Bank of Environmental Technology Opportunities

In year 2006 ENVITECH-Net initiated activities to establish a joint programme of strategic research that will serve as a background for future research efforts of our Member Organisations.

The purpose of this document is to facilitate coordination of research activities carried out within the ENVITECH-Net network. The identified technological priorities are aimed to:

• serve as a common background for fostering collaboration among ENVITECH-Net Member Organizations
• initiate activities focused on strengthening the research and development potential of the network
• eliminate national and international barriers in the development and implementation of environmental technologies
   

The priority areas of environmental technologies development have been to large extent adopted from the research areas of ENVITECH-Net. In return, the ENVITECH-Net research areas have been defined based on the Trends in research and the technologies of the future presented in the COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION Developing an action plan for environmental technology COM(2003) 131 final. This approach ensures that the ENVITECH-Net activity supports ETAP realisation.

The priority environmental technologies within individual areas have been identified during ENVITECH-Net workshops organised in June 2007, in Ustron, Poland.

The following four Thematic Groups have been set up to elaborate further on the prospective technologies within the priority areas:

In each of the mentioned Thematic Groups relevant cross-cutting enabling technologies were also taken into consideration. Participants of the workshops were experts representing ENVITECH-Net Member organisations. Each of the above mentioned Thematic Groups was requested to define at least 5 priority technologies which represent a high potential for development taking into account the following issues:

• prognosis of the quality of future technologies in terms of environmental performance and economic effects,
• existing and prospective research and development potential,
• potential for collaboration with industrial partners,
• overall framework including: market, financial, social and structural conditions.
   

The results of the discussions alongside with the description of the priority areas and technologies worked out by each Thematic Group are available as a working document in Polish. English version will be available soon.