Horizon Europe is the European Union's most effective instrument for subsidising innovation and research. Its main objectives are to promote Europe's scientific leadership and industrial competitiveness. It will achieve this by tackling the 'grand challenges' such as the green and digital transformation, sustainable growth and social well-being.
This ambitious programme is the largest of its kind worldwide, with a total budget of more than €95 billion.
These objectives are translated into calls for projects around a specific theme. The current themes are clear: the circular economy and switching to bio-based products. Within the circular economy, calls were made regarding collection, sorting, separation and recycling. But eco-design, the introduction of new business models and services are also considered.
From Centexbel-side, we are actively engaged in such projects. Typically, our involvement involves projects with around 10-15 partners, including research organisations and companies.
Collaboration between partners is key!
The projects run for three to four years, and our role is to facilitate collaboration between the partners. During this period, the developments are taken to a demonstration and/or pilot level. The subsidy level depends on the type of activities, with 70% or even 100% available for small and large companies alike.
To illustrate our point, we will discuss two projects below:
CISUFLO
CISUFLO’s overarching goal is to significantly reduce the environmental footprint of the EU floorcovering sector by implementing a comprehensive, systemic framework for circular and sustainable floor coverings that accounts for both technical feasibility and socio-economic factors.
CENTEXBEL is the project coordinator.
Belgian companies UNILIN, BIG and DECEUNINCK are also involved. DECEUNINCK and BIG are working to identify the best ways to use recycled PVC in their products.
The project is therefore an important step for BIG on its journey towards circular and sustainable flooring. UNILIN is leading the way in recycling wooden boards used for laminates. They have successfully completed a pilot installation for recycling MDF boards back to wood fibres, demonstrating their commitment to closed-loop recycling.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101003893.
tEXTENDED
The tExtended Project will develop and demonstrate effective textiles recovery, waste valorisation and recycling processes. These will be combined with digital tools and data-driven solutions to support the sustainable circularity of textiles and maximise its impact.
CENTEXBEL is leading the Belgian use case, which consists of De Kringloopwinkel Deltagroep, PURFI and UTEXBEL.
All four Belgian partners are working together to increase textile recycling.
Each partner has a specific focus: collection and sorting for De Kringloopwinkel, mechanical recycling for PURFI, production of workwear with recycled fibres for UTEXBEL and thermomechanical recycling of polyester for CENTEXBEL.
tExtended aims to introduce an innovative approach to the cycling of discarded textiles with the development of a Blueprint, a knowledge-based masterplan for the optimized cycling for different textile flows.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101091575