GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The proposals will demonstrate as follows the impact and replicability:

• Clearly and coherently present the Hydrogen Valley beyond the investments/actions to be supported directly by this topic;
• Demonstrate how all actors, public and private, at EU, national and regional level will work together, across the entire value chain, to build a dynamic hydrogen ecosystem in the Member States (or Associated Countries)/Regions involved. In particular, proposals should demonstrate how the Hydrogen Valley development will be accompanied by economic growth, skills development and job creation;
• Develop a long-term vision on how the Hydrogen Valley developed is expected to grow also in view of its potential role in an existing or future IPCEI;
• Demonstrate the replicability and scalability of the concept with the aim of facilitating further deployments of Hydrogen Valleys in other locations/clusters/hubs in Europe (in line with the additional valleys to be initiated as a result of the project activities – see above). Proposals should therefore address efforts to provide and transfer the learnings on how to best scale-up and transfer the solutions investigated within the selected territory to other interested areas. Proposals are therefore expected to develop a clear replication strategy of the ecosystem concept and to engage with other regions in Europe, e.g. peer-to-peer exchange activities, to foster replication already during the duration of the project, with special attention placed on projects including EU regions where Hydrogen Valleys concepts may be less developed at present. In doing this, proposals should address technical and economic feasibility and also aspects related to RCS. Learnings from previous supported projects should be used in view of standardising impact and replicability aspects. The availability of modelling tools and the different scenarios developed in the previous supported projects should ease the replicability assessment. Proposals should demonstrate how they intend to create links with other Hydrogen Valleys initiatives in Europe , but also internationally;
• Demonstrate how collaboration and synergies with other Hydrogen Valleys supported by the Clean Hydrogen JU will be implemented;
• Include significant communication activities and dissemination campaigns with the aim to reach to local citizens and increase public engagement of hydrogen ecosystems. Given the flagship nature of this topic, the proposals are expected to pay attention to this aspect and to demonstrate how this would be professionally addressed, including clear, measurable and ambitious KPIs.

Proposals should:

• Contain a clear calendar defining the key phases of the implementation of the action (i.e. preparation of the specifications of equipment, manufacturing, permitting, deployment and operation) and their duration;
• Foresee enough time for monitoring and assessment including at least 2 years of operations. The monitoring strategy should as a minimum allow to assess compliance with the KPIs of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA for each of the technologies covered.