Project results are expected to contribute to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Contribute to the EU’s strategic autonomy by demonstrating concepts and solutions using nuclear and radiation techniques for producing critical raw materials, recovering rare-earth metals (lanthanides) from any waste, including radioactive waste and spent fuel, and exploring their market potential.
• Contribute to the EU’s circular economy by demonstrating concepts and solutions using nuclear and radiation techniques to reduce, recycle and reuse non-radioactive waste from domestic and industrial sources and explore their market potential.
• Contribute to climate change adaptation by demonstrating concepts and quality assured services for applications of nuclear and radiation techniques to monitor climate change and pollution of ecosystems and explore their market potential.

The potential for innovative ionising radiation applications is enormous and should support the EU’s strategic autonomy, circular economy and climate change policies. The areas are extensive and concern applications of charged particle beams (accelerators), x-rays, radioisotopes (alpha, beta and gamma emitters) and neutrons. For example, radiometric techniques and radioisotopes as tracers allow for monitoring climate change effects on ecosystems and soil, water and air pollution. Irradiation processes offer advantages over typical thermal and chemical processes, including higher throughput rates, reduced energy consumption, lower environmental pollution, more precise process control and products with superior qualities.

The development of nuclear and radiation techniques can help diversify the supply of secondary critical raw materials from non-EU countries and within Europe. Action in this area should develop EU capacity for innovative exploration and production of secondary raw materials and/or recovery/recycling of raw materials from spent nuclear fuel, e.g. rare-earth metals (lanthanides).

In environmental protection and monitoring, an action should modify existing quality assured nuclear techniques and develop new ones to provide complementary solutions for conventional climate adaptation and climate science technologies. These solutions should help build EU resilience and reduce EU vulnerabilities in land use and management, smart climate agriculture, food production systems, analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, management of water resources, and ocean and coastal protection.

On pollution, the development of radiation technologies and isotopic tracing techniques offer solutions, for instance, to waste water treatment or to characterising and assessing microplastic pollution while allowing for recycling and transforming waste into reusable resources. Action in this area could cover sorting challenges, waste treatment and transformation into secondary products, cleaner production and recycling processes, reducing the use of potentially harmful additives and solvents and delivering energy savings.

All potential solutions using nuclear techniques are expected to:

• Improve radiation protection of personnel, expertise in radiation protection, safety and security of radioactive sources, waste management, and reduce contamination risk, loss or theft.
• Be combined with newly emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data or metamaterials, thereby stimulating innovation and promoting a robust, world-leading nuclear technologies sector based on EU safety culture and know-how.
• Aim at ‘open innovation’, involving a broad range of actors from research and academic communities, industry, entrepreneurs and users. It should bring together multidisciplinary teams to generate ideas and solutions in an open innovation environment by increasing investment and bringing more companies and regions into the knowledge economy.
• Provide valid data from experiments, with the full chain of traceability with smallest reachable uncertainties as the best input for decision-makers.

This action could focus on closer-to-the-market activities, including prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting and scaling up new or improved products, processes or services. Proposals may include limited R&D activities and demonstrate European added value. Activities are expected to focus on Technology Readiness Levels 5 to 7 (indicative but not mandatory, depending on the innovative potential field).