In order to secure sustainable supply of raw materials to the EU society, the raw materials sector needs to strengthen its performance and competitiveness through research and innovation. Stronger integration of national and regional R&I programmes across the whole EU is needed to tap the potential of available funding and to reach the critical mass pushing the EU raw materials sector to the forefront in the sustainable production of primary and secondary raw materials and substitution of critical or scarce raw materials.

The objective of the ERA-NET is to strengthen co-ordination of national and regional research programmes in the field of non-energy non-agricultural raw materials, while building on the experience of previous ERA-NETs ERA-MIN and ERA-MIN 2. This should be achieved in line with the integrated strategy proposed in the EU Raw Materials Initiative (RMI) and the Strategic Implementation Plan of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials. The ERA-NET should cover the whole raw materials value chain including exploration, extraction and processing technologies and recycling, as well as substitution.

Proposals should pool the necessary financial resources from the participating national (or regional) research programmes with a view to implementing a joint call for proposals resulting in grants to third parties with EU co-funding in this area.

Proposers are requested to include other joint activities including additional joint calls without EU co-funding.

The proposal should demonstrate that these co-funded other activities exclude any overlaps with related on-going actions co-funded by the EU under Horizon 2020 SC5.

The Commission considers that for this topic, proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The project results are expected to contribute to:

• achieving the objectives of the EIP Raw Materials, particularly in the area of research and innovation co-ordination maximising impact of other actions in the Technology pillar of the Strategic Implementation Plan of the EIP on Raw Materials;
• reduced fragmentation of raw materials research and innovation efforts across Europe;
• improved synergy, co-ordination and coherence between regional, national and EU funding in the relevant research fields through transnational collaboration, and where appropriate international collaboration;
• improved use of human and financial resources in the area of raw materials research and innovation;
• improving the competitiveness and the environmental, health and safety performance of raw-materials operations.

ERA-NET