SCI4climate.NRW 2022-2025

In SCI4climate.NRW 2022-2025 a multi-disciplinary team of researchers works on industry transformation. The project thus follows up seamlessly on its four-year predecessor project SCI4climate.NRW. The project focus is on the analysis of transformation pathways for building a climate-neutral industry in Germany. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia serves as a model region to enable applied and specific research.

This research continues to be highly relevant for the industrial transformation, which has made it to the centre of the debate on climate protection on the national and international level. Companies and industry branches are developing strategies for becoming climate neutral and are planning to invest in transformative technologies. For widespread implementation, an enabling policy framework needs to be created, actors need to collaborate in new constellations, and new infrastructures need to be planned in an integrated way.  Developments such as the energy price and energy supply security crisis are increasing the complexity of the challenge. SCI4climate.NRW 2022-2025 aims to support and accelerate the implementation of the sustainable industrial transformation over the next three years.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MWIKE) has awarded research contracts to the Wuppertal Institute, Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, VDZ Technology gGmbH, and VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut GmbH. These institutions will continue to research issues of the industrial transformation in four thematic fields dealing with:

• technologies and infrastructures for the industrial transformation,
• value chains, circular economy and digitalisation,
• pathways of the industrial transformation, and
• the political implementation of the industrial transformation.

Across the thematic fields, the role of industry in the future electricity system, the supply of gaseous energy sources, the assessment of CCU and future carbon use, and location factors and value chains will be investigated. Furthermore, scientific exchange with the state initiative IN4climate.NRW as well as other experts from the national and international research and business community continues to play an important role.

The researchers from the Wuppertal Institute coordinate the different assignments and are involved in all thematic fields and cross-thematic research activities.