Waste-to-value devices - circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Waste-to-value devices - circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials offering max €120.0M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description – EIC Pathfinder Challenge 2025
1. Overview
The call “Waste-to-value devices – circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials” (Call ID: HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-04) is part of the EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2025 under Horizon Europe. It supports high-risk, high-gain research and innovation that can create breakthrough technologies for converting currently non- or hard-recyclable waste streams into valuable feedstocks or products.
2. What the Grant Funds
* Radically new concepts for waste-to-value devices (Area 1) or ground-breaking enabling science in computational materials/AI (Area 2) or bottom-up synthetic biology (Area 3).
* Early-stage TRL (≈1-3) ideas expected to reach TRL 4 (validated in lab) within 3–4 years.
* Integrated, sustainable processing chains driven by renewable energy (preferably sunlight) that up-cycle waste; down-cycling or pure waste destruction is ineligible.
* Interdisciplinary, portfolio-oriented projects that will interact with other funded consortia in Areas 1–3.
3. Budget & Funding Rate
* Total topic budget: €120 million (2025).
* Indicative EU contribution per project: €0.5 – 4 million lump-sum (larger requests must be strongly justified).
* Funding rate: 100 % of eligible direct costs (claimed as one pre-agreed lump-sum based on milestones rather than cost-reporting).
4. Technology Scope (Area 1)
Eligible device categories:
1. Fully integrated solar reforming or synthetic-biology systems for polymer degradation & product formation.
2. Integrated capture & conversion devices treating flue gas or wastewater in one step.
3. Membrane/electro-brine mining units recovering raw materials, CO₂ and water.
4. Ex-situ remediation reactors (microbial/enzymatic/photocatalytic) that purify water and yield saleable outputs.
Area 2 and Area 3 focus on cross-cutting fundamental breakthroughs that underpin Area 1 devices.
Out-of-Scope Activities
Thermochemical (pyrolysis, gasification), dark chemical recycling, food/biomass waste, traditional metal, glass, paper, cardboard or mono-PET recycling are explicitly excluded.
5. Eligibility Conditions
* Applicants: Any legal entity from an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country.
* Single beneficiary projects: allowed only for SMEs, start-ups, universities, RTOs, NGOs (no mid-caps or large companies).
* Consortia: minimum 2 independent entities from 2 different eligible countries (if 2 partners) or ≥3 entities from ≥3 countries (if 3+ partners), with at least one EU Member State participant.
* Third-country partners may join at their own cost unless explicitly eligible.
* Projects must address one – and only one – focus area (Area 1, 2 or 3).
6. Timeline
* Call opens: 24 July 2025
* Deadline (single stage): 29 October 2025 (17:00 Brussels)
* Evaluation results: ~5 months post-deadline
* Grant agreement signatures: ~3 months after results
* Project start: Q3–Q4 2026 (indicative)
7. Evaluation & Award Criteria
1. Excellence (Breakthrough nature, ambition, interdisciplinarity, methodology) – 60 %
2. Impact (long-term vision, targeted outcomes, portfolio fit, pathway to scale & sustainability) – 20 %
3. Quality & efficiency of implementation (work plan, team, resources, risk, portfolio collaboration) – 20 %
Thresholds: ≥4/5 for Excellence, ≥3.5/5 for Impact, ≥3/5 for Implementation; overall ≥13/15.
8. Key Compliance Checks
* Demonstrate route to TRL 4 within project duration.
* Provide clear benchmarking against incumbent and emerging recycling solutions.
* Life-cycle sustainability: energy, water, land, toxicity, circularity of consumables.
* Recyclable-by-design prototypes.
* AI-enabled optimisation and/or hybrid approaches earn bonus portfolio points.
9. Intellectual Property & Exploitation
Grant allows full ownership of generated IP to beneficiaries, subject to Horizon Europe rules. A robust exploitation & IP strategy (incl. freedom-to-operate, licensing, open science compliance) is expected.
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*This description summarises the official call documents but does not replace them. Always consult the final EIC Work Programme 2025 and the Lump-Sum Model Grant Agreement.*
📊 At a Glance
🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for “Waste-to-Value Devices – Circular Production of Renewable Fuels, Chemicals and Materials” (HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-04)
1. Direct Access to the EU Single Market
• 450+ million consumers and ≈ 23 million SMEs create an unparalleled demand-pull for circular products (advanced polymers, green fuels, recovered critical raw materials).
• Harmonised REACH and CE-marking rules mean a prototype that reaches TRL 4 under the project can be piloted and later commercialised without re-certification in 27 Member States plus EEA/EFTA and Associated Countries.
• Pan-EU eco-labelling (EU Ecolabel, Green Public Procurement) lets early adopters leverage a single conformity assessment instead of 27 national schemes.
2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange
• Pathfinder allows single beneficiaries or lean 2–3-partner consortia, removing the administrative barrier of large frameworks while still enabling truly multinational teams.
• Access to 9 000+ infrastructures catalogued in the ESFRI roadmap (e.g. synchrotrons for catalyst characterisation, EMIL for advanced microscopy, LifeWatch for synthetic biology containment testing).
• Automatic entry into the EIC “Challenge Portfolio Community” → annual portfolio days, joint IP landscaping, shared experimental protocols and AI datasets foster rapid iteration across borders.
