SMARTSPEND

More and better designed national public support for energy technology Research & Innovation

The SMARTSPEND project, funded through the European Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 and concluded in November 2021, has been working over the past three years to create more and better designed public support for research and innovation in renewable energy technologies.

The SMARTSPEND project pursued its mission to increase support for energy technology R&I in three ways:

via high-level meetings between industry representatives and governments in several EU countries;
by organising three conferences on public and private funding for clean energy innovation;
by preparing publications on energy innovation for industry experts and decision makers on various topics.

SMARTSPEND created industrial delegations, including CEOs and managers in companies active in the renewable energy sector, as well as from well-known research organisations. In total, five national delegations were created, each gathering between three and seven sectors, who visited governments (usually Secretaries of States, Directors General or Heads of Cabinets) in five EU countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. The representatives presented recommendations to those governments to better support energy technology R&I in their country and in Europe.

The project has organised three so-called Access to Risk Finance Conferences between 2020 and 2021 with around 400 participants in total. The conferences had a mix of high-level and technical-level speakers from clean tech and finance sectors, as well as EU and national policy-makers. A wide array of topics including public and private funding streams for clean energy innovations from early-stage to market scale up. The three events were organised digitally and all presentations, recordings and supporting material are available online on the project website.

The different implementation groups of the SET Plan were involved in the project so that synergies between the implementation plans could be identified and used. Spreading knowledge on the availability of funding or financing for energy R&I, and commenting on the features missing from this funding landscape was another task of SMARTSPEND. Project reports and further information can be found on the project website.

FNR’s main task was to liaise with ETIP Bioenergy.

Duration: 12/2018 – 11/2021

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