EERA - The European Energy Research Alliance

Last week, the European Commission unveiled both its 📝2025 Work Programme and its Communication on the Union’s next seven-year budget. At the core of these two plans stands 🏭industrial competitiveness, 📈 efficiency and ✅simplification. In particular, the 2025 Work Programme focuses on competitiveness, security, economic resilience and innovation, with clarity and the reduction of administrative burden as central to efficiently 🎯enforcing these objectives. 🔍Looking to the Communication, titled ‘’The Road to the next Multiannual Financial Framework,’’ emphasis has been placed on a more focused budget, fostering synergies and unlocking private investments to finance the 🌍green, digital and social transitions. However, with the publication of the Omnibus simplification package still to come, aimed at reducing administrative burdens for businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), observers fear that such measures could result in deregulation and a scaling back of the EU’s ⚡decarbonisation, climate, and environmental goals.    🗞️Read EERA’s full analysis here: https://lnkd.in/eMiWGGRY

On Friday, the EERA team joined the workshop on ☀️the direct use of sunlight to produce hydrogen and carbon-based molecules☀️ in Paris! Co-organised by the IEA Hydrogen TCP (Technology Collaboration Programme), SUNER-C and Mission Innovation, the event focused on: 🔹The integration and cross-cutting aspects of solar fuel technologies. 🔹The key policy challenges that need to be addressed to accelerate the development of solar fuels and related technologies. 🔹The educational requirements for the implementation of new solar fuel technology. And that’s not all! 🗣️Ivan Matejak, EERA’s SET Plan & Strategic Programming Director, emphasised the need to tackle the fragmentation of funding and 🔬ensure the EU meets its research and innovation budgetary targets, which is all the more urgent in a context where established cooperation patterns are increasingly uncertain. Explore the pictures from the workshop below. 📸 SUNERGY - Fossil-free fuels and chemicals for a climate-neutral Europe 

💻The latest online course from StoRIES Project is out now!     ⚡In the context of the clean energy transition, this series of online courses expertly aims to address the training needs of the existing workforce in the field of energy storage.      🗣️In this episode, Rocio Bayon, researcher at CIEMAT, explores 🔎latent heat storage and the path towards the validation of phase-change materials (PCMs).    Watch the session below.👇 

Mark your calendar!     ⚡A new Summer School on Mid- to Long-Term Hybrid Energy Storage is coming up from 10 to 12 June in Trondheim, Norway.    📌Co-organised by the @Stories Project and the Nordic Flow Battery Network, the event is open to early-stage researchers, namely:    ✅Master’s students  ✅PhD students  ✅Postdoctoral researchers within 2 years of completing their PhD    👀Stay tuned for updates on registration and learn more below👇

🗞️EERA’s February newsletter is here!     In this edition, learn more about:     🌍The EERA Presidency team’s meeting with Kurt Vandenberghe, who leads the European Commission's Directorate-General for Climate Action.    🔎The EERA Day in Norway event, set to take place on 20 March.    📰Top news stories from the European energy and climate policy field.    💬The latest workshops, events and meetings hosted by our Joint Programmes and associated projects.    And there’s more! Swipe through the slides below 👇to discover all the insights from our latest newsletter.     🔗Read the full newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/eT9qxWdc  

🌱🏭On 26 February, the European Commission is expected to present its Clean Industrial Deal (CID) as a key strategy to support “competitive industries and quality jobs” in Europe. Envisioned as an important component in achieving the 🎯EU’s goals of decarbonisation, growth, and competitiveness, the CID will focus on 📈 investing in energy-intensive industries and emerging clean technology sectors. As recently reported by the media, it is set to encompass 6️⃣main thematic areas, namely energy security and prices, financing, recycling and critical raw materials, labour and skills, lead markets, and global action. Still, stakeholders in the sector remain concerned about the CID’s level of ambition in achieving the ⚡clean energy transition, as well as the issue of funding, for which few details have been revealed.   Read EERA’s full policy story here: https://lnkd.in/eDqiGj_t  

👩🔬At present, only one in three scientists is a woman. 🔬On the 10th anniversary of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, EERA supports UNESCO’s 2025 campaign on 💭imagining a world with more women in science.💭 This campaign importantly builds on the UNESCO call to action to close the gender gap in science, aiming to: 1️⃣Dismantle gender stereotypes and biases in science.  2️⃣Open educational pathways for girls in science.  3️⃣Create empowering workplace environments. ✊We must accelerate our efforts towards a gender-balanced scientific community where every voice is heard. Join the conversation here: 🔗https://lnkd.in/dJXdS7Qf #EveryVoiceInScience 

Last Friday, we hosted a session on European cooperation in the energy transition at the ⚡NWO NERA Energy Symposium 2025, featuring key insights from the EERA team:  🔹Our President Henk-Jan Vink spoke about EERA’s role in strengthening pan-European collaboration in low-carbon energy research and innovation (R&I). 🔹Adel El Gammal, Secretary General, discussed the geopolitical challenges of the EU energy transition and EERA’s recommendations for boosting European competitiveness through R&I.  And that’s not all! Our session also included an insightful panel discussion moderated by EERA’s Communications & Outreach Director, Maria Luisa F. Vanoni, with key input from: 🔹Yvonne van Delft, our Joint Programme (JP) Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes Coordinator  🔹 Laurens De Vries, Coordinator of JP Energy Systems Integration 🔹 Peter Eecen, JP Wind Sub-programme Coordinator    🔹 Adel El Gammal, Secretary General    🧠The panel explored the benefits for research organisations and universities in joining networks like EERA, and how to facilitate meaningful collaboration between science and policy. 

Did you know that the 🚀next edition of the EERA National Days series will take place in Norway? That’s right! 🗓️Coming up on 20 March in Oslo, the event is co-organised by Norwegian organisations NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, SINTEF and the University of Bergen, together with EERA. It will bring together the Norwegian low-carbon energy research community and representatives from the main national authorities in the sector to:      🔬Discuss common research and innovation topics of interest for Europe and Norway with the aim of aligning national priorities with EU strategies and policies. 💡Learn about EERA’s central influence in Europe and the benefits of Norwegian participation in the Alliance.   🤝Encourage networking among the Norwegian participants and seek further synergies between EERA and Norway. Secure your spot to the EERA Day in Norway here: 🔗https://lu.ma/fuwygwgi

💻The second webinar of the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP) Project Portfolio Series is just around the corner!     This series is designed to 🔦showcase SNETP’s portfolio of Euratom projects over the coming months.    Make sure to join the next webinar to hear updates on two projects centred on molten salt reactor (MSR) technology: ✅ENDURANCE and ✅MIMOSA.    ⏰14 February, 13:00 – 14:00 CET, online.    📌Don’t miss the chance to learn from experts in the field and engage with the SNETP community on the future of nuclear energy.    Register here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/e5Y5ZEmF