Rare Earth and magnets innovation hubs (IA)
Summary
Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.
Programme Name
Programme Description
Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.
Call
Detailed Call Description
The action should create an innovation hub that enables the development, demonstration and testing of new processes for production of rare earths and related products, particularly neodymium permanent magnets in the industrial environments. This hub should connect critical mass of the existing laboratories, industrial pilots and other research facilities and services across different regions in the Europe and if duly justified also in third countries.
Demonstrations could cover novel, cost-effective and environmentally sound rare earths extraction, processing and separation routes; consider unconventional rare earth sources, like low grade ores, non-ferrous metals beneficiation tailings and iron ore tailings, metallurgical waste apatite; and/or recycling, re-use, refurbishment and/or repurposing of end-of-life products and components containing rare earth magnets.
Actions should envisage clustering activities with other relevant selected projects for cross-projects co-operation, consultations and joint activities on cross-cutting issues and share of results as well as participating in joint meetings and communication events. To this end proposals should foresee a dedicated work package and/or task, and earmark the appropriate resources accordingly.
Actions should facilitate the market uptake of solutions developed through industrially- and user-driven multidisciplinary consortia covering the relevant value chain and should consider standardisation aspects when relevant. The action should also include the analysis of financial opportunities ensuring the market exploitation and replication of the circular business model behind the developed solutions as new processes, products and/or services.
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
70%
Expected EU contribution per project: €16.00 million
Eligibility For Participation Notes
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
To increase EU resilience in raw materials supply chains and thus reduce the serious risks to the Union’s strategic assets, economic and societal interests, autonomy, and security associated with the current EU reliance on a few third countries for critical raw materials, by increasing sustainable and responsible sourcing of primary and secondary raw materials necessary to enable the green and digital transition and in alignment with the Communication (2020) 474 on Critical Raw Materials Resilience, participation in this topic is limited to legal entities established in Member States, associated countries, OECD countries, African Union Member States*, MERCOSUR, CARIFORUM, Andean Community and countries with which the EU has concluded strategic partnerships on raw materials. The choice of these countries was made taking into consideration the development of strategic international partnerships on raw materials and avoidance of reinforcing existing over-dependencies, as well as the importance of involving partners committed to pursuing open trade in such materials.
Proposals including legal entities which are not established in the countries that fall under the criteria above will be ineligible.
Any activity aimed at deploying subliminal techniques beyond a person’s consciousness, exploiting any of the vulnerabilities of a specific group of persons and at using emotion recognition systems will be ineligible.
* “African Union member states” includes countries whose membership has been temporarily suspended.
Programme Category
EU Competitive ProgrammesTotal Budget
€32 000 000Thematic Categories
- Environment and Climate Change
- Industry
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
Eligibility for Participation
- Investment Funds
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
Call Opening Date
19/09/2023Call Closing Date
07/02/2024National Contact Point(s)
Research and Innovation Foundation
29a Andrea Michalakopoulou, 1075 Nicosia,
P.B. 23422, 1683 Nicosia
Telephone: +357 22205000
Fax: +357 22205001
Email: support@research.org.cy
Website: https://www.research.org.cy/en/
Contact Persons:
Dr Angelos Ntantos
Scientific Officer
Telephone: +357 22 205 033
Email: antantos@research.org.cy
Mr George Christou
Scientific Officer
Telephone: +357 22 205 030
Email: gchristou@research.org.cy