Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Programme Category

Programa
Contenido archivado el 2023-03-27

Article available in the following languages:

EN

Chemical Processes and Products national programme 2000-2003 - (Programa Nacional de procesos y productos químicos)

 
The new Ministry for Science and Technology (born in 2000) brings together units and directorates for research and innovation that previously were in five different Ministries: Industry, Education, Public Works, Agriculture and Environment. Also, five Public Centres of Research , formerly depending from different ministries are given the same dependence: CSIC, CIEMAT, INIA, INIA, IGME, IEO.

There is a national specific programme devoted to Chemical Processes and Products within the IV R&D National Plan (2000-2003). The Chemical Processes and Products National Programme funds about 21 MEURO per year in projects that cover aspects of design, production, utilisation and recycling at the end of the product life.

The final goal of the programme is to foster R&D activities to improve and/or adapt processes and chemical products, regardless the industrial sector of applications, including technologies to solve environmental problems. An essential aspect is the modernisation of the industry, covering from basic research to industrial implementation technologies.
The Chemical Processes and Products National Programme is structured in four thematic areas:

1. Development of Chemical processes: Improvement of conventional processes; catalytic processes; design of chemical reactors, combustion, exhaust gas, and pyrolysis; Integral design of processes.

2. Advanced separation technologies: Advanced methods of physical properties prediction, interfaces equilibrium and transport properties; Improvement and Innovation of conventional systems, advanced processes of purification and concentration, industrial processes of absorption, ionic interchange and chromatography; separation technologies, distillation and extraction processes; modelling and re-scaling; membranes technologies.

3. Innovation and development of chemical products: improvement of life cycle products and industrial processes; R&D of high added value products in fine chemical and chemistry of specialities, synthesis of enantiomeric pure products, products from natural sources; new catalysts and membranes, development of new manufacturing methods of special structures; Preparation and treatment of fossil and renewable combustibles, improvement of energetic efficiency and reduction of environmental impact. Products for obtaining energy, (i.e. batteries)

4. Processes and environmental technologies: products and processes with low environmental impact, minimisation of residues, clean technologies (less polluting raw materials, processes modifications, etc.); Recycling and valorisation of residues and final life products, new raw materials from existing or new specialised plants; Development of advanced technologies for destruction/elimination of pollutants; environmental impact evaluation.

The undertaking R&D projects is the fundamental mechanism for the National Plan implementation, with the following modalities: R&D projects (including targeted basic research and pre-normative R&D) carried out independently by research groups of public R&D centres, non-profit private R&D centres and by technology centres or enterprises; Co-operative R&D projects to promote co-operation between actors that lasts several years, are carried out by consortia and in which an enterprise may sub-contract R&D tasks to a public centre or a technology centre.

R&D activities are complemented by Innovation actions, trying to apply results generated by R&D activities.

The level of projects funding is different depending on the type of the performing actor and the type of costs (marginal or total) to be subsidised. In general, in the case of public centres or non-profit centres, the marginal costs associated with the project are subsidised. In the case of technology centres and enterprises, a percentage of the total foreseen costs are subsidised. This percentage may increase in the case of SMEs or consortia which include more than one enterprise. The various financial instruments foreseen in the Spanish National Plan may be of application to the enterprises, taking into account that by no means the limits established by the European Union regulation for public aids may be exceeded.

The selection of proposals to be funded is made after public calls. This evaluation is performed in two phases, one external and the other internal to the management body.
The external phase is based, for basic or applied projects, on peer evaluation, which is performed by the National Agency for Evaluation and Forecasting (ANEP). For the technological innovation projects, panels organised by the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) will carry out the evaluation. The internal phase is the responsibility of the management body (MCYT), taking into account the evaluations of the previous phase.