Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking

2007/0211(CNS)

The Joint Technology Initiatives are public-private partnerships in industrial research at European level. They were set up as pilots in 2007-2008 under the Seventh Framework Programme in five strategic areas: aeronautics and air transport (the Clean Sky initiative), public health (the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)), fuel cell and hydrogen technologies (the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) initiative), embedded computing systems (the ARTEMIS initiative) and nanoelectronics (the ENIAC initiative). The SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) programme should also be mentioned since it is funded under the Seventh Framework Programme.

An annual report on the progress achieved by the Joint Technology Initiatives Joint Undertakings (‘JTI JUs’) is required by Article 11(1) of the Council Regulations setting up the individual JTIs. This report contains details of implementation including number of proposals submitted, number of proposals selected for funding, type of participants, including SMEs, and country statistics. This 2011 annual report follows the first interim evaluations of the Joint Undertakings carried out under Article 11(2) of the Council Regulations.

The European Commission, as a co-founding member, was responsible for starting up the JTI JUs. Once they had built up their legal and financial framework and demonstrated their capacity to manage their own budgets, ARTEMIS, IMI and Clean Sky were given autonomy in late 2009, followed by ENIAC in May and FCH in late 2010. Thus, 2011 was the first full year in which all the JTI JUs operated autonomously.

The first interim evaluation was performed on time and assessed their quality and efficiency and the progress achieved towards their objectives. All the reports concluded with a favourable opinion: the evaluation panels agreed that the JUs should continue beyond 2013. The evaluation panels supported the Sherpa Group’s recommendations, in particular that the current legal framework be streamlined to fit the purposes of setting up and implementing future JTIs. In this respect, the current ‘Community body’ status of JTIs should be reviewed. They recommended reinforcing and streamlining processes and decision-making.

They also referred to the need (i) for more structured coordination and complementarity with FP7 and national programmes and funds; (ii) for improved communication, to enhance the visibility of JTI actions aimed at the general public and at international level; and (iii) for systematic data collection and a monitoring system for key performance indicators.

Progress achieved by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen JU: for the period 2008–2013, the Commission allocated the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) JU a budget of EUR 470 million. This amount is expected to be matched by cash contribution for the running costs and by in-kind contributions for the operational costs from the legal entities participating in its activities. FCH is therefore expected to have a total budget of EUR 940 million.

FCH’s main objectives are: (i) to accelerate the development and deployment of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies; (ii) to provide the technology base to start marketing them within the timeframe 2015 to 2020, reducing the ‘time to market’, and (iii) to place Europe at the forefront of these technologies worldwide.

FCH uses two types of funding schemes to further a wide spectrum of RTD activities: collaborative projects (for basic research and demonstration) and coordination and support actions (for networking activities, including pre-normative research). Another feature of FCH is its cross-cutting activity: to complement the four scientific application areas it aims to raise awareness, educate the public and support the market. Submission and evaluation are carried out by means of a simple single-stage process.

FCH launched one call in 2011. FCH attracted a wide range of participants of all types, including public authorities (e.g. national/regional bodies, energy agencies) and NGOs. This could be because of their particular interest in the coordination and support actions. The participants were also evenly distributed between research organisations and industry. Of the 667 applicants responding to the call, 225 had their projects funded. The projects selected for funding involved 73 SMEs, representing 25.6 % of total participation. Over the period 2008 to 2011, SMEs accounted for 22.15 % of EU funding in FCH.

A total of 26 countries were represented in the call, led by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Belgium. EU-12 countries were well represented, with 10 participations. Switzerland and Norway led the list of ‘associated’ countries (with seven coordinators each) followed by Iceland and Turkey with one participant each. The international partners included participants from the US, the Republic of Korea, China, Canada and Serbia.

In terms of administrative progress, FCH overcame some of the limits on in-kind contribution when Council Regulation (EU) No 1183/2011 was adopted on 14 November 2011. Recognising the membership of the N.ERGHY Research Grouping, this amendment allowed non-industry participants such as the N.ERGHY Research Grouping to make in-kind contributions counting as matching funding. This amendment was also expected to improve funding levels.

In 2011 the main research objectives evolved to reflect the latest progress in their fields of technology. FCH revised its Multi-Annual Implementation Plan and the targets for the Application Areas were extended to 2020 (from 2015).