May 18, 2026
Accelerating clean industrial deployment – insights, challenges, and opportunities.
Public Conference: Accelerating clean industrial deployment – insights, challenges, and opportunities.
On 12 May 2026, the public conference “Accelerating clean industrial deployment: insights, challenges, and opportunities” took place in Brussels, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Brussels City. The event brought together representatives from industry, the European Commission, EU-funded projects and key stakeholders working on industrial decarbonisation.
The conference focused on a key question for Europe’s industrial future: how can research and innovation results move faster towards large-scale industrial deployment? Throughout the day, participants discussed challenges, opportunities, available support tools and best practices to help clean, innovative and market-ready technologies reach their next stage of development.
The initiative involved five CSA projects: DIAMONDS4IF, LEADS, H2IF, 2DPLOY and REALIZE. Together, these projects support initiatives already funded under European research and innovation programmes, with the aim of increasing the number and quality of applications to the Innovation Fund and helping projects overcome the main barriers on the path to industrial deployment.
Despite the public transport strike, the event attracted strong participation, with around 30 participants attending in person in Brussels and another 30 joining online. In addition, several representatives from CINEA, DG CLIMA and DG RTD contributed to the discussions, providing institutional insights, policy updates and information on funding opportunities for net-zero technologies.
Real-life stories, sectoral breakout sessions and networking moments
After the opening remarks, the speakers introduced the European policy context, with a particular focus on the Clean Industrial Deal, the Innovation Fund and the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026–2027. Then, the CSA project representatives shared concrete experiences, support tools, recurring bottlenecks and practical recommendations for R&I project owners. The agenda also included panels on real-life stories from research and innovation to deployment, sectoral breakout discussions and networking moments.
During the event, speakers explored several key technology areas, including renewable energy, carbon capture, use and storage, hydrogen, energy storage and low-carbon technologies for energy-intensive industries. Thanks to this practical and cross-sectoral approach, the conference encouraged an open dialogue between European institutions, industry representatives and innovative projects.
Let’s keep in touch
For those who were not able to attend, the video will be soon uploaded to the YouTube channel: Innovation Fund DIAMONDS.
The slides will be available on the webpages of the projects involved. For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the coordinators of DIAMONDS4IF, LEADS, H2IF, 2DPLOY and REALIZE.
