The SUPEERA consortium at the project kick-off meeting in January in Brussels

Brussels – The European Commission under the leadership of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made climate action one of its top priorities, with the transition towards a clean energy society as a cornerstone. Research and innovation will play a central role for achieving this goal. In January 2020, the European Energy Research Alliance has launched the “SUPEERA” project (Support to the coordination of national research and innovation programmes in areas of activity of the European Energy Research Alliance) to support the implementation of a clean energy transition in Europe. Five of its member organisations from Denmark (DTU), France (CEA), Germany (KIT), Norway (SINTEF), and Finland (VTT) will support the activities. The European Commission funds the project with €1.67 million.

Moving from fossil fuels to a clean energy system will be essential for making Europe climate-neutral by 2050. This transition will have to encompass societal, economic, political, and technological dimensions and requires effective cross-sectorial and collaborative actions. The Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) is a key framework to deliver on the technological part of the transition. It sets a roadmap up to the year 2030 and helps align research and innovation priorities between the European Commission, EU Member States and the private sector. The overarching objective of the SUPEERA project is to strengthen European cooperation in research and innovation in order to realise the objectives of the SET-Plan in the broader perspective of the clean energy transition.

Connecting the dots: SUPEERA to ensure horizontal coordination and increase impact

Since the SET-Plan is clustered to a large extent along technologies and does not provide a formal mechanism for using cross-cutting research capacities or pooling interdisciplinary activities, SUPEERA will improve the exchange of information between the different actors involved and foster joint actions. This will allow to create synergies, avoid overlap, increase impact, and use untapped potential. SUPEERA will also help better connect research and innovation, foster a stronger engagement of the EU-13 countries*, and assess EU policies to allow for better policymaking. The main expected impact of the project is an accelerated, expanded, widened and better coordinated implementation of the targets defined in the SET-Plan.

Four objectives

In order to reach this goal, the project partners have set four main objectives:

• Facilitate the coordination of the research community to support the execution of the SET-Plan towards the clean energy transition;
• Accelerate innovation and the uptake of research results by industry;
• Provide recommendations on research and innovation priorities and policy frameworks;
• Support and promote the SET-Plan and the clean energy transition.

The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) with its around 250 members provides a unique pool of expertise in low-carbon energy technologies and in addressing cross-sectoral and systemic challenges. The SUPEERA project materializes the central role EERA can naturally play in facilitating the convergence of national research efforts. The dedicated focus on EU Member States that are not fully integrated in the European energy research and innovation system yet will help mobilise further resources and foster alignment of activities.

*13 countries that joined the EU after 2004: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia

Contact

Ivan Matejak
Project Coordinator
European Energy Research Alliance (EERA)
Phone:+32 2 568 01 01
E-mail: i.matejak@eera-set.eu

About SUPEERA

The SUPEERA project (“Support to the coordination of national research and innovation programmes in areas of activity of the European Energy Research Alliance”) is a Grant to identified beneficiary – Coordination and Support Action funded by the European Commission with €1.67 million from 01/2020 to 12/2022. EERA as grant holder is supported by five organisations: CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission; FR), DTU (Technical University of Denmark; DK), KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; DE), SINTEF (Independent Research Institute; NO), and VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland; FI).

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 949125.

About the European Energy Research Alliance

The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) is an association of European public research centres and universities active in low-carbon energy research. EERA pursues the mission of catalysing European energy research for a climate-neutral society by 2050. Bringing together more than 250 organisations from 30 countries, EERA is Europe’s largest energy research community. EERA coordinates its research activities through 17 Joint Programmes and is a key player in the European Union’s Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan. For further information, see www.eera-set.eu.

(Copy requested in case of publication: EERA, Rue de Namur 72, 1000 Brussels, Belgium)