Access to capital is vital in order to introduce technological innovation, especially in the Italian extraction sector whose businesses have been hit very hard by the economic crisis. On the one hand, during the course of recent years, turnover has been in continuous contraction – a reduction in the three years from 2010-2012 (source: Osservatorio Materie Prime 2015) – had a negative impact on self-financing and this together with the constant difficulties businesses had in accessing credit, certainly did not help to counterbalance the chronic lack of their own financial resources.

In this context, the ‘Horizon2020’ programme of the European Union represents an important opportunity  to promote scientific research and innovation. The ‘Horizon2020’ grants finance innovative research projects which improve people’s lives, help protect the environment and make European industry more sustainable and competitive.

This conference has a twofold objective:

a) to present a specific call for tender for the ‘H2020 programme’ (SC5 – 13 – 2016 – 2017; ‘New solutions for the sustainable production of raw materials’) directed at raw material production companies;

b) to foster the construction of a multidisciplinary industrial consortium, able to exploit the opportunities offered by the European Union for the financing of innovation.

A special session will be held in which companies will be able to ask questions to specialists from the EU, the Raw Materials’ Laboratory and the University of Milan-Bicocca.