Carbon Management Europe welcomes the European Commission's initiative to strengthen the impact, coherence and strategic focus of European Partnerships under Horizon Europe 2028-2034. We support the proposed portfolio approach and believe that Industrial Carbon Management (ICM) fulfils the rationale for a future European Partnership.
Industrial Carbon Management is not a single technology or industrial sector, but a cross-sectoral innovation ecosystem encompassing CO2 capture, transport, storage, utilisation, industrial carbon removals, monitoring and verification, infrastructure, standards and enabling regulatory frameworks.
Innovation across these components is highly interdependent, requiring long-term coordination that extends beyond the scope of conventional collaborative research projects. Europe enters the next programming period from a position of considerable strength.
Successive Framework Programmes have established a highly competitive research and innovation ecosystem, while evidence from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre demonstrates Europe's internationally recognised strengths in scientific excellence, patent quality, industrial expertise and collaborative research.
At the same time, increasing public and private investment in other regions highlights the need to preserve and strengthen Europe's competitive position. The principal challenge is not so much proving the technical feasibility of Industrial Carbon Management, but rather accelerating deployment and industrial scale-up.
As technologies mature, research priorities are increasingly focused on cost reduction, process optimisation, standardisation, interoperability and the integration of complete CO2 value chains.
Successfully bridging the gap between demonstration and commercial deployment requires closer coordination between research, industrial investment, infrastructure development and market creation, together with stronger links between Horizon Europe and complementary deployment-oriented funding instruments.
Industrial Carbon Management is also inherently European in nature. The uneven distribution of industrial emissions, transport infrastructure and geological storage resources means that efficient deployment depends upon cross-border cooperation, shared standards and coordinated planning. These characteristics create clear European added value and align closely with the objectives of future institutionalised Partnerships.
Carbon Management Europe therefore recommends that the European Commission:
- include Industrial Carbon Management as a strategic thematic within the future portfolio of European Partnerships under Horizon Europe 20282034;
- implement this Partnership across the full research, innovation and deployment cycle; and
- ensure that it complements existing European funding instruments while reducing fragmentation across Member States and industrial sectors.
Together, these measures would strengthen Europe's ability to translate research excellence into industrial leadership, accelerate industrial decarbonisation and reinforce long-term European competitiveness.