The conference “Accelerating clean industrial deployment: insights, challenges and opportunities”, held on May 12, 2026 , delivered a timely and highly concrete discussion on how Europe can effectively move from innovation to industrial-scale impact.

Bringing together contributions from CINEA, DG CLIMA, DG RTD, industry representatives and leading EU-funded projects, the event highlighted a growing alignment around a key message: while Europe has successfully built a strong pipeline of innovative clean technologies, the priority now lies in accelerating their path from research and innovation to full industrial deployment.

A strong presence from industry provided valuable, real-world insights from first-of-a-kind projects, shedding light on both the barriers still to be addressed and the conditions needed to enable scale-up. Contributions from Claudia Capone (Heidelberg Materials Italy), Marco Barbieri (HERA Ambiente), Florent Lejette (STORENGY), and Simone Biondi (SIZABLE ENERGY) during Panel 3 – Real-life stories – offered practical perspectives from the field. A policy update by Aymeric Amand (Carbon Management Europe) further enriched the discussion.

Several key takeaways emerged from the conference:

• Funding alone is not sufficient - projects must be bankable, scalable and investment-ready
• Industrial decarbonisation requires integrated value chains spanning CCUS, hydrogen, renewables, storage and energy-intensive industries
• The Innovation Fund is increasingly playing a strategic role as an industrial policy instrument supporting both competitiveness and the clean transition
• While the EU has made significant progress in strengthening policy frameworks and aligning funding mechanisms, fragmentation persists, calling for stronger coordination across Commission services
• Member States play a crucial role through enabling regulatory frameworks, efficient permitting processes and targeted national support schemes
• Collaboration across projects, institutions, industry and finance is essential to accelerate industrial deployment at scale

As coordinator of the LEADS and DIAMONDS4IF projects, PNO Innovation was proud to contribute to this important discussion alongside H2IF, 2DPLOY and REALIZE.

The direction is clear - the challenge now is execution.