CONCEPT

Replacement of fossils resources by renewable resources is essential to achieve a sustainable growth of human society. Ultimately, energy and carbon used to produce fuels and chemicals must be sourced directly from the Sun and CO2 and synthesized biologically. The CONCEPT project holds the promise by proposing a hybrid strategy, combining both chemical and biological routes, as a hybrid concept of converting CO2 into a value-added product using renewable energy to create an artificial carbon cycle. To achieve this challenge, a unique consortium is being assembled according to the key competences of its partners from different research disciplines needed to establish a novel production basis of complex molecules (more than C1) from CO2. As no single organization or country has the capacity to successfully bring about the innovations and demonstrations intended in CONCEPT on its own, a well-balanced consortium has been arranged, with partners being complementary to each other and willing to closely cooperate in creating a research environment as envisioned in CONCEPT’s ambitious aim. At the moment, 6 legal entities independent from each other (i.e. 4 academics, 2 SMEs) and from 4 different eligible countries (i.e. France, Germany, Spain, Poland) have accepted to be part of the consortium. In the future more legal entities (2 companies, 2 research organisation) from 2 more different countries may join the consortium. Considering that CONCEPT is a pioneer project given the high-risk research due to the novelty of the concept and the huge social, environmental and political implications. Considering the highly competitive funding program in the call H2020-FNR-13-2020: “Bio-based industries leading the way in turning carbon dioxide emissions into chemicals”. The core Consortium headed by Stéphanie Heux and Claire Dumon requests help from the French Research Agency (ANR) to financially support the assembly of this European Scientific Network. In particular, this help will allow: - to strengthen and expand the consortium - to reinforce the project position - to implement actions in order to suppress or reduce identified weaknesses - to organise at three consortium meetings: one for creating the bases for an interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and prepare the first stage submission , the second in order to strengthen the European proposal in view of stage two submission and a third to finalize the second stage proposition. The ambition is to submit a pre-proposal in January 2020 and, if accepted, a full proposal in September 2020. We are strongly convinced that the chances to succeed will be significantly increased with the MRSEI financial support. Also, the CONCEPT‘s concretisation will reinforce the French position in the bio-based manufacturing and processing domain, using biological and renewable raw materials.