The Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETPartnership) aims at accelerating the clean energy transition to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. It is a multilateral and strategic partnership of national and regional research, development and innovation (RDI) funding programmes in EU Member States and Associated Countries, co-funded by the European Commission through Horizon Europe (HE). The CETPartnership’s goals are:

• Building a transnational transformative joint programming platform
• Developing and demonstrating technologies and solutions for the energy system transition
• Building innovation ecosystems that support capacity building at all levels.

The CETPartnership Joint Call 2023 is supported by 41 national and regional Funding Agencies from 27 EU Member States and Associated Countries to Horizon Europe: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Türkiye, UK (Scotland) and 4 international partners from: Canada (Alberta), India, Switzerland and the United States of America.

The CETPartnership includes 7 Transition Initiatives (TRIs) addressing a broad range of RDI challenges from discrete technologies to integrated systems for the clean energy transition, as well as several cross-cutting dimensions, as follows:

• (System integration), TRI 1: Integrated Net-zero-emissions Energy System: Develop optimised, integrated net-zero emissions energy systems, with electricity distribution and transmission grids as the “backbone” and with a high level of integration among all energy carrier networks, supported by energy storage and power conversion processes.
• (Enable technologies), TRI 2: Enhanced zero emission Power Technologies: Develop a pool of zero-emission power technologies and solutions based on renewable energy sources as the backbone of the future energy system, being able to deliver carbon-neutral electricity accessible to all and to contribute to the resilience of the system.
• (Enable technologies), TRI 3: Enabling Climate Neutrality with Storage Technologies, Renewable Fuels and CCU/CCS: Provide cleaner technological solutions for storage technologies, hydrogen, renewable fuels, CCU (Carbon Capture and Utilisation) and CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) contributing to significant CO2 reduction by 2030 and the climate neutrality by 2050.
• (Enable technologies), TRI 4: Efficient zero emission Heating and Cooling Solutions: Provide cleaner technological solutions for storage technologies, hydrogen, renewable fuels, CCU (Carbon Capture and Utilisation) and CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) contributing to significant CO2 reduction by 2030 and the climate neutrality by 2050.
• (System integration), TRI 5: Integrated Regional Energy Systems: Provide enhanced and improved heating and cooling technologies and systems for all major parts of Europe by 2030 and to enable 100% climate-neutral heating and cooling by 2050.
• (System integration), TRI 6: Integrated Industrial Energy Systems: Develop and validate integrated regional and local energy systems that efficiently enable a secure, resilient and CO2-free regional energy supply for a specific regional context (up to and beyond 100% in the dynamic regional or local supply by 2030) and provide tailor-made solutions for individual regional and bring them together at European level.
• (System integration), TRI 7: Integration in the Built Environment: Provide solutions and technologies for existing and new buildings to become an active element in the energy system, with enhanced capability to produce, store and efficiently use energy.

The CETPartnership supports a paradigm shift with an integrated approach to innovation considering not only technological aspects (Technology), but also business aspects (Market) and social and political aspects (Stakeholders). The CETPartnership Knowledge Community is an integral part of the CETPartnership and aims to leverage exchange and co-create knowledge between RDI stakeholders, all CETPartnership funded projects and other national, transnational and international CETPartnership activities. It will implement innovative monitoring and transfer activities and generate synergies for knowledge co-creation in working groups, in the thematic challenges addressed by TRIs and in the cross-cutting dimensions according to the CETPartnership SRIA.

The CETPartnership Joint Call 2023 is a 2 stage-call structured around 12 Call modules. Each Transition Initiative (TRI) developed 1 or 2 Call modules based on their strategic topics and content, allowing to cover the whole spectrum of their specific SRIA challenges.

• CM2023-01: Direct current (DC) technologies for power networks: This Call Module aims to support projects increasing the TRL moderately, i.e. showing a TRL increase of 1-2 from start to finish.
• CM2023-02: Energy system flexibility: renewables production, storage and system integration: This joint Call Module aims to address key aspects of the clean energy transition ranging from the integration of renewable energy sources into the power grids, considering storage as a possible solution to deal with their intermittent nature, to broad technological and market aspects as well as approaches towards system integration.
• CM2023-03 (A/B): Advanced renewable energy (RE) technologies for power production: This Call Module aims to respond to the main RDI gaps and challenges underlined by the relevant SET Plan IWGs: IWG CSP-STE, IWG Ocean Energy; IWG PV and IWG Wind.
• CM2023-04: Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS): This Call Module aims  to select projects that will support the emergence of CCU/CCS primarily in the industrial sectors and the energy sector.
• CM2023-05: Hydrogen and renewable fuels: This Call Module will focus on the development and demonstration of innovative and cost-, energyand carbon-/resource-efficient technologies for hydrogen and renewable fuels along the whole value chain.
• CM2023-06: Heating and cooling technologies: This Call Module targets innovation in all relevant areas for developing a secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable climate-neutral heating and cooling supply.
• CM2023-07: Geothermal energy technologies: This Call Module targets innovation, research and development in how geothermal energy is supplied and integrated into Europe’s future energy system.
• CM2023-08: Integrated regional energy systems: The scope of this Call Module is the creation of resilient and secure energy transition regions, which efficiently provide, host, and utilise high shares of renewables in the dynamic local or regional supply by 2030.
• CM2023-09: Integrated industrial energy systems: The Call Module for Integrated Industrial Energy Systems (TRI6) aims at developing and demonstrating a set of technical solutions for integrated industrial energy systems that enables efficient carbon-neutral industrial production sites and takes industrial energy systems into development as part of the entire energy system.
• CM2023-10 (A/B): Clean energy integration in the built environment: The scope of these Call Modules -that cover both ROA (Research-Oriented Approach) and IOA (Innovation-Oriented Approach) projects- is to transform the built environment from a passive towards an active role in the future energy landscape.

