Application window for €215.5M EU bio-based economy funding to close this month

05 Sep 2023 --- The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) has published its second call for project proposals. The undertaking is dedicating €215.5 million (US$232 million) to advance competitive circular bio-based industries in Europe across 18 topics. All stakeholders of the circular bio-based industries ecosystem can apply by 20 September 2023.

The call’s funding supports three CBE JU objectives defined in the CBE JU’s Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda. These include accelerating the innovation process and development of bio-based innovative solutions and encouraging market deployment of existing mature and innovative bio-based solutions. 

The third objective is to ensure a high environmental performance of bio-based industrial systems. 

The CBE JU’s three funding areas are:

• Research and innovation actions will establish knowledge or explore new or improved technology, product, process service or solution.
• Innovation actions will scale up activities from prototype to product validation and market replication. 
• Coordination and support actions will structure stakeholder communities. It will support technological visions and outreach, and disseminate and exploit research results.

All stakeholders of the bio-based industries ecosystem are invited to apply for CBE JU funding.Participation requirements
The joint undertaking states that all stakeholders of the bio-based industries ecosystem – farmers, brand owners, companies, research organizations and local authorities – are invited to apply for CBE JU funding.

Furthermore, the proposal submission requirements are detailed in the call documents published on each topic page.

The CBE JU call’s budget comes from Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation funding program. Applicants must submit their proposal electronically, following the link from the respective topic page.

Applicants have been able to submit their proposals since 26 April 2023.

After the call closure on 20 September 2023, CBE JU will organize the evaluation of the submitted proposals with the help of external experts selected from the European Commission’s expert database. 

The proposals selected for funding will be known by the end of February 2024. If the subsequent Grant Agreement Preparation is successful, the grant agreements with the selected project teams will be signed by the end of May 2024.

Edited by Natalie Schwertheim