The European Technology Platform SusChem’s mission is to initiate and inspire European chemical and biochemical innovation to respond effectively to societal challenges by providing sustainable solutions. The talk will introduce SusChem and will outline the role of the platform in the EuropeanR, D&I policy context. The platform’s work on the current main activities, Safe and Sustainable-by- Design (a European Commission recommendation) and the upcoming Public Private Partnership for Funding of Advanced Materials R&D under Horizon Europe will be discussed. In the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, published in October 2020, the European Commission announced the development of criteria for safe and sustainable-by-design chemicals and materials aiming at driving innovation for substitution (to the extent possible) for substances of concern across sectors (e.g. food contact materials, low-carbon mobility, construction materials, textiles) and at (re-)assessing production processes. The Commission’s recommendation on establishing a European assessment framework for safe and sustainable-by-design chemicals and materials was published on December 8th 2022. In a European Commission workshop on February 9th/10th, results of the first three application case studies of the framework were presented by JRC and industry. From May 5th -June 30th, the Commission held the next feedback phase for application of the framework to case studies by all relevant stakeholders. The results of this feedback together with a number of other topics were presented and discussed in a second workshop on case studies that took place December 6th/7th in Brussels. Outcomes and take-aways will be presented and discussed. Following the publication of the Materials Manifesto in February 2022 (signatories: representatives from industry, RTOs & academia) which called for a better connected European R&I landscape for advanced materials to accelerate time to market and safeguard technology leadership for the EU, EMIRI, the Association for Energy Materials, the European Technology Platforms EUMAT, ManuFuture & SusChem were mandated to set up an initiative on advanced materials, AMI2030, to work towards the implementation of a new public private partnership (PPP) for funding of advanced materials under Horizon Europe’s last leg, 2025-2027. This PPP, IAM4EU (Innovative Advanced Materials for the European Union) was confirmed as new PPP under Horizon Europe and will draft first calls for the upcoming work programme 2025
Eva Schillinger is an organic chemist by training and obtained her PhD in materials chemistry at the University of Ulm, Germany. She currently is Senior Innovation Manager at Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council and secretary for SusChem, the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry. Before joining Cefic, Eva held several positions in Research, Development and Innovation management at BASF Coatings, a daughter company of BASF. Prior to joining BASF, Eva worked as scientific editor for Angewandte Chemie, a Wiley-VCH journal. The focus of Eva’s current work amongst others are the Advanced Materials Initiative 2030 (AMI2030) and Safe and sustainable by-design (SSbD).
