03 May PROMETIA holds webinar on Horizon Europe opportunities in the field of raw materials
On 29 April 2021 PROMETIA held a webinar on the next EU’s research and innovation framework programme: Horizon Europe. The webinar, restricted to PROMETIA members, provided an overview of the new framework, identifying project funding opportunities in the raw materials sector. About 50 participants from 15 different countries joined this virtual event and engaged in a fruitful conversation with the speakers.
Andrzej Chmielarz, PROMETIA President, and Stéphane Bourg, PROMETIA Chairman, officially launched the virtual event. Stéphane Bourg announced the upcoming PROMETIA activities for 2021 among them the Platinum sponsorship of the Conference on Raw Materials and Circular Economy (RawMat2021) taking place from 5 to 9 September 2021 in Athens, and the organisation of the PROMETIA Scientific Seminar at the end of the year, hopefully in a physical form!
The first two speakers presented the Horizon Europe programme and the raw materials strategy within it. Ignacio Baleztena, from DG-RTD, gave an overview of the novelties of the new research and innovation framework, while Daniel Cios, from DG GROW, focused on raw materials related aspects. It was the occasion for PROMETIA to alert DG-RTD and DG-GROW on the 2021 and 2022 call submission deadlines that are very close one to the other due to the delay in the publication of the work-program. If only the fall 2021 deadline is postponed and not the spring 2022 one, there could be two calls in less than 6 months…
Following these introductory presentations, Didier Zimmermann, Education and Innovation director of the EIT RawMaterials, addressed links and synergies between the EIT-RawMaterials and Horizon Europe. Massimo Gasparon, Director of the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA), presented the Alliance as a game changer for the secure and sustainable supply of raw materials for EU’s industrial ecosystems. The PROMETIA Association recently became a member of ERMA.
The last session of the morning focused on reviewing the funding opportunities within clusters 4, 5 and 6 of the Horizon Europe Pillar 2 Programme directly related to PROMETIA activities. The largest cluster within this pillar, Cluster 4 “Digital, Industry and Space” was presented by Gabor Szendro from LGI. Stéphane Bourg, PROMETIA Chairman, introduced Cluster 5 “Climate, Energy and Mobility”. Finally, María González, from IDENER, identified potential opportunities under Cluster 6 “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment”. In total, more than 25 topics are directly linked with PROMETIA members’ expertise in 2021 and 2022, which will allow many collaboration opportunities among our members!
The afternoon was dedicated to working group sessions that gathered PROMETIA members interested in the same topics to discuss the first potential project proposals.
Stay tuned for other upcoming PROMETIA events!
