- This call has passed.
CALL:
Technologies for critical raw materials and strategic raw materials from end-of-life products (CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-61)
Expected Outcome:
The projects’ outcomes will enable the expected impacts of the destination by increasing supply security and access to secondary raw materials, in particular critical and strategic raw materials for EU[1] industrial value chains and strategic sectors which will alleviate critical raw materials dependency.
Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- Increased recovery rate of critical and strategic raw materials as set out in the Critical Raw Materials Act[2] through developing raw materials recycling and re-use of components and/or products from end-of-life (EoL) products, including recovery of raw material by-products.
- Improved competitiveness of secondary raw materials production by enhancing cost effectiveness.
- Improved efficiency of technologies for separation and recycling and the sustainable embedment of the process in terms of energy, resource and water use, waste and emissions (including Green House Gases and air pollutants) footprint.
- Improved responsible supply of raw materials to Europe from EoL streams in line with the EU principles for sustainable raw materials,[3] which are a non-regulatory set of principles based on the EU acquis. They set out requirements for sustainable raw materials and extraction and processing in Europe in terms of social, environmental and economic performance.
- Actions are expected to contribute to the implementation of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act[4].
Scope:
- Actions should develop material efficient high-quality re-use and recycling of one or more of the following end-of-life product categories/key waste streams: waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), waste batteries, end-of-life vehicles, waste wind turbines, waste solar photovoltaics, waste heat pumps, waste electrolysers and machine tools made from high-performance alloys.
- Actions should focus on the whole chain of re-using and recycling processes and procedures – from collection, logistics, characterisation, sorting, cleaning, refining and purification of secondary raw materials and quality of produced outputs.
- Actions should focus on functional re-use and recycling. Recycling where the recycled material is of lower functionality than the original material (downcycling) is to be avoided.
- Actions should envisage clustering activities with other projects aiming at recycling, second life, re-use, repurposing, remanufacturing of products and/or components 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.
The following exceptions apply:
To increase EU resilience in raw materials supply chains and thus reduce the serious risk 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 objectives of the Critical Raw Materials Act 54 , 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 materials55 as well as trade agreements (or association/economic partnership or equivalent agreements, including the new Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships) containing raw materials cooperation provisions (i.e. Energy and Raw materials chapters) 56 . The choice of these countries was made taking into consideration the development of strategic international partnerships on raw materials and avoidance of reinforcing existing overdependencies, 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. 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). Due to the scope of this topic, legal entities established in countries with which the EU has established strategic
partnerships for raw materials 57 are exceptionally eligible for Union funding.
TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-61
PROGRAMME: Horizon Europe
TYPE OF ACTION: IA - Innovation Actions
DEADLINE MODEL: single-stage