Fostering the European battery ecosystem by providing accurate and up-to-date information and stimulating excellence in the European battery R&I community (Batt4EU Partnership)

Expected Outcome:Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• A solid basis of information is established addressing R&I stakeholders and supporting decision making within the European battery value chain, at European, national, and regional levels, and for public and private actors alike;
• An agile European battery value chain is set up that can update its priorities based on global trends;
• Maximisation of the scientific, technological, economic, and societal impact of the BATT4EU Partnership and its projects and paving the way to industrial exploitation of their research results in key energy and transport application domains;
• A well-coordinated, best-in-the-world, battery research community is fostered in Europe, gathering excellent scientists and innovators as well as involving other relevant stakeholders;
• Excellence in battery research is spread across Europe, enhancing the wide adoption of best practices.

Scope:The project proposal should cover all of the following tasks:

• Animate and organise the National and Regional Coordination Group (NRCG) in coordination with the Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA)[1];
• Cooperate with the European Technology and Innovation Platforms (ETIPs), Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs)[2] and similar stakeholder fora.
• Provide support to existing SET Plan Implementation Plans and advancement towards more interconnected activities, both in terms of contents and implementation mechanisms;
• Create and maintain an online accessible platform which provides: • A rolling assessment of the current state-of-the-art of the battery technology, both globally and in the EU and Associated Countries;
• An updated set of technical targets and intermediary KPIs to track the progress of the battery technology in the EU;
• A rolling overview of open and recently closed calls on batteries from research and innovation programmes on European, national, and regional level. This task should build upon the links with the NRCG, ETIPs, and any ongoing IPCEIs on batteries. Direct collaboration with national funding agencies is encouraged.

Proposals should include a credible strategy for how this platform could be continued beyond the time horizon of the project.

• Provide an analysis of battery roadmaps from other global regions and see how they compare to the state-of-art and targets set for the European battery technology development and propose updates to the European battery R&I strategy in a yearly report for short-, medium- and long-term research needs;
• Support monitoring efforts undertaken by the European Commission, the European Battery Alliance (EBA)[3] regarding the above-mentioned indicators of technological progress in Europe;
• Provide scientific animation of the Battery R&I Community, that includes the organisation of (thematic) community events to improve the overall knowledge level of the sector; ensure that projects working on similar topics can learn from each other and that projects goals converge towards the objectives of the Partnership; inform on possible funding mechanisms (e.g., Innovation Fund and the EBA One-Stop-Shop) to take developed technologies to the next level;
• Share best practices with the community and push for adoption of common data standards and reporting methodologies;
• Co-organise together with BEPA and other interested stakeholders an annual conference where BATT4EU projects can share their results.

Proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) whose contribution could consist of providing input to or discuss technical targets or KPIs and testing the capability of the observatory to provide meaningful data for EC / JRC work. For further information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the projects, please, search for additional publicly available information on the JRC’s website (EU Science Hub) on the NCP portal, or request specific information from the JRC (JRC-NCP-Network@ec.europa.eu)

JRC shall assure that all the other applicants receive the same information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the project (e.g., via the topic-specific FAQs under the Funding and Tenders Portal).

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

[1] BATT4EU (bepassociation.eu)

[2] IPCEI Batteries (ipcei-batteries.eu)

[3] Building a European battery industry - European Battery Alliance (eba250.com)