This call for proposals supports the European Partnership on Raw Materials, aiming to secure and diversify the supply of critical and strategic raw materials essential for the EU’s industrial value chains. It encourages the alignment of national research and innovation (R&I) programmes with EU policy, strengthens cooperation with strategic partner countries, and promotes sustainable and responsible sourcing, processing, and recycling of raw materials.

The partnership, with a total indicative budget of €300 million (of which the EU will co-fund up to €90 million), will launch annual joint calls from 2026 to 2032. The initiative targets public institutions coordinating R&I in raw materials and will fund third-party projects (up to €2 million per project) that contribute to the goals of the Critical Raw Materials Act and the EU’s raw materials strategy.

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Align national R&I priorities in raw materials with EU policy on raw materials.
• Strengthen EU cooperation with countries the EU established strategic partnerships on Raw Materials;
• Improve industrial viability, safety and environmental impacts of the operation in a way that leads to measurable improvements;
• Improve EU sourcing diversification of critical raw materials from third countries;
• Improve responsible supply of raw materials to Europe in line with the EU principles for sustainable raw materials, which are a non-regulatory set of principles based on the EU acquis. They set out requirements for sustainable raw materials and extraction and processing in Europe in terms of social, environmental and economic performance.
• Dissemination and exploitation of projects outputs is tailored for organisations and industry dealing with raw materials in the EU and project partner from Strategic partnership countries.
• Promote the utilisation of UNFC (United Nations Framework Classification for Resources) and UNRMS (United Nations Resource Management System) in the raw materials sector.
• Actions are expected to contribute to the implementation of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, particularly to the 2030 benchmarks.