EIT RawMaterials announces €100m funding for high-impact projects

At the sixth annual edition of the Raw Materials Summit, EIT RawMaterials announced €100 million in additional funding for high-impact projects in the European raw materials sector.

This news comes as Europe’s tile manufacturing sectors continue to struggle with the massively inflated cost of natural gas and the necessary transition to cleaner energy sources while maintaining production capacity and quality.

“We are sending a message to stakeholders across the raw materials ecosystem that the moment to invest is at hand,” said Bernd Schäfer, CEO and managing director, EIT RawMaterials. “This is not only a major investment in its own right; we believe that every Euro we invest is a multiplier that will enable further direct and indirect investments up to 10 times the value. We are working to translate the vision of the Critical Raw Materials Act into tangible action and impact.”

The funds will be allocated through “call” mechanisms, inviting participation from diverse stakeholders, including research organisations, universities, start-ups, major industrial players, and consortia. A “fast-track” call approach will be introduced to accelerate funding access for outstanding projects.

This investment builds upon the €600m strategic funding already deployed by EIT RawMaterials since 2016. These funds have supported numerous research and innovation projects, entrepreneurship initiatives, technology start-ups and scale-ups. These have yielded remarkable results, supporting over 600 projects and start-ups, which have raised a further €500 million from the market, resulting in cumulative direct funding exceeding €1 billion into projects and programmes across Europe.