Nuclear and radiation techniques for EU strategic autonomy, circular economy and climate change policies

Conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in General Annex A (Admissibility) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.For RIA the limit for a full application is 45 pages. Please strickly abide by this page limit. Extension of proposal template by annexes is only allowed to describe specific issues (Financial support to third parties, Clinical trials and Calls flagged as security sensitive). The proposal is a self-contained document. Experts will be instructed to ignore hyperlinks or other information that is specifically designed to expand the proposal, thus circumventing the page limit.

2. Eligible countries: described in General Annex B (Eligibility) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

Eligible non-Euratom countries: Please note that as of the date of the publication of this call, Ukraine is the only country associated to the Euratom Programme 2021-2025.

Legal entities established in Russia, Belarus, or in non-government controlled territories of Ukraine are NOT eligible to participate in any capacity. This includes participation as beneficiaries, affiliated entities, associated partners, third parties giving in-kind contribution, subcontractors or recipients of financial support to third parties (if any). Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis for justified reasons.

Please see the Horizon Europe Programme Guide for up-to-date information on the current list of and the position for Associated Countries.

3. Other eligibility conditions: described in General Annex B (Eligibility) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding.

General Annex H of Euratom WP 2023-2025 describes JRC infrastructure and expertise in nuclear safety, radiatin protection and education & training available to applicants for grants from the Euratom Programme 2021-2025

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in General Annex C (Financial and operational capacity and exclusion) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

5. Evaluation and award:

• Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in General Annex D (Award criteria) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

• Submission and evaluation processes: described in General Annexes E (Documents) and F (Procedure) of Euratom WP 2023-2025 and the Online Manual

• Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in General Annex F (Procedure) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in General Annex G (Legal and financial set-up of grant agreements) of Euratom WP 2023-2025

Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000.

Details on financial support to third parties shall be specified as described in Part B of the Application Form.

Documents

Call documents:

Euratom Work Programme 2023-2025

Standard application form. For information only. When applying use the application form available in the Submission System.

Standard evaluation form (will be used with the necessary adaptations)

Horizon Europe & Euratom General MGA

Additional documents:

Euratom Regulation 2021/765

EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046

HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695

Decision on unit costs for HE and Euratom Research Infrastructure actions

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR, Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA - Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Project results are expected to contribute to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Contribute to the EU’s strategic autonomy by demonstrating concepts and solutions using nuclear and radiation techniques for producing critical raw materials, recovering rare-earth metals (lanthanides) from any waste, including radioactive waste and spent fuel, and exploring their market potential.
• Contribute to the EU’s circular economy by demonstrating concepts and solutions using nuclear and radiation techniques to reduce, recycle and reuse non-radioactive waste from domestic and industrial sources and explore their market potential.
• Contribute to climate change adaptation by demonstrating concepts and quality assured services for applications of nuclear and radiation techniques to monitor climate change and pollution of ecosystems and explore their market potential.

The potential for innovative ionising radiation applications is enormous and should support the EU’s strategic autonomy, circular economy and climate change policies. The areas are extensive and concern applications of charged particle beams (accelerators), x-rays, radioisotopes (alpha, beta and gamma emitters) and neutrons. For example, radiometric techniques and radioisotopes as tracers allow for monitoring climate change effects on ecosystems and soil, water and air pollution. Irradiation processes offer advantages over typical thermal and chemical processes, including higher throughput rates, reduced energy consumption, lower environmental pollution, more precise process control and products with superior qualities.

The development of nuclear and radiation techniques can help diversify the supply of secondary critical raw materials from non-EU countries and within Europe. Action in this area should develop EU capacity for innovative exploration and production of secondary raw materials and/or recovery/recycling of raw materials from spent nuclear fuel, e.g. rare-earth metals (lanthanides).

In environmental protection and monitoring, an action should modify existing quality assured nuclear techniques and develop new ones to provide complementary solutions for conventional climate adaptation and climate science technologies. These solutions should help build EU resilience and reduce EU vulnerabilities in land use and management, smart climate agriculture, food production systems, analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, management of water resources, and ocean and coastal protection.

On pollution, the development of radiation technologies and isotopic tracing techniques offer solutions, for instance, to waste water treatment or to characterising and assessing microplastic pollution while allowing for recycling and transforming waste into reusable resources. Action in this area could cover sorting challenges, waste treatment and transformation into secondary products, cleaner production and recycling processes, reducing the use of potentially harmful additives and solvents and delivering energy savings.

All potential solutions using nuclear techniques are expected to:

• Improve radiation protection of personnel, expertise in radiation protection, safety and security of radioactive sources, waste management, and reduce contamination risk, loss or theft.
• Be combined with newly emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data or metamaterials, thereby stimulating innovation and promoting a robust, world-leading nuclear technologies sector based on EU safety culture and know-how.
• Aim at ‘open innovation’, involving a broad range of actors from research and academic communities, industry, entrepreneurs and users. It should bring together multidisciplinary teams to generate ideas and solutions in an open innovation environment by increasing investment and bringing more companies and regions into the knowledge economy.
• Provide valid data from experiments, with the full chain of traceability with smallest reachable uncertainties as the best input for decision-makers.

This action could focus on closer-to-the-market activities, including prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting and scaling up new or improved products, processes or services. Proposals may include limited R&D activities and demonstrate European added value. Activities are expected to focus on Technology Readiness Levels 5 to 7 (indicative but not mandatory, depending on the innovative potential field).