Circular production

The holistic circular economy ("circular value creation") is becoming increasingly important in industrial production. It promises products that are low in pollutants, durable, repairable and recyclable at the end of their useful life. The aim of the "Circular Production" funding call is to drive forward the experimental development of cycle-oriented prototypes. These are to be used for machines, products and processes in the field of industrial production. A circular economy offers considerable future growth potential and also ensures that the strategic dependencies of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Union are reduced.

The call particularly promotes projects that use circular product design, reduce the material consumption of industrial processes, increase the sustainability of materials, improve modularity and up-grade capabilities or are aimed at extending the service life of products.
Projects for the development of critical technologies in the following areas are eligible for funding:

• digital technology and technology-intensive innovations such as advanced semiconductor technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, advanced sensor technologies, robotics and autonomous systems
• environmentally friendly and resource-efficient technologies such as solar technologies, on-shore wind power technologies and offshore renewable energy, battery and energy storage technologies, heat pumps and technologies for geothermal energy and hydrogen technologies
• biotechnologies such as DNA/RNA, proteins and other molecules, cell and tissue culture and engineering, biotechnology process engineering, gene and RNA vectors, bioinformatics or nanobiotechnology