Overcoming the challenge of finding initial customers is a significant obstacle for the commercialization of innovative solutions developed by SMEs, particularly EIC awardees (EICs). This challenge is especially pronounced when the target market involves public administration or large private corporations (Buyers). To mitigate these challenges and broaden the scope of innovation procurement in Europe, InnoMatch will facilitate the co-creation and proof-of-concept demonstration of EIC innovations, focusing on addressing the unmet needs of selected buyers. InnoMatch will achieve this by fostering collaboration between EICs and buyers, with a specific focus on ensuring successful solutions are adopted by the buyer following the pilot phase, which may not always be the case. The offered support includes not just the identification of needs and the facilitation of connections between EICs and buyers for pilot deployment, but also strategies to enhance the likelihood of adoption by buyers and accelerate the commercial advancement of EICs. To fulfil this vision, InnoMatch will invest €2.28M in grants to EICs (76% of project budget), supporting 38 pilots which will be distributed through two types of open calls: OC#1: Call for EIC+Buyer: EICs apply together with pre-identified buyer; OC#2 EICs: EICs apply with a solution to a pre-defined challenge, which has been identified by at least 2 separate and independent buyers. The identification of the Buyers challenges will follow a specific methodology which includes a OC#2 Buyers, capacity building, workshops that aim to aggregate individual needs & expectations into a common challenge definition and, ends up with the signature of a sub-grant agreement. The team -F6S, ICLEI, TBM and CIV- 1) has wide network of buyers; 2) worked with EIC community & corporates; 3) experience in FSTP (+€80m, +180 calls & +7k awardees), 4) Innovation Procurement with +10 EU projects in the domain; 5) delivered business & mentorship programmes.

The building and construction (B&C) industry, a significant global economic sector with a market size of $5.4 trillion in 2021, is projected to reach $11.1 trillion by 2031. Despite its significance, the sector is a leading contributor to environmental degradation, accounting for a large portion of global energy consumption, carbon emissions, natural resource depletion, and solid waste generation. ECOFUNC seeks to mitigate these impacts by advancing the use of carbon-negative polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), produced by microorganisms using CO2 as feedstock, thereby reducing the sector’s environmental footprint. The project will establish the first EU-based circular value chains for applications such as ventilated façade cladding, ceiling tiles, and internal partition walls. This will be achieved through the development of recyclable PHA-based panels, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional, non-biobased, and non-recyclable materials. ECOFUNC will also integrate bio-based flame retardants, natural fibers, and PHA foams to create high-performance panels, targeting a global warming potential of under 0.5 kg CO2-eq/m² and aiming to reduce life cycle costs by up to 20%. Guided by sustainability frameworks, including the DNSH and SSbD principles, the project is driven by a consortium of industry leaders and research institutions working on PHAs, fiber processing, panel production, and product validation. As part of its broader impact, ECOFUNC will explore the use of panels in the automotive sector as a spillover activity. Furthermore, end-of-life strategies will be implemented, incorporating both chemical recycling to convert PHA back into virgin-grade material and mechanical recycling to re-purpose it for applications in furniture and automotive. The project will develop 11 technologies and 10 value chains aimed at transforming the B&C industry, demonstrating the technical and economic viability of PHAs in promoting sustainable material practices.

LOCALITY will implement local, innovative, and sustainable value chains, supporting the interaction of the algae value chain actors with relevant waste stream producing industries. Three regional ecosystems will be strategically developed in key regions considering strong and active business on which circularity and sustainability will be improved by the reutilization of wasted nutrients for algae cultivation. These ecosystems will be positioned in the Baltic and North Sea bordering countries but multi-perspectively supported by other R&D and industrial experienced partners in sustainable algae production. The biomass will be processed using a biorefinery approach and raw and treated ingredients applied in the food, aquafeed, agriculture, and textile markets. An integrative methodology involving R&D partners, industry, and SMEs will work in each market sector to develop innovative and sustainable algae-based products. The consumer readiness for the designed products will be assessed, and significant constraints and legal barriers will be identified. Those will be evaluated and integrated into the business model to prepare a successful market implementation and exploitation of the developed products. A dissemination and communication plan for maximum outreach to all relevant stakeholders will be implemented. The designed products will gain a strong position in the European marketplace in the coming years.

Europe has an extensive textile waste problem - annually 7 –7.5 million tons of textile waste is generated, but only about 30 - 35 % of the generated waste is collected separately and less than 1% is recycled into new clothing. Collection of textile waste will become mandatory in EU member states by 2025. Most of the textile are cotton, polyester, or their blends. Considerable amounts of CO/PES blends are disposed every year due to the technical challenge and/or economic viability of recycling. The objective of PESCO-UP is to develop a sustainable and economically and technologically viable process of the mixed CO/PES textile waste to be upcycled into cotton originated and polyester products. The processes should enable for production of new products without quality restriction and of products with identical properties and performances as those produced using primary resources. The main tools to achieve this are the development of automated identification and sorting methods for textiles, Digital Product Passport with a marketplace-style dataspace for sharing data describing material streams to support matching of supply and demand of textile materials, and the process development of purification, separation technologies as well as the technologies that utilize the separated cotton and PES fractions for the valuable products. PESCO-UP will ensure that sustainable fiber-to-fiber recycling becomes a reality in Europe. This will turn a societal waste problem into a business opportunity for European SMEs and bring the textile industry back to Europe. At the same time dependency on oil and cotton based raw materials will decrease, which will mean reduction in CO2 emission and reduced water consumption. The use of developed digital methods and digital product passport can be widened in other industrial sectors to solve their recycling and sustainability issues.

PredictAYA is a multidisciplinary effort to fully address and improve the understanding of late effects in AYAs 15-39 years treated for cancer, by building on data from existing populations-based registers, large genomic biobanks and newly established clinical AYA cohorts. Importantly, the patient perspective will be captured in our clinical cohorts and patients’ care preferences and needs including the psychosocial impact of cancer treatment on reproductive health, sexuality and quality of life in AYAs. By cooperation between clinicians, researchers, psychologists, oncology nurses and with patient involvement, the study will use a participatory research approach and develop in co-creation with representative AYAs with cancer. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on “Quality of life (AYA). Our long-term goal is to develop a panel of validated biomarkers to identify individuals at high-risk of organ toxicities, aiming at clinical implementation and future individualized screening and counselling. Our main focus is on reproductive toxicity and through innovative precision medicine and pharmacogenetics, we will identify genetic biomarkers explanatory for interindividual variation in treatment induced toxicity among AYAs. A model on constitutional genetic risk for reproductive organ toxicity will be evaluated in clinical cohorts across Europe. Future precision-medicine applications and clinical implementation are envisaged as potential benefit of our proposal. Additional research questions include the prevalence, severity and timing of gonadal toxicity for different cancer treatments in both sexes, the timing and risks of pregnancy, the risk of accelerated aging, the health of the children born to AYAs. The safety and efficacy of fertility preservation methods will be investigated in detail. Our methodology will also allow us to investigate additional phenotypes and find associations among reproductive, endocrine, cardiac and neurologic toxicity, risk factors including social and health determinants and comorbidity patterns.