some 11% of all the economy in Europe – essentially nothing works without chemistry," he said.

SusChem needed to fight continuously to ensure that the competitiveness of the European chemical and biotech industry is not weakened and must continue to drive SusChem strategy, develop our national technology platform network to establish an excellent strategy that can really improve European competitiveness. "Lets start the success for the next 10 years now!" he concluded.

Combined funding
The morning had started with a panel discussion on new innovation opportunities through combined funding. Doris Schroecker of DG Research (below, second left) described the new innovation investment eco-system in the EU that was aiming to help achieve a full and sustainable recovery and new growth for the European economy. She recognised that the chemical industry was a sector that is innovative and invests. Her emphasis was on funding instruments under Horizon 2020 but she also stressed the opportunities for synergies with structural funds for investment projects.

The synergy aspect was reinforced by Heidi Moens of DG Enterprise and Industry (above far left) who described the practicalities of combined funding. For work in key enabling technologies the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) were now that are funded to the tune of € 110 billion and the general idea was to provide funding instruments that can cover all stages of the innovation chain with optimal use of resources.

There were two main principles to combining funding:

• No substitution, i.e. the funding could not act as a substitute for national or private contributions to Horizon 2020
• No double financing, i.e. no two EU funding instruments could cover the same cost item.

A new guide on the practicalities of combining funding would be published by the Commission in the very near future.

Olivier Debande (second right above) of the European Investment Bank (EIB) described its role in financing innovation.The EIB had recently received a boost to its loan capital to € 71 billion and a new toolbox of instruments for investment in innovation (InnovFin) was to being launched today (12 June).

Thomas Goergen (far right above) from Bayer Technology Services gave a couple of practical examples of projects that had benefited from combined funding including the F3 Factory project where the project itself was funded via FP7 while the construction of its backbone infrastructure facility (INVITE) was partially funded by German regional government funds.

The key was to produce a 'Master Plan' for funding that showed how different funding sources were to be used to ensure transparency and avoid double funding.

Future Technologies
Ales Fiala of DG CONNECT (below) described the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) component of Horizon 2020 which covered some 3.5% of the Horizon 2020 budget under the Excellent Science theme.

FET was about visionary ideas, emerging concepts, and building new communities and under Horizon 2020 it had a new mandate that goes beyond ICT to bridge from excellent science to exciting technology futures and turn the EU into the best place for dynamic ideas.

FET has three elements:

• FET Open - for early ideas, bottom up projects on novel ideas for radical new technologies
• FET Proactive - involving a top-down process with topics specified by development communities and focusing on emerging innovation themes and communities. These has two strategic objectives: coordinated exploration of directions to build a pool of knowledge and new research alliances.
• FET Flagships – large-scale programmes on grand challenges that were long term (10 year). For example the Graphene Flagship with a focus on moving from academic laboratories to establishing a European 'graphene' industry.

Education and ICT

After coffee two parallel sessions took place. The 'Integrating Higher Education, Business and Research for Sustainable Chemistry Innovation: EIT’s next steps' session (below) looked at the role of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology  (EIT) Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) . KICs are seen as an ideal way of involving SMEs in collaborative innovation. A new KIC on Advanced Manufacturing will be launched soon and the Climate Change KIC is supporting some CO2 utilisation projects that are of great interest to SusChem and SPIRE.

KICs had a very useful role in shaping the workforce of tomorrow and enabling industry to interface with education. They were a very flexible funding format.

The second session on 'ICT in Chemical Processing' (see below) also produced a "vivid discussion" and yielded the message that "data will be the new oil".

ICT is already essential for advanced process control in industry and will become even more important in the future as an enabler for improvements resource and energy efficiency. It is therefore very important that the sustainable chemistry community can articulate its needs, knowledge gaps and challenges to guide research and development in this area. There was a clear window of opportunity for chemical process issues to be addressed in DG CONNECT.

Feedback from the two parallel sessions was relayed by rapporteurs Rodney Townsend (KIC-EIT, centre below) of RSC and Andreas Foerster of Dechema (ICT, right below) before SusChem chairman Klaus Sommer concluded the main proceedings and thanked the organising team.

