The Commission presented its annual progress report on the activities of the Joint Technology Initiative Joint Undertakings (JTI JUs) in 2012.
The Joint Technology Initiatives are public-private partnerships in industrial research at European level that are now well established and have reached cruising speed. They were set up in 2007-2008 under the Seventh Framework Programme in five strategic areas: (1) Aeronautics and Air Transport (Clean Sky); (2) Public health - Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) JU; (3) Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) JU; (4) Embedded Computing Systems (ARTEMIS) JU; (5) Nanoelectronics (ENIAC) JU.
Participation and geographical coverage: JUs are successful in funding highly specific, industry-driven research and that stakeholders are getting more acquainted with the modus operandi of these new instruments. Participation in terms of numbers of projects selected for funding remained stable in the last two years while the overall success rate increased from 35.8 % in 2011 to 45 % in 2012. Concerning industrial participation in 2012, large companies represented 31.1% of total participations and SMEs another 30%. SMEs participation increased from 28% to 30% in the last two years (2011 and 2012).
In terms of distribution of participation from Member States and Associated Countries, in 2012 as in the previous year the five JTI JUs involved, on average, 20 different countries in the implementation of their research agendas.
First results and promising advances: in the fuel cells and hydrogen sector, market introduction has been achieved for some early applications such as forklifts and small back-up power units.
For both energy and transport applications, progress has been made in materials performance, durability and cost reduction for both components and systems for transport and stationary power applications.
Within the FCH, a Danish SME has developed and facilitated the commercialisation of two innovative products: H2Station (Hydrogen refuelling stations for automotive, bus and materials handling applications), and H2Drive (Fuel cell systems for materials handling vehicles such as forklift trucks and airport tow tractors). FCH has currently submitted 13 patents.
Among the success stories, the report notes:
· the FITUP is a demonstration project in which a total of 19 market-ready fuel cell systems from two different suppliers have been installed as back-up power sources by final users in Italy, Switzerland and Turkey;
· the project SOFT-PACT (stationary applications portfolio), led by E.ON, is intended to deploy 100 micro-CHP units (Gennex SOFC-based, provided by Ceramic Fuel Cell Limited) in Germany, the UK, Italy and the Benelux and to demonstrate electrical efficiency of at least 60%.
Challenges and perspectives: for the future, a number of challenges remain open:
To summarise the experience gained in the first years of autonomy of all the Joint Undertakings, the following successful results can be highlighted:
Another interesting insight on progress achieved so far will be provided by the second interim evaluation, which will cover the period from setting up until 2013 and will be published as a separate report by November 2013.