There is a general lack of awareness of the importance of mineral raw materials in today’s society and an (overall) negative view on the concept of mining, strongly related to the use of non-modern, less environmentally-friendly and even outdated methods and technologies. This is particularly relevant for SMEs, which lack the tractor effect of big industries and therefore suffer from innovation deficit, cross-sector fertilisation and disruptive potential. In order to adapt to current trends and technologies, promote industrial modernisation and digitalisation of the sector, and embrace, interact and profit from other emerging industries, the mining & raw materials sectors must undergo a cross-sectoral and cross-fertilisation exercise, with a particular emphasis on SMEs, in order to develop novel industrial value chains that can support the integration of novel materials, techniques and processes. In this respect, industrial clusters and associated entities are therefore the ideal vehicle to promote and accelerate investments in order to develop innovation capacity and product development in SMEs. The overall aim of MINE.THE.GAP is to provide a support platform for the reinforcement of existing value chains and the development of new industrial value chains in the raw materials and mining "target" sectors by means of cross-sectoral and cross-regional innovation and support services in cluster-related SMEs through synergies and interactions with providers and facilitators from the existing and emerging fields of ICT, circular economy, resource efficiency and advanced manufacturing ("provider" sectors"). A well-balanced consortium comprising of 9 Clusters, 1 RTO and 1 Association from 9 regions and 7 European countries representing over 500 SMEs participate in the project to develop a three layered management structure, methodology and strategy including direct financial support to SMEs, additional business support services and access to new investments.

To prevent catastrophic climate change, we must rapidly shift to low carbon, renewable energies. Yet, 65% of Europe’s energy demand is still met by natural gas and other fossil fuels. Hydrogen provides solutions to several energy and climate problems. Geological hydrogen storage, like today’s natural gas storage, is needed to store variable renewable energies and flexibly provide green hydrogen mobility, industry and residential uses. HYPSTER aims to demonstrate the industrial-scale operation of cyclic H2 storage in salt caverns to support the emergence of the hydrogen energy economy in Europe in line with overall Hydrogen Europe road-mapping. The specific objectives are to: •Define relevant cyclic tests to be performed based on modelling and the needs of emerging hydrogen regions across Europe •Demonstrate the viable operation of H2 cyclic storage for the full range of use-cases of emerging European hydrogen regions •Assess the economic feasibility of large-scale cyclic H2 storage to define the roadmap for future replication across the EU •Assess the risks and environmental impacts of H2 cyclic storage in salt caverns and provide guidelines for safety, regulations and standards •Commit at least 3 companies to using the hydrogen storage and 3 potential sites to replicate the cyclic hydrogen storage elsewhere in Europe on a commercial-scale by the end of the project HYPSTER will pave the way towards replication with the target to go below 1€/kg for H2 storage cost for the potential 40 TWh salt cavern storage sites in Europe. The project coordinator STORENGY will massively invest for the upscaling of Europe’s first large-scale, cyclic salt cavern in operation by 2025 and 3 more targeted by 2030. HYPSTER brings together 9 European partners including 2 RTOs for technology development, and 6 industries including 2 SME, plus 1 public-private cluster association to ensure maximum dissemination and uptake of HYPSTER results.

The BlackCycle project has an upcycling ambition, targeting to create a circular economy of the end-of-life tyre (ELT) into technical applications like tyre industry by producing high technical second raw materials (SRMs) from ELTs. A key lever is to consider the circular economy of tyre domain: recycle ELT into new tyres. Known technologies in this domain are today limited and this new research project will have the ambition to pass their roadblocks, and deliver new technical raw materials relevant for tyre production or other technical products. This project will proactively integrate these new materials (SRMs) and validate that the progress in all the key tyre performances having environmental impacts is not slowed down. The BlackCycle project aims at creating, developing and optimising a full value chain, from ELT feedstock to SRMs, with no waste of resources in any part of the chain and a specific attention for the environmental impact. Eventually, close to 1 out of every 2 ELT will go through this new recovery process which will be the only virtuous cycle of this magnitude amongst all industrial sectors in the recovery of end of life products. In effectively implementing this change, the European tyre industry will be a world leader in a more sustainable tyre production. Indeed, the main product obtained at the end of the project would be a new tyre where many raw materials come from ELT. In particular, the carbon black, a material representing ~20% of tyre composition, will be fully obtained from oils extracted from waste tyres through the pyrolysis process. Furthermore, several chemical and plasticizers will also be obtained from pyrolytic oil refining. The final product would have a high added value from an environmental point of view, because more than 25% of the total weight would come from recycled ELT.

The overarching goal of CCUS ZEN is the accelerated deployment of CCUS throughout Europe, which will be achieved by: • Sharing knowledge and disseminating information important for stakeholders to make informed decisions on CCUS • Developing specific and actionable plans for the development of CCUS value chains As CCUS developments around the North Sea (NS) region are relatively mature, CCUS ZEN will leverage these developments as best practice for the development of new CCUS value chains in the currently underdeveloped Baltic Sea (BS) and the Mediterranean Sea (MS) Regions. While CCUS value chains, i.e., the entire pathway from CO2 capture to transport to its eventual storage or utilization, can today be realized, the industry is still in its infancy and many issues must be addressed to achieve the rapid deployment required. The consortium, consisting of 15 partners, including 2 associations with over 400 members in total, brings together entities with leading expertise on all aspects of CCUS value chains. 30 organisations, representing industry, RTOs, Associations, clusters, ports and municipalities involved in the development and deployment of CCUS value chains, will contribute their expertise as networking partners. Starting from an analysis of the technical and non-technical state-of-play in the BS and MS regions, CCUS ZEN will select at least eight value chains (four in each region) for detailed study and comparison with successful value chains from the NS region. One value chain from each analysed region will then be selected as most promising, with a detailed plan for further development. Through its knowledge-sharing activities and transfer of best practices from the NS region, CCUS ZEN will provide an information basis for the future CCUS value chains, including policy recommendations and a blueprint for CCUS value chain development, including easily accessible technology and CO2 source mapping, generic technical frameworks and business plan models.