Advanced materials: The next frontier for science and tech?

Europe’s competitiveness agenda and an increasingly complex geopolitical environment have sharpened awareness of the EU’s systemic dependencies on critical raw resources and materials. In this regard, advanced materials have rapidly become a core EU priority – not just as a means to increase resilience and strategic autonomy, but also as a key enabling technology to power the Clean Industrial Deal and other long-term policy goals. 

Demand for advanced materials is set to grow rapidly, driven by strategic sectors such as energy, mobility, electronics and construction. Meeting this demand will require not only scientific excellence – which Europe has in abundance – but faster innovation cycles, scaled-up production capacities and coordinated public and private investment. At the same time, the US and China are moving aggressively to establish integrated advanced materials value chains, treating advanced materials as industrial system technologies underpinning strategic sectors.

As such, the race is on for Europe to build a dynamic, secure and inclusive advanced materials ecosystem that ensures global research leadership while accelerating innovation to market. The obstacles to overcome are well-known – including value chain fragmentation, with weak integration between research, scale-up actors and downstream industries. The journey from laboratory breakthrough to industrial-scale production is long, costly and high-risk – precisely where many European innovations stall. This raises critical questions about how to remove the main bottlenecks lie, whether in the “valley of death” between research and commercialisation, or in pilot facilities, manufacturing capacity, access to finance and industrial uptake.

Thus, it seems clear that with advanced materials enabling a wide range of strategic and dual-use technologies, the EU cannot afford to miss the window to turn scientific leadership into industrial strengths. Against this backdrop, 2026 will be a pivotal year for Europe’s prospects, as the Commission moves forward in preparing an Advanced Materials Act, which will in turn define many aspects of the future R&I landscape and related opportunities. 

On 18 March, Science|Business will convene members of its international Network, EU institutions and key stakeholders to discuss whether Europe is capable of making advanced materials a true competitive advantage, and how research, investment and policy can be better aligned to achieve these goals.