This call is for research, development and innovation (R&D&I) projects, leading to marketable products, services and processes, which enable the development of circular value creation (CVC) systems.
You should apply if you are driven to redefine how production and consumption are approached in both B2C and B2B landscapes.
Background
A circular economy is an economic system that aims to minimise waste and promote a sustainable use of natural resources, through smarter product design, longer use and recycling, in order to reduce the depletion of natural resources. It is a departure from the traditional, so called linear economic model, which often relies on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy.
As a model of production and consumption circular economy involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. When a product reaches the end of its life, its materials are kept within the economy wherever possible thanks to recycling. Productive reuse creates further value.
Circular value creation goes beyond recycling and waste management. It requires novel strategies for product design, cross-sectoral partnerships, new materials and technologies as well as business models guided by the principles of longevity, reuse and recycling. It is expected to lay the basis for flexibility, change and resilience in value creation systems, fostering opportunities for sustainable economic development, competitiveness and job creation.
Companies’ workforces should be empowered to build and develop a circular mindset and the corresponding skills and knowledge. At the same time, structures would be in place within the company and across organisations to enable employees to make these skills effective.
Focus
Submitted projects will enable the development of circular value creation systems, where methods of ecologically meaningful, value-retaining use (increased longevity, reuse and recycling) are implemented for the entirety of its materials, components and products.
Projects exclusively focused on recycling are not eligible.
The following three perspectives have to be addressed in the ‘Impact’ section of the application. Other sections and the project plan must be based on those reflections.
Systemic aspects and questions of circular value creation
Examples of argumentation (non-exclusive, you may select questions that are relevant to your proposal or formulate your own argumentation):
- How does your project support to establish new value chains and products?
- How does your project support increasing transparency for every stakeholder throughout the whole life cycle of the product?
- How does your project support increasing efficiency in circular approaches?
- How does your project support extending circular approaches across national borders?
- How does your project support extending value creation networks across different (industry) sectors?
- Are there synergies between your project and systemic instruments, like CO2-pricing? How does your project contribute?
- How does your project support deciding which data are needed along the entire value chain and maintaining/improving their quality (e.g. digital twins for reparability?)
- How does your project contribute to maintaining a balance between generating added value through additional data and the increasing need for energy to handle this data?
- How does your project help to expand needed data ecosystems?
- Etc.
Business models and smart services
Sample lines of reasoning (non-exclusive, you may select questions that are relevant to your proposal or formulate your own argumentation):
- How does your project support in facilitating the transformation to a circular economy by innovative business models?
- How does your project increase the economic benefit of circular products for your company?
- How does your project support the design of product-service systems that extend product life cycles through maintenance and upgrading services?
- How does your project support identifying bottlenecks and optimising workflows in circular production systems?
- How does your project foster the early integration of SME in the data ecosystem to allow for the development of new (joint) business models?
- How does your project contribute to the development of incentives and business models for data sharing (e.g. data monetization, platform economy, governance)?
- Etc.
People in circular value creation processes
Sample lines of reasoning (non-exclusive, you may select questions that are relevant to your proposal or formulate your own argumentation):
- How can people working in circular value creation processes be supported to shape those processes? How will you support the people?
- How can new (transdisciplinary) skills and knowledge regarding circular value creation be acquired, e.g. focusing on circular economy principles, remanufacturing skills, sustainability practices, data competence and transfer competence? Which elements can be addressed on-the-job?
- How can you explore new learning formats and how can these be developed or adapted?
- How can people in the working world be encouraged to experiment with circular approaches? How can transdisciplinary exchange in/among organisations be supported?
- How can AI-based decision support for complex remanufacturing tasks be integrated?
- Etc.
Innovation areas (non-exhaustive list)
In addition to promoting technological innovations in the areas listed below, particular attention is paid to the interactions and synergies between these areas of innovation.
Data technologies, data ecosystems and cross-linking:
- Data ecosystems for the realisation of circular value creation exploiting the full potential of digitalisation – e.g., harnessing existing, purpose-built platform solutions.
- Interoperability of CVC-relevant data ecosystems, quality assurance and traceability across systems
- (AI based) recognition systems (e.g. image recognition) to evaluate materials, components and products and determine the best use paths
- (AI based) process and system control technologies
- (AI based) Material and Product Design, Decomposition and Separation
- Assistance and Expert systems
- Simulation models and predictive analytics to assess the scalability of circular processes across industries
- Algorithm that shows the (positive) impact of a circular economy process or circular economy product
- Approaches to support SME fully exploit the value of existing CVC-related data
- Design of an adaptable Digital Product Pass:
- provide country and industry-specific regulations and requirements
- Technologies for data acquisition
- Support systems for designing cost-effective standardized Digital Product Passport
solutions
- Etc.
Other enabling technologies:
- Manufacturing and machine learning, e.g., to increase the flexibility of industrial processes, modular approaches, reduce use of materials, quality assurance and certification of products)
- AI-driven diagnostic systems, e.g., for assessing the viability of reused, remanufactured, and recycled components
- Industry 4.0 technologies (IoT, big data analytics) for monitoring and managing circular value chains
- (Advanced/smart) Sensors, e.g., enabling materials, components and product flows measurement
- Robotic / handling – and assistance systems
- (Advanced) Materials and additive manufacturing
- Life cycle assessment / Product life cycle management – e.g., Digital Twin / Digital Product Passport
- Reverse Manufacturing (e.g. adaptive automation for high variance, sorting, sophisticated logistic systems)
- Tools and solutions addressing challenges emerging from product focused regulations (such as the ESPR)
- Network design of reverse supply chains
- Etc.
