EIT Community launches EIT Community Circular Economy calls

Transitioning to the Circular Economy is one of the main objectives of European society right now. Moving to more circular economic models promises a much brighter future for the European economy. This will allow Europe to rise to the current and future challenges of global pressure on resources and increasing insecurity of supply.

Pumping resources back into productive use, cutting waste and reducing dependence on uncertain supplies is a direct route to improving resilience and competitiveness. By helping to decouple economic growth from resource use and its impacts, it offers the prospect of sustainable growth that will last.

EIT Community will be one of the key stakeholders ensuring this important objective for European society. This will only be achieved with a coordinated and efficient collaboration among the different EIT KICs (Knowledge and Innovation Community) to ensure a greater impact from the EIT Community collaboration. Therefore, 2 specific calls have been created to strengthen the collaboration of internal and external activities related to the Circular Economy.   

Environmental Technology Verification Support 

Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) is a tool designed to help innovative environmental technologies access the market. It consists of the verification, on a voluntary basis, of the functional and environmental performance of technology by qualified third parties, through tests of controlled quality.

ETV is implemented by accredited Verification Bodies in three technology areas:

• Water treatment and monitoring (e.g., monitoring water quality, treatment of drinking water and wastewater)
• Materials, waste and resources (e.g., separation and sorting of solid waste, recycling of materials, end-of-life products and chemicals, biomass-based products)
• Energy (e.g., renewable energy, energy generated from waste, energy efficiency)

The call is open to any partner and start-up of participating EIT Community (EIT RawMaterials, EIT Climate KIC, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing and EIT UrbanMobility) with a technology included in any of the previously defined areas that has been supported in any ongoing or finished demonstration project. The maximum funding will be 60.000 euros. Personnel costs, as well as subcontracting costs for verification body and testing, should be clearly described and justified.

Learn more about the call and ETV in this recording of the informative webinar held on the 29th of April. The presentation as shared during the webinar can be downloaded below this article.

Call for Circular Economy SME's

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the economy, steering our economy towards a more circular model. However, their small size means that they face unique challenges on the path to closing loops and improving resource efficiency.  Some of those unique challenges can be linked to lack of company environmental culture, financial support, adequate legislation, innovation legislation and support mechanisms, information and many others.

The six KICs involved in this EIT Community initiative are a diverse set of publicly and privately funded bodies uniquely positioned to tackle the above barriers for the circular economy adoption by SMEs. The overall aim of this call is to enable the joint competencies and capacities of the KICs to help solve a more systemic circularity in an orchestrated effort as well as possible specific approaches towards circularity in SMEs.

Partners of participating KICs are invited to submit an application for the work on the development of an in-depth analysis to investigate the current situation regarding Circular Economy and SMEs in Europe.

The maximum project cost will be € 85.000,00.

All existing partners of participating EIT Community (EIT RawMaterials, EIT Climate KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing and EIT UrbanMobility) are eligible to apply.
Check the attached documents for requirements and guidance.
 

Proposals submission

Proposals should be submitted via email to:
ignacio.calleja@eitrawmaterials.eu
adam.sebestyen@eitmanufacturing.eu
blanca.chocarro@eitmanufacturing.eu

Timeline

Opening call:                                           1 April 2021
Closing call:                                             31 May 2021
Evaluation:                                              June 2021
Start project:                                           1 July 2021
Finalise project:                                      31 December 2021 (latest)