CETPartnership Joint Call 2023, includes the following eligibility criteria and requirements:

• Transnational eligibility criteria, applicable for all project consortia applying to the Call.
• Call Module requirements, applicable for project consortia applying to Call Modules with specific requirements, see also Chapter 8 (pages 24 -68 at call text).
• National/regional requirements, applicable for Project Consortium Partners applying for funding from Funding Organisations in the Call, see also Annex B .

In order to be eligible, research consortia must include at least 3 independent legal entities from 3 different countries participating in the CETPartnership Joint Call 2023, of which at least 2 must be EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries.

• The total effort of one Project Consortium Partner in the project consortium can be maximum 60% of the total project efforts (measured in person months).
• The total effort of Project Consortium Partners from one country/region in the project consortium can be maximum 75% of the total project efforts (measured in person months).
• Project consortia must also fulfil the Call module specific requirements.
• Applicants must be eligible for funding according to their Funding Partner’s national/regional requirements. Please consult the national/regional requirements (Annex B) .
• The following individuals are ineligible for proposal submission: CETPartnership Governing Board members, CETPartnership General Assembly members and researchers from the Funding Organisations in the Call.
• The proposals must include a work package called Reporting and Knowledge Community in their work plan.

The CETPartnership is open for participants from all over the world. Project participants may belong to legal entities of any organisation type such as:

• Secondary and higher education establishments
• Research organisations (excluding education)
• Private for-profit companies
• Public bodies (excluding research and education)
• Other entities

Around 47 national/regional Funding Organisations participate with funding for proposals to different Call Modules (see Annex B page 71 and Annex C page 210 at call text). The Funding Organisations allocate their budget to fund Beneficiary Partners based in their country/region and decide their budget allocation among different Call Modules at different times in the Call process.

The Call generally aims to support projects applying for funding in the Call in the range of (but not limited to) €500 000 – €5 000 000.

The total Call budget is over €121 000 000 and additional funding from EC (so called top-up). The funding from EU will be used to top-up possibly exhausted budgets of the national/regional Funding Organisations from EU Member States and HE Associated Countries to fund projects.

The indicative budget contributed by the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) Research Innovation Foundation is €2 230 000.  The maximum funding per awarded project/per partner is € 500 000 and the expected number of projects to be funded is 4-5. For the submission of proposal/documentation please visit the IRIS PORTAL at national/regional level at: https://iris.research.org.cy/. More information can be found on page 83 of the call text.

The indicative budget contributed by the Czech Technology Agency (TA CR) Foundation is €760 000. The maximum funding per awarded project/per partner is €175 000 and the expected number of projects to be funded is 4-5.  For the submission of proposal/documentation please visit the TA CR Website: https://www.tacr.cz/programy-a-souteze/programy/. More information can be found on page 85 of the call text.

The indicative budget contributed by the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI) is €500 000. The maximum funding per awarded project/per partner is €200 000. Please note that this amount can be increased to €25 0 000 per project if Greek partner assumes the project coordination and the expected number of projects to be funded is 2-3.  For the submission of proposal/documentation please visit the GSRI Website: https://gsri.gov.gr/en/. More information can be found on page 124 of the call text.

Each partner involved in the project will be funded by its national/regional funding organisations. The consortium must therefore also comply with all the relevant national/regional eligibility rules.

The project must start before the 15^th of December 2024 and must finish in 36 months from the start of the project.

Deadline: The first deadline for the submission of pre- proposals under this call is 22 November 2023, 14h00 (Brussels time). The second deadline for full proposal submission (upon invitation) is 27 March 2024, 14h00 (Brussels time).

More information is available at the following links: Funding & Tenders portal, call announcement page (CETPartnership website) and Annex B: National/Regional Requirements.

Also see the CETPartnership Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).

For general questions about the Joint Call 2023 (JC2023)  you can contact by email the CETPartnership Call Management (Call Management) at:  callmanagement@cetpartnership.eu.