About EIT RawMaterials

Developing raw materials into a major strength for Europe

Minerals, metals and advanced materials are key enablers of the green and digital transition. Raw materials are critical to preserving the global competitiveness of the EU’s most strategic economic sectors. They are fundamental for the EU to develop its strategic autonomy and to re-industrialise key European ecosystems.

Today, only a fraction of the most relevant raw materials is produced in Europe. This can be changed through a circular economy approach, through innovation in recycling, substitution, processing, mining, and exploration. It is the objective of EIT RawMaterials to secure a sustainable raw materials supply by driving innovation, education, and entrepreneurship across European industrial ecosystems.

About the community + Programmes

The general objective of this innovation community is to enable sustainable competitiveness of the European minerals, metals and materials sector along the entire value chain by driving innovation, education and entrepreneurship. This is mirrored in the fact that the members and partners involved are active along the entire value chain so from exploration, mining and mineral processing to substitution, recycling and circular economy.

The approach of this innovation community is to integrate knowledge from industry, higher education and research (knowledge triangle) by engaging stakeholders from the entire raw materials value chain. Similar to other innovation communities there are 5 main programmes: innovation, education, business creation, regional innovation schemes and cross sectoral innovation.

In terms of innovation, the focus is on increased resource efficiency and the improvement of processes and products, support the introduction of new technologies and rethink the current linear economic model to move towards a circular approach.

There are several types of innovation projects.

• Lighthouses, which are large scale and long-term initiatives that try to tackle specific raw materials challenges.
• Normal innovation projects, which have a shorter duration and are executed at a smaller scale.
• Education is about upskilling the workforce, training the future generation and creating more awareness about the changes and challenges the sector is undergoing. There are four modules: Masters, Doctoral students, lifelong learning and wider society learning.
• Business creation (including market acceleration) contains 4 schemes:
  • The jumpstarter for turning innovative ideas into businesses prospects
  • The raw materials accelerator to increase the successful uptake by the market
  • Start-up and SME booster for promising smaller companies and which will be guided by the regional innovation hubs.
  • SME call for business creation and is linked to the three lighthouse projects
• regional innovation schemes for those geographical areas that are generally lagging behind in this sector and there is also a project on collaboration with other innovation communities to create more cross-over innovation.

How to get involved?

The EIT publishes regularly calls for proposals for the different programmes. You can find out the opportunities and latest news at the webpage of the innovation community https://eitrawmaterials.eu/ or https://eit.europa.eu/our-communities/eit-rawmaterials

The HQ is based in Berlin but there are many regional hubs spread over Europe. One of them is located in Leuven: tel. +32468306082 or mail info@eitrawmaterials.eu

You can also attend or watch InnoveEIT, the annual conference of the EIT where you can meet other members of the communities and experts of the EIT itself.

Finally you can contact the NCP for materials, mark.antonissen@vlaio.be