Environmentally sustainable manufacturing through circular business future trends – upskilling and reskilling in re-manufacturing and critical resources for circular economy and new technologies

Overview

Objectives

Proposals are expected to develop upskilling programmes based on one of the following segments: “Skill-driven learning”, “education for transforming organisations” and “engage society and pupils”.

Activities/actions supported

To facilitate the adoption of remanufacturing, proposals under this segment should focus on the following key areas:

• Enhancing understanding of circular economy principles at the operator level.
• Developing expertise in materials science, business acumen, and supply chain management to support effective remanufacturing processes.
• Equipping the workforce with the ability to prepare, draw, and design products, as well as conduct life cycle assessments and improve product design for remanufacturing.
• Promoting knowledge of legal frameworks and policies at the European level that are conducive to supporting and facilitating remanufacturing initiatives.

Anticipated outcomes

Proposals under this topic should clearly demonstrate how new teaching, learning, upskilling methodologies and approaches add to the State of the Art, clearly identifying
and illustrating a market analysis, whilst addressing the following expected outcomes:

• Enhanced knowledge of design for remanufacturing and recycling, enabling the development of products that are easier to remanufacture and recycle.
• Improved utilization of materials and resources, including a comprehensive understanding of future critical raw materials, ensuring responsible and sustainable use. 

Institution providing the funding

European Commission - EIT Manufacturing

Size of funding

The total maximum funding allocated to this call is up to €4.750.000. The maximum amount allocated per projects varies according to the project segment:

• Segment 1 (Skill-Driven Learning): Up to €400.000
• Segment 2 ( Education for transforming organizations): Up to €400.000
• Segment 3 (Engage society and pupils): Up to €250.000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries at the time of proposal submission: the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions; the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States; the countries associated with Horizon Europe and the low- and middle-income countries.

Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes at least 3 legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:

• at least 1 independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
• at least 2 other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

More information about the eligibility of proposals and the profile of applicants is available in the Call Guidelines for education proposals.

Overview of award criteria

The proposals which successfully pass the eligibility check are evaluated and scored against 5 criteria: 

• Excellence (5 points),
• Impact (5 points), 
• Implementation (5 points), 
• Strategic Fit (5 points),
• EU Dimension (5 points). 

The maximum score for a proposal is 25. The default threshold for individual criteria is 3 and the default overall threshold is 15. 

More details about the scoring are available in the Call Guidelines for education proposals.

Procedures

Application procedures

All Activity Leaders must submit the proposals via the Plaza submission tool. 

The following documentation must be submitted by the applicants through the Plaza submission tool no later than the call deadline:

• Online application form
• Business Owner deck
• Instructional Designer deck
• GANTT 

Derailed guidelines on the application procedure are available in the Call Guidelines document, available here.

Application support available

In case of questions, please contact supporteitmanufacturing [dot] eu (support[at]eitmanufacturing[dot]eu) and educationeitmanufacturing [dot] eu (education[at]eitmanufacturing[dot]eu). 
Agora, EIT's online community platform, is also open to all entities to have access to the most updated information on the call and to help them build up proposal consortia.

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info