3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies
• European Green Deal, Circular Economy Action Plan and the new Packaging & Plastics Strategy: the call’s focus on hard-to-recycle polymers directly addresses policy gaps on mixed plastic streams and micro-/nanoplastics.
• REPowerEU & Fit-for-55: on-site solar-powered conversion devices cut fossil-fuel imports; recovered critical raw materials (e.g. Li, Co, V from brines) support the Critical Raw Materials Act.
• Zero-Pollution Action Plan: integrated remediation devices meet the 2030 targets for air, water and soil quality.
• Digital Europe/AI Act: Area 2 explicitly promotes physics-aware AI models, positioning consortia at the forefront of compliant, trustworthy AI for materials.
4. Regulatory Harmonisation & ‘Test-Before-Invest’ Opportunities
• EU Waste Framework Directive Article 23 pilot exemptions allow cross-border demonstration units to move between Member States under a single notification.
• Harmonised BREFs (Best Available Techniques Reference Documents) for waste incineration, polymers and water treatment provide clear benchmarks against which the project must “significantly outperform” – easing evaluator alignment and later permitting.
• Access to EU customs-free “Circular Economy Living Labs” (e.g. Port of Antwerp, Kalundborg Symbiosis) facilitates testing of transboundary waste flows.
5. Strength of the European Innovation Ecosystem
• 3 400+ Horizon-funded projects on plastic recycling, synthetic biology and desalination during FP7/H2020 create a rich results repository (CORDIS) for fast knowledge reuse.
• EIC Business Acceleration Services – free coaching, IP advice and matchmaking with >500 vetted investors specialised in climate tech and deep-tech hardware.
• Clusters such as 4 Regions for Plastics Recycling (NL-DE-BE-FR) and European Marine Energy Centre (UK-IE-DK-ES) give pre-negotiated access to demonstration sites.
6. Funding Synergies & De-Risking the Innovation Journey
1. Upstream – combine with ERC Proof-of-Concept or Marie-Curie DN/IF grants for talent secondments.
2. Midstream – successful Pathfinder projects are automatically eligible for EIC Transition (≤ €2.5 M, TRL 4→6) and later EIC Accelerator Blended Finance (≤ €17.5 M, TRL 5→9).
3. Side-stream – LIFE Circular Economy & Quality of Life (€5–€10 M) for larger pilots; Innovation Fund small scale (<€20 M CAPEX) for first-of-a-kind plants; Interreg for regional replication.
4. Downstream – InvestEU’s “Sustainable Infrastructure” window and EIB “Green Gateway” loans for commercial scale-up.
7. Economies of Scale & Rapid EU-Wide Deployment
• Standardised modular devices (e.g. containerised solar-reforming skids) can be replicated across 300 + NUTS-3 regions with similar waste compositions, creating a manufacturing base of >€2 Bn/year by 2030.
• Joint Procurement (Art. 38, Public Procurement Directive) lets municipalities aggregate demand, accelerating order books for winning consortia.
8. Leveraging EU Data Spaces & Digital Twins
• Access to the forthcoming Common European Green Deal Data Space provides high-resolution waste-flow, solar-irradiance and brine-composition datasets for AI-driven optimisation (Area 2).
• Compliance with the European Battery Passport and forthcoming Polymer Passport initiatives positions projects for seamless integration into EU digital product passports.
9. Socio-Economic & Territorial Cohesion Benefits
• Circular devices sized for 50 – 5 000 t/year facilities enable deployment in peripheral or outermost regions (e.g. islands with desalination plants or remote mining communities), supporting Cohesion Policy objectives.
• Potential to create 1 direct manufacturing job per 50 t waste valorised, contributing to the EU’s Just Transition Mechanism in carbon-dependent regions.
10. Intellectual-Property & Standardisation Leverage
• EU Unitary Patent (2024) provides cost-effective protection in up to 25 Member States; the European IPR Helpdesk services are available free of charge for EIC awardees.
• Early interaction with CEN-CENELEC/ETSI Research Helpdesks can fast-track pre-normative work, essential for new device classes like membrane-based brine mining.
11. Complementarity with EU Skills & Talent Programmes
• Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliances and EIT RawMaterials/EIT Manufacturing offer ready-made curricula for training technicians on device operation and maintenance.
• Researchers gain portability of social benefits and recognition of qualifications across the ERA, facilitating secondments to lead labs/SMEs in different countries.
12. Political Visibility & Influence
• Pathfinder projects enjoy high-level communication support; success stories often showcased in EU Green Week, giving participants a voice in shaping forthcoming regulation (e.g. revision of End-of-Waste criteria for polymers).
• Alignment with “New European Bauhaus” aesthetics/values can unlock additional design prizes and public engagement awards.
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Key Take-Away
By situating a high-risk, high-gain waste-to-value concept within the EIC Pathfinder Challenge, applicants tap into a uniquely pan-European springboard that couples grant funding with market access, regulatory certainty, cross-border talent, and a multi-billion-euro scale-up pipeline that simply cannot be replicated at national level.
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Ready to Apply?
Get a personalized assessment of your eligibility and application strategy
See in 5 min if you're eligible for Waste-to-value devices - circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials offering max €120.0M funding