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Investigating and Addressing Career Barriers for Underrepresented and Marginalised Researchers

The Exploit4InnoMat (E4I) project is a European initiative aimed at fostering innovation in construction materials, especially focusing on eco-friendly and nano-enabled materials for the building envelope. At its core, the project has established an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB), which facilitates collaboration among technology providers, SMEs, and large enterprises, supporting new, sustainable business models in construction. By providing a Single Entry Point (SEP) as a streamlined administrative entity, the E4I OITB simplifies client access to its services and pilot production facilities.

A key component of the project involves nine pilot lines across Europe that support the upscaling of advanced material concepts. These facilities, previously funded by EU or in-house investments, are being enhanced to handle larger capacities and integrate advanced monitoring and process control systems. By doing so, they ensure that eco-innovative materials are produced at volumes suitable for real-world testing, ultimately addressing a significant gap in the market—namely, the lack of infrastructure for scaling material innovations.

The E4I initiative targets the European Union's goals for nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB), emphasizing the life cycle of materials from design to end-of-life management. This approach includes recycling construction and demolition wastes, converting them into secondary raw materials for new constructions.

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Next Submission Deadline to be announced.

Expected Outcome

The expected outcomes of the Horizon Europe call HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01 focus on advancing Europe’s industrial resilience, resource efficiency, and climate objectives. These outcomes aim to align with the goals of a digitized, sustainable, and resilient industry. Key expected outcomes include:

  1. Increased Resource Efficiency and Circularity: Projects should develop and scale solutions that enhance material efficiency across industries, encouraging the use of sustainable materials and minimizing waste. This includes innovations in recycling, repurposing, and the circular economy, driving forward the reuse of resources.
  2. Development and Adoption of Advanced Materials: Initiatives should yield new, eco-friendly, and high-performance materials that are lighter, durable, and energy-efficient, meeting the needs of advanced manufacturing. This is crucial for industries like construction, automotive, and aerospace.
  3. Enhanced Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence Integration: Projects should incorporate AI, data analytics, and other digital tools to optimize industrial processes, making them more responsive, efficient, and adaptive. Specifically, AI could assist in predictive maintenance, resource management, and optimization of production lines.
  4. Climate Resilience and Green Deal Contributions: The call aims to support the EU’s climate goals by fostering climate-resilient industrial practices. Outcomes should address carbon reduction, energy efficiency, and sustainable production, aligning with the European Green Deal’s ambition for climate neutrality by 2050.
  5. Strengthened Industrial Competitiveness: By facilitating innovative solutions and enhancing the capabilities of SMEs and other industry players, the outcomes are expected to improve Europe's competitiveness on a global scale, ensuring that EU industries are leaders in sustainable practices.
  6. Improved Access to Innovation and Testing Facilities: Through Open Innovation Test Beds, the call seeks to provide accessible resources for SMEs, researchers, and companies to experiment, test, and validate their innovations, thus accelerating time-to-market for new technologies and products.

These outcomes collectively aim to transform European industry by fostering a sustainable, tech-driven, and resilient manufacturing ecosystem, ultimately contributing to the EU’s long-term economic and environmental ambitions.

Scope

The call HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01, titled "A DIGITISED, RESOURCE-EFFICIENT AND RESILIENT INDUSTRY 2022," is part of the Horizon Europe framework. Its primary objective is to foster the development of a digitized, resource-efficient, and resilient European industry. The call encompasses various topics aimed at advancing industrial transformation through digitalization, sustainability, and resilience.

Key areas of focus include:

  • Circularity and Resource Efficiency: Promoting the adoption of circular economy principles to enhance material savings, generate additional value, and unlock economic opportunities.
  • Advanced Materials and Manufacturing: Developing new sustainable and high-performance lightweight materials, along with novel manufacturing techniques that meet industrial demands for quality and reliability.
  • Digital Tools and Artificial Intelligence: Applying and adapting big data technologies and AI methodologies to address mining industry requirements, contributing to the climate ambitions of the European Green Deal.
  • Sustainable Systemic Solutions: Developing sustainable systemic solutions through industrially and user-driven multidisciplinary consortia covering relevant value chains of non-fuel, non-food raw materials.
  • Open Innovation Test Beds: Establishing Open Innovation Test Beds by upgrading existing or developing new materials facilities and pilot lines, providing services for design, development, testing, regulatory and environmental assessment, and upscaling to industry and interested parties, especially SMEs.

The overarching goal of this call is to support projects that contribute to the European Union's objectives of achieving climate neutrality, enhancing industrial competitiveness, and ensuring long-term sustainability.

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