Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for product monitoring, smart maintenance and repair strategies in the construction sector (RIA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership)

– Support implementation of the Commission Communication on Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership.
– Reduce infrastructure maintenance costs by ≥30% through frontier monitoring applications (tracking, self-powering, self-sensing).
– Lower material and energy use in construction and improve overall materials circularity by ≥30% by applying IAMs with enhanced longevity, efficiency, repairability and circularity.
– Demonstrate proof-of-concept of the SSbD framework in IAM development, avoiding hazardous substances and minimising environmental impacts.
– Promote industrial uptake of IAMs via scalable, lean production integration.
– Achieve maximised user acceptance, experience and comfort of innovative construction materials for housing through SSH-informed design and optimisation.

– Develop new/improved IAMs for construction materials (cement, concrete, composites, technical textiles, plasterboard, pipes) to extend product lifetimes and reduce raw material and energy consumption by at least 30% in maintenance and circularity metrics.
– Demonstrate proof-of-concept of the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework, avoiding hazardous substances and lowering environmental impacts.
– Integrate multifunctional sensors for continuous in-service monitoring, self-powering and self-sensing of structural health.
– Address at least two multidisciplinary research activities:

• Accelerate performance evaluation to shorten prototyping-to-market timelines.

• Enhance physical sensor functionalities via IAMs for mechanical-technological traits.

• Develop digital-stimuli-receptive self-repairing/healing materials with autonomous repair mechanisms.

• Create AI-based models (e.g., digital twins) for customised maintenance and repair plans.

• Generate multi-scale, multi-physics knowledge and validate accelerated degradation testing and longevity models.

• Design IAMs suitable for modular off-site processing or onsite 3D printing.
– Employ digital technologies and data-driven design, use analytical infrastructures for characterisation, and ensure interoperability and FAIR data.
– Assess and optimise safety, sustainability and circularity across the entire innovation cycle, including end-of-life decomposition and sorting.
– Cover the full value chain: material development, validation, production, processing, use and end-of-life, and explicitly reference any existing technologies that require no adaptation.
– Include SSH expertise to study user perception, acceptance and comfort of novel construction materials, and develop user-centred optimisation strategies.
– Provide a business case and exploitation strategy consistent with the Destination’s requirements for industrialisation, target markets, competitive advantage, TRL progression and skills development.
– Build on or contribute to existing standards and support standardisation of sensing, self-repairing/healing and data interoperability technologies.
– Collaborate and create synergies with EU and national/regional projects, funding programmes, analytical research infrastructures, JRC, and international partners (especially Japan).