GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposals should demonstrate and deploy at large scale innovative solutions and designs for increased quality, non-toxicity and durability of secondary materials and increased share of secondary materials in new products. Proposals should demonstrate increased recovery, recycling and upcycling rates and a higher uptake of secondary materials for high value applications. Special attention should be given to the increased circularity of critical raw materials. Proposals should also demonstrate circular business practices, in particular in the uptake of repair and reuse, remanufacture, product-service-systems, and in the full lifetime of products or services. To achieve this, targeted market size, economic feasibility, cost efficiency and social acceptance need to be addressed. The projects should consider the use of digital solutions (including technologies such as AI, robotics, IoT and blockchain) and demonstrate their benefits for increased circularity, also analysing and addressing possible trade-offs.

Environmental, social and economic impacts should be assessed from a lifecycle perspective as product, organisation and consumption environmental footprints, using the respective methods developed by the European Commission (Product Environmental Footprint, PEF, should be used for the assessment of the environmental impacts) and through costing methods; relevant data should be fed into the European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment, following the specific Environmental Footprint data and format requirements. The functional performance of technologies and secondary materials can be assessed through the EU Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) scheme. All project results should be validated using quantitative indicators and targets wherever possible.

Proposals should consider the development of learning resources for the current and future generations of employees, with the possibility to integrate them in existing curricula and modules for undergraduate level and lifelong learning programmes.