Innovation initiatives

Moonshot as a strategic innovation program

Moonshot is a strategic Flemish research and innovation programme that focuses on groundbreaking new technologies to make industry climate-neutral and competitive by 2050. Through large-scale, multidisciplinary projects, Moonshot brings together companies, universities and research institutions to tackle fundamental challenges relating to industrial transition.

The projects focus, among other things, on:

• carbon utilisation and capture (CCU/CCS),
• electrification and hydrogen,
• circular raw materials,
• innovative energy and process technologies.

Moonshot projects are typically at an early to mid-level TRL, with a view to scalability and long-term industrial application.

Role of SDR Flanders

SDR Flanders plays an advisory and coordinating role within various innovation programmes, focusing on industrial relevance, coherence and impact.

Within Moonshot

SDR Flanders is involved as a member of the Advisory Board and, in that role, contributes to:

• the strategic direction of selected projects and thematic programmes,
• the assessment of industrial relevance, systemic impact and commercialisation potential,
• linking research to the broader Flemish industrial context.

Close collaboration with the spearhead cluster Catalisti serves as a key lever in ensuring that insights and results have the maximum possible impact on industry and policy.

Within other innovation projects

In addition to Moonshot, SDR Flanders is also involved in innovation projects, including as:

• strategic sounding board,
• liaison between researchers and individual SDR members,
• translator of policy and industrial realities into research priorities,
• explorer of potential test and demonstration sites within our working area,
• in exceptional cases, SDR will act as a co-applicant where the themes fundamentally support SDR’s strategic operations.

Overview projects

The list below shows the innovation projects in which SDR Flanders has played an advisory or supporting role in recent years.