The fuel cells and hydrogen (FCH) industry has made considerable progress toward market deployment. However existing legal framework and administrative processes (LAPs) – covering areas such as planning, safety, installation and operation – only reflect use of incumbent technologies. The limited awareness of FCH technologies in LAPs, the lack of informed national and local administrations and the uncertainty on the legislation applicable to FCH technologies elicit delays and extra-costs, when they do not deter investors or clients. This project aims at tackling this major barrier to deployment as follows: • Systematically identifying and describing the LAPs applicable to FCH technologies in 18 national legal systems as well as in the EU proper legal system. • Assessing and quantifying LAP impacts in time and/or resource terms and identify those LAP constituting a legal barrier to deployment. • Comparing the 18 countries to identify best and bad practices • Raising awareness in the countries where a LAP creates a barrier to deployment. • Advocating targeted improvements in each of 18 countries + EU level • It will make all this work widely available through: (1) A unique online database allowing easy identification, description and assessment of LAPs by country and FCH application. (2) Policy papers by applications and by country with identification of best practice and recommendations for adapting LAP. (3) A series of national (18) and European (1) workshops with public authorities and investors. HyLAW sets up a National Association Alliance not just for the duration of the project, but for the long term consolidation of the sector under a single unified umbrella. By bringing together these national associations and all of Hydrogen Europe’s members, it’s the first time ever that the entire European FCH sector is brought together with a clear and common ambition.

InnProBio aims to build a community of public procurement practitioners interested in Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) with Bio-Based Products and Services (BBPS). The community will be supported by online network facilities. Based on stakeholder identification and needs assessment the project consortium will develop an elaborated and legally solid toolbox which will assist public procurers to inform themselves about BBPS and ultimately provide all relevant information to prepare an actual tender. The toolbox will be used for capacity building activities including trainings for public procurers and decision makers, market dialogues and exchanges with standardization experts. It will furthermore be presented in an online decision support tool and a multilingual handbook. The workshop and dialogue concept for trainings can subsequently be used throughout Europe. Recommendations for decision makers and standardization bodies on how to support PPI of BBPS in order to boost innovation in Europe’s bioeconomy will be provided. Feasibility of an cross-national buyers group of public procurers on the innovation procurement of BBPS will be assessed. Based on a dissemination and exploitation strategy, project results will be communicated through various channels to the relevant target groups (public procurers, public decision makers, business, standardization bodies and NGOs). Specific groups will be set up on the Procurement Forum (www.procurement-forum.eu). The community will be one channel to share and distribute project results. Via the integration of the project and its products into the existing Procurement of Innovation Platform (https://www.innovation-procurement.org/), the project results will be sustainable. Integration of the bio-based products section is a win-win situation for the existing platform and for the bio-based products sector who as a newcomer can profit from existing infrastructure and knowledge.

Standardisation is a powerful tool to achieve better interoperability. However, it needs to overcome a lack of interest and modest participation from stakeholders. Also, promising research results are not always used as the basis for new standards. The overall goal of ResiStand is to find new ways to improve the crisis management and disaster resilience capabilities of the European Union and individual Member States through standardisation. ResiStand contributes to an improved disaster resilience by identifying and analysing the drivers, constraints and expectations of three main stakeholder communities: Standardisation Organisations, End-Users and Suppliers, consisting of researchers, industry and SMEs. Based on this information, gaps in standardisation are identified and a prioritised roadmap for new initiatives will be created. The roadmap will be complemented by a critical evaluation of standards as a tool to improve disaster resilience. ResiStand aims at implementing a pre-standardisation process that supports the development of standards. The feasibility of the process will be tested by developing a new work item. The aim is that stakeholders will continuously utilize this “ResiStand Process” in the future, and that the project delivers a better understanding of the potential of standards for contributing to an improved disaster resilience. ResiStand will support the management of increasing threats to society such as armed conflicts, terrorism, pandemics and natural disasters, which have increasingly cross-border, even global consequences due to the on-going globalisation. Protection of citizens through anticipation, preparedness, response and adaptation to crisis situations – i.e. maintaining disaster resilience – will be more efficient. Collaboration between national, European and international stakeholders will be improved by unified processes and management systems as well as by technical, procedural, operational and semantic interoperability.