Today the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (JU) and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) signed a letter of intent to agree on the principles of a future collaboration on clean hydrogen. Its aim is to facilitate the knowledge exchange on grants, projects and companies working on clean hydrogen and to accelerate the market uptake of European Innovation Council (EIC) and Clean Hydrogen JU grantees through their respective calls for proposals.

Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director Clean Hydrogen JU, said:

I am very pleased to sign this letter and drive forward the excellent working cooperation we have with the EIC and EISMEA. Synergies among our institutions will ultimately help boost much needed innovation in clean hydrogen technologies, while creating a sound framework for exchanging knowledge and best practice.

Jean-David Malo, Director of EISMEA, said during the ceremony:

Hydrogen has the potential to contribute to the development of efficient, sustainable and flexible energy systems helping to tackle the energy crisis and the Green Deal goals. In this context, the EIC, the Europe’s flagship innovation initiative to identify, develop and scale up deep-tech breakthrough technologies and game changing innovations, has a key role to play. And it is not “par hazard” that for example, the EIC is supporting the EU hydrogen ecosystem, especially in the “Novel routes to green hydrogen production” challenge supervised by the EIC Programme Managers. In this frame it also became obvious that due to their roles and activities, the CH JU and EISMEA, as the entity implementing the EIC, should reinforce their cooperation in a more structured and synergised way. I’m therefore delighted that with the signature today of this letter of intent we are joining our forces to contribute further to make Europe a fully decarbonised continent by 2050.

The collaboration is based on the exchange of information about the beneficiaries in the field of innovative hydrogen-based technologies, sharing of mutual databases and ensuring the coordination and continuity of EU funding for hydrogen-based technologies.