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Upcoming Event: ELEVATEcee Working Conference #1, Vienna, 24 March 2026, Registration open

The first Working Conference#1 of the EU-funded project ELEVATEcee will take place

on the 24 March 2026 in Vienna,

hosted by Wien Energie and WIVA P&G.

The event will bring together key stakeholders of the quadruple helix  from Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary to connect, exhange ideas, and advance cross-border hydrogen and green molecule projects in the region.      

The registration is now open: 

Registration

About ELEVATEcee

Launched in October 2025, ELEVATEcee unites national and regional stakeholders from the quadruple helix to identify and develop complete hydrogen value chains – from energy generation and hydrogen production to transport, storage, and end-use applications.

In the context of the project, 3 different Working Conferences will be organised to present project results and enable hands-on collaboration through breakout sessions, directly contributing to the project’s objectives of developing joint value chains, investment-ready projects, and cross-border business creation.

Working Conference #1 focuses on two objectives:

1. Value Chain Identification and Matchmaking, including pitch sessions,
     interactive matchmaking, and breakout workshops .
– Industry, SMEs; Researchers and Uptakers

2.  Kick-off the Skills Development in policy, technology and financing.
– Authorities, Development Agencies, Funding Agencies and Investors

Following the introduction and the agenda item “Potential value chains in cross-border regions” and the project pitch sessions in the morning, the conference will split into two streams at 2 p.m.: the project partnering workshops (with participants from point 1) and the cross-regional strategy workshop (with participants from point 2).

Conference Details

Date: 24 March 2026, 09:00–18:30, Vienna Austria          Language: English  

Project owners are invited to submit projects for pitching slots. Projects will be published on the ElevateCEE website on a rolling basis as they are onboarded, enabling participants to prepare targeted partnering requests ahead of the event.

Submission deadline for pitch consideration: 17 March 2026 (EOD)
Submission email: offenthaler@wiva.at

Please indicate:

  • whether you request a plenary pitching slot, and
  • which partner types you are looking for (technology, industrial host/pilot site, offtaker, CO₂ sources, infrastructure/storage, research support, permitting/regulation, funding/finance).

 

To enable efficient partnering, pitching teams are asked to prepare:

  1. One-slide overview (PPTX or PDF) for the 09:30–10:00 Project Gallery (beamer)
  2. One-page project summary (structured, concise)
  3. Short pitch deck (max. 5 slides) including a clear “what we need” section (partners, sites, data, permits, funding/financing needs, timeline)

Across Austria, Slovakia and Hungary, hydrogen and green molecules projects are progressing from early concepts to pilots, scale-ups and infrastructure planning. Yet, cross-border visibility of concrete initiatives and structured partnering formats remain limited. ElevateCEE Working Conference #1 addresses this gap by bringing project owners and relevant counterparts together in a focused working setting.

Working Conference #1 is designed to advance existing project concepts—not only to generate new ideas. The format supports consortium formation, partner matching and clear next-step definition, including pathways towards funding and financing readiness within the ElevateCEE project pipeline.

Why “Working Conference #1”?

ElevateCEE implements three Working Conferences within the next 12 months (Working Conferences #2 in Györ and #3: location tba.).

Working Conference #1

Conference in Vienna (Vienna) focuses on building consortia around pitched projects and defining collaboration needs.

Working Conference #2

Conference in Györ strengthens and expands these consortia (and can also form new ones), adding missing competences and sharpening project structures.

Working Conference #3

This Conference is designed to work with more mature project concepts, integrating investor and financier feedback and preparing the next maturity step.

In addition, ElevateCEE engages a cross-border Investors Panel through a series of exchanges to provide structured feedback on
bankability, financing logic and risk topics, and to support the development of fundable and financeable project propositions.

Who should participate?

Working Conference #1 is open to stakeholders across the quadruple helix, including:

  • Project owners (start-ups, SMEs, industrial companies, research organisations) with project concepts seeking partners and/or financing pathways
  • Industrial offtakers, technology providers, infrastructure operators, utilities, cluster organisations
  • Public authorities, funding bodies, energy agencies and financing actors (as relevant for partnering and investment-readiness