Towards the next 10 years
Dr Sommer (below)  picked up a number of points from the two days of discussion in his concluding remarks including the need for incorporating ICT issues into the SusChem SIRA and helping to integrate the farming and forestry sectors with the bioindustry – here he thought joint BBB - SPIRE projects would be very useful.

Many of the challenges, for example in chemical energy storage, needed to be demonstrated practically at large scale not just in the laboratory and he also welcomed the ideas for greater coordination between classic chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry in formulation sciences.

Brokerage bonanza
After lunch the Horizon 2020 Brokerage session was kicked off by a presentation by Soren Bowadt of DG Research and Innovation (below). Soren focused on the experienced gained from the results of the first calls for SPIRE PPP, which had been some of the first to be evaluated under the new European Commission programme.

The success rate for the first SPIRE calls had been 16% success rate and he anticipated a similar rate for future calls.The call had resulted in a main list of 11 projects worth € 58.4 million and a reserve list of six projects worth € 39.1 million.

He emphasised that the calls under Horizon 2020 are challenge based with a strong focus on innovation outcomes and the potential emphasis of the results. Including an outline business in a proposal was important to demonstrate impact - and this could include ideas for further funding under ESIF etc. It was also to respect the TRL level of the call and to demonstrate the credibility of all collaborative partners.

For various reasons the deadline for 2015 calls was likely to move backwards from mid December 2014 to early February 2015. This would be announced officially once the Horizon 2020 Work Programme had been adapted to reflect the change.

The Brokerage presentations were split into two parallel sessions covering waste and/ or side-stream valourisation (10 project presentations) and Materials and Processes for Improved Capacities (9 project presentations). In addition six groups presented their ideas and capabilities via a poster session during the speed-dating session.

Climate-KIC unveils four new climate change innovation programmes

Today (15 May) the Climate-KIC, the European Union’s main climate innovation initiative, has announced €100+ million funding for long-term programmes aimed at fighting the climate change challenge. At least two of these new programmes will be of interest to SusChem stakeholders.

The four new flagship pan-European innovation programmes will accelerate efforts in climate change mitigation and adaptation and will be supported by a combination of Climate-KIC, partner and external sources of funding to the tune of more than €100 million over the next four years. The programmes will start this year.

The new innovation programmes will incorporate a range of pioneering research, innovation and entrepreneurship in diverse technology sectors including:

• Sustainable urban environments
• Climate-friendly homes and offices
• Exploiting CO2 as a resource
• Catastrophe models for the finance industry

Mary Ritter, Climate-KIC Chief Executive Officer, said: “These new flagship initiatives will provide focus and impact for Climate-KIC’s approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation. These innovation programmes enable us to expand our work with climate experts, educators and innovative entrepreneurs across Europe to address climate change mitigation and adaptation – and shape the world’s next economy.”

The four programmes were announced at the European Business Summit in Brussels.

Exploiting CO2 as a resource
Under the leadership of Bayer MaterialScience, the enCO2re programme will further broaden the approach for CO2 re-utilisation, connecting technology leaders as well as leading European universities and institutes in order to leverage a broad utilisation of CO2 as feedstock for chemical value chains. Bayer MaterialScience has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of utilising CO2 as polymer feedstock and the news on this new project came on the same day as Bayer announced plans for an industrial scale plant producing CO2-based polyols in Europe.

Following a successful test phase and promising market analysis, Bayer MaterialScience plans to invest € 15 million in the construction of a production line at its Dormagen site to use CO2 to produce a precursor for premium polyurethane foam. The line will have an annual production capacity of 5,000 metric tons. The objective of the “Dream Production” project is to launch the first product on the market in 2016. Processors of polyols and polyurethanes have already expressed considerable interest.

#useCO2
Within the new enCO2re programme turning CO2 into high-value products, as well as evaluating the required infrastructure, will contribute to further decoupling energy and resource consumption from industrial growth a major objective of SusChem and the SPIRE2030 PPP.

Christoph Sievering, Head of Strategic Energy Management, Bayer MaterialScience commented: “Bayer believes in the potential of industrial symbiosis and open innovation. Climate-KIC offers a unique umbrella for further leveraging our ambitions to turn value chains into closed carbon cycles. The Climate-KIC enCO2re flagship is an industry initiative for enabling CO2 re-use. Climate-KIC drives innovation by connecting industry and technology leaders and convinced us with its three-pillar concept of innovation support, educational programmes and start-up acceleration.”

Other Partners of the enCO2re project include: Imperial College London, Delft University of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, Laborelec, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, RWTH Aachen, GDF Suez, TU Berlin, and AkzoNobel.

Climate-friendly homes and offices
The Building Technologies Accelerator will bring together multidisciplinary ‘living lab’ teams across Europe to address the climate impact of new building technologies and accelerate the potential of low carbon products and services in the built environment. By the end of 2014, a range of new prototype technologies will be ready to be launched across Europe’s building sector.

Last year SusChem published a report on Key Innovations in Energy Efficiency in Buildings for Smart Cities that could contribute here and other sustainable chemistry contributions to improved resource and energy efficiency can be found at the Cefic-SusChem Smart Cities website.

Partners for the Building Technologies Accelerator include: Delft University of Technology; ETH Zurich; EMPA; Chalmers University of Technology; Knight Frank; and IVE Spain.

Sustainable urban environments
The Smart Sustainable Districts initiative will help some of Europe’s highest profile city district developments become global exemplar projects testing smart, sustainable systems for replication in other urban areas world-wide. Initially working with four pilot districts from a wider collaborative network of 12, the project will bring together some of the most advanced innovations from Climate-KIC’s network of over 200 partners. The project is led by Imperial College; Institute for Sustainability; TU Berlin; TNO; TU Munich; and Utrecht Sustainability Institute.

The fourth KIC covers ‘Catastrophe models for the finance industry.’

Raw Materials launch University Days, KIC

The European Commission has recently launched a communication campaign entitled ''Raw Materials University Day'' within the framework of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials. In addition the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has launched a selection process on February 14 to set up a new Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), with partners from higher education, research and business in the area of raw materials.

One of the main challenges to the successful implementation of the EIP on Raw Materials is to communicate on the challenges and issues around the sustainable supply of raw materials to various audiences. Although Europe boasts many universities with a long tradition and excellent programmes in the raw materials sector, knowledgeable and skilled professionals are still highly in demand. Therefore, the European Commission wishes to promote skills and employment in the raw materials sector to boost competitiveness and sustainable growth while showing the huge potential of European raw materials research, development an innovation.

The aim of the Raw Materials University Day is to attract young people that are choosing what to study in further education or future graduates and inform them about the study and working opportunities in the raw materials sector.

A series of events in various Member States is planned, with University Days scheduled for four times per year between 2014 and 2020. To date 21 universities from 16 Member States have expressed their wish to take part. The next event will take place on 12 May 2014 in Darmstadt, Germany.

Speakers sought
The European Commission is seeking people from industry, research organisations and academia who are willing to participate in these events either as a speaker or in the event workshops. The purpose of the workshops, which usually take place in the afternoon, is to give students an opportunity to come closer to their future employers, and get a clearer picture of the working environment in the field of raw materials. In parallel an exhibition might be organised, where participating organisations could promote their activities.

Below is a video ''Raw Materials – the stuff that dreams are made of'', which was shown by European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani at the initial University Day event at Sapienza University in Rome on 6 December.

Vice-President Tajani said at the event in Rome: "Innovation in raw materials – be it in mining, processing, recycling, or substitution – holds the key to future growth and jobs. We need our young people to take up the challenge help to create a sustainable supply and use of raw materials in the EU".



For more information on the University Days events, the point of contact at the European Commission is Marcela Válková. The video is also available German, French, Spanish, Polish and Italian.

Raw materials KIC
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) launched a selection process on February 14 to set up two new Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), with partners from higher education, research and business. One of the two KICs will focus on raw materials – sustainable exploration, extraction processing, recycling and substitution. The application process is open until 10 September.

"This is the first step in our expansion of the EIT, with five new KICs planned over the next seven years. We're looking for great innovators and entrepreneurs with the drive to tackle concrete challenges and deliver results. I hope that many organisations will respond to this call and join us in this exciting journey," said Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner responsible for the EIT.

Following an independent evaluation of the proposals, guided by specific selection criteria, one KIC in each field will be designated.

The KICs are autonomous public-private partnerships which bring together top-class higher education institutions, research centres, companies and other organisations committed to tackling societal challenges through, among other means, the development of products, services and processes.

The partnership for the new KICs must consist of at least three organisations, established in at least three different EU Member States. It must include at least one higher education institution and one private company.

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.

A Comprehensive Approach

Today (9 February 2011), EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation Máire Geoghegan-Quinn (below) presented a Green Paper which proposes major changes to EU research and innovation funding that should make participation easier, increase scientific and economic impact and provide better value for money for EU taxpayers. The proposals are out for consultation until 20 May.

The changes, which could be introduced in the next EU budget after 2013, would bring together the current Framework Programme for research (FP7) and its successor, the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).


This proposed "Common Strategic Framework" (CSF) would create a coherent set of instruments along the whole "innovation chain" starting from basic research, culminating in bringing innovative products and services to market, and also supporting non-technological innovation, for example in design and marketing.

"These ideas are very much in line with current SusChem thinking both in terms of the continued emphasis on research and our strategic work programme on innovation along the value chain and in close cooperation with other related European Technology Platforms. The indicated simplification commitments are crucial to ensure increased private engagement and show confirmation of increased trust in public private collaborations," commented Ger Spork, Innovation Manager at Cefic and SusChem coordinator. SusChem intends to respond positively to the Green paper.

Simplification
The Green Paper provides the basis for far-reaching simplification of procedures and rules. The changes aim to maximise the contribution of EU research and innovation funding to the Innovation Union and the Europe 2020 Strategy.

Some initial actions on simplification of the rules for participation were announced by Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn at the end of January, but the proposals in the Green paper go further and require co decision with other European Institutions.

At a press conference to launch the paper Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said: "Our aim is to maximise value from every euro the EU invests in research and innovation. By making our programmes more coherent and simpler, we will make life easier for researchers and innovators – especially SMEs - attract more applicants and get even better results."

She promised: "Rigidity replaced by flexibility, confusion replaced by consistency."

A video extract of the press conference is embedded at the end of this article.

Clear focus
The CSF keeps a clear focus on three mutually reinforcing objectives: giving the EU a world-beating science base; boosting competitiveness across the board; and tackling grand challenges such as climate change, resource efficiency, energy and food security, health and an ageing population.

It also makes EU funding more attractive and easier to access for participants, for example through a single entry point with common IT tools or a one-stop shop for providing advice and support to participants throughout the funding process. The CSF should allow a simpler and more streamlined set of funding instruments covering the full innovation chain, including basic research, applied research, collaboration between academia and industry and firm-level innovation.

There will be much simpler and more consistent procedures for accounting for the use of the funds received. This may involve, for example, greater use of lump sum payments.

Other ideas in the Green Paper include: further steps to pool Member States' national research funding; better links with cohesion funding; using EU funding to stimulate public procurement; more use of prizes; further strengthening the role of the European Research Council and of financial instruments such as the Risk-Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF) and the loan guarantee and venture capital investments; and drawing up a set of performance indicators to measure the success of EU research and innovation funding.

Dedicated response
The Commission is initiating a widespread consultation on the Green Paper and has established a dedicated web page on the document to handle responses. The deadline for contributions is Friday 20 May 2011.

Responses can be made in a variety of ways. There is an online questionnaire, written submissions can be made (some of which may be published on the site), and an interactive blog has been initiated.

In addition events are planned to be held during the consultation period with the Commission planning to host a major event on June 10 after the close of the consultation to bring together and discuss the main outcomes.

These will be used to design the proposals, to be presented by the Commission by the end of 2011, for a legislative decision of the Council and Parliament on the Common Strategic Framework.

Name that CSF
However a new name for the proposals should be available by then as, in parallel, a competition for the name of the Common Strategic Framework is being organised. This open competition to find the most inspiring name for the CSF will be launched in the next few weeks with the winning entry announced at the June 10 conference. Got any suggestions?




GREEN PAPER "From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding."