Europe has world-class advanced materials research, but a fragmented infrastructure landscape risks turning research excellence into industrial applications.
According to the OECD (2023), advanced materials (AM) are engineered to have “new or enhanced properties, and/or targeted or enhanced structural features with the objective to achieve specific or improved functional performance”. Everyday examples include extremely resistant yet lightweight carbon fibre composites in modern aeroplane fuselages or highly specialised insulating materials inside computer chips, helping smartphones and laptops to run faster. As such, advanced materials are increasingly recognised as critical technologies for Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy (see SwissCore article).
A new study report highlights both Europe’s strengths and shortcomings by mapping the landscape of Research and Technology Infrastructures (R&TIs) dedicated to AM development across the continent. The study identifies 2’943 AM R&TIs across the EU, mainly concentrated in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, and focusing particularly on the fields of electronics, energy and mobility – whilst the construction and medical devices sectors are comparatively under-represented. While Europe already possesses a rich and diverse infrastructure ecosystem, with universities, research organisations and technology centres providing high-quality services ranging from fundamental research to testing, validation and pilot-scale production, these often operate in isolation. This, in turn, keeps the landscape fragmented and difficult to navigate, particularly for start-ups. As a result, Europe demonstrates strong scientific excellence but lacks the ability to convert research breakthroughs into commercially viable products and industrial applications. This diagnosis closely aligns with the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific’s Advisors’ Opinion from April 2026 (see SwissCore article), which observes that Europe’s competitive challenge lies in crossing the “valley of death” between laboratory breakthroughs and commercial applications. While research funding has succeeded in generating scientific excellence, support for testing, validation and scale-up remains uneven. Consequently, promising innovations often prove too risky or costly for market deployment.
The report’s recommendations therefore focus on improving access and coordination of existing R&TIs. To establish a genuine European infrastructure ecosystem, the authors propose creating a single-entry catalogue allowing companies and researchers to easily identify facilities and services across borders. This could be achieved via standardised descriptions of infrastructure capabilities, access conditions, available expertise, funding opportunities and indicative pricing and would be particularly beneficial for SMEs and start-ups that often lack the resources to navigate the currently fragmented R&TIs landscape.
Further recommendations include a coordination mechanism for improved data sharing, standards development and access arrangements. The report argues for stronger collaboration between infrastructures, Open Innovation Test Beds (OITBs) and European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), including joint service portfolios and harmonised access procedures. Such measures intend to provide companies with seamless pathways from early-stage research to industrial deployment. Furthermore, improved voucher schemes and dedicated access funding should reduce barriers for SMEs seeking to use AM infrastructures.
Prepared as an independent expert report for the European Commission, the analysis is expected to inform the development of the Advanced Materials Act (AM Act), which is scheduled for publication by the end of 2026. Against the backdrop of estimated capital investment requirements amounting to €0.9-2.1 billion over the next five years, EU Member States have already expressed openness for an earmarked R&TIs modernisation budget in FP10 to ensure that infrastructures remain technologically up to date. Pending the final MFF agreement and the Swiss association status to the next iteration of Horizon Europe, R&TIs based in Switzerland could tap into that investment potential. However, rather than simply focusing on additional funding, the AM Act proposal could entail policy instruments that incentivise networking among, interoperability of and shared access to R&TIs. This is also supported by the report’s benchmarking with the US, the UK and Japan: while the US shows a similarly fragmented mapping landscape to the EU’s, Japan in particular has developed a single, unified national mapping covering more than 7’400 facilities, while the UK offers a comparable degree of coordination. Switzerland has not been specifically analysed in the report, yet national developments mirror several of the challenges identified at European level. Coordinated by SERI, the Swiss Roadmap for Research Infrastructures feeds into the ERI Dispatch and includes Swiss participation in international research infrastructure networks. As such, the national roadmap serves as a federal planning instrument rather than a catalogue. Complementing the roadmap, swissuniversities is developing the Swiss Portal for Academic Data and Research Infrastructures (SPADRI), intended to provide an inventory of major research and data infrastructures in Switzerland.
Consequently, both the report and current developments in Switzerland show that Europe’s competitive position in AM will depend as much on cross-border ecosystem development and user-friendly access as on available capital.