Resilient and more sustainable supply chains for critical raw materials (REEsilience)

As an essential component of permanent magnets - strong and very efficient magnets used, e.g. in electric vehicles, wind turbines or sensor applications - Rare Earths Elements (REE) are indispensable materials to achieve the green and digital transformation in the EU. The market for RE magnets itself is relatively small - around €6.5 billion - but its leverage effect is huge: the mobility industry in the EU alone is expected to grow to around €500 billion by 2030, creating 6 million jobs. Although the EU is a world leader in the production of, e.g. electric motors, it is dependent on imports along the entire value chain of RE magnetic materials. Despite a growing market, European magnet production capacities are underutilised and serve rather specific niche applications. Furthermore, RE magnets are increasingly imported as part of motors and generator assemblies and products.

To overcome these problems, the EU project REEsilience aims to build a resilient and more sustainable supply chain for magnetic rare earth materials and products in Europe. This will create new market opportunities for critical raw materials that are produced more sustainably on the continent.

Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, as a project partner leads the communication in the project and supports the project partners in:

• dissemination activities and networking with relevant initiatives and projects
• the exploitation of project results
• administrative and financial issues of project management

Additional information:

• Project name Acronym: REEsilience
• Funding: European Commssion, Horizon Europe
• Funding budget for the whole project (all partners): 9.734.436 EUR  
• Participating Countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
• Project Duration: 07/2022 -06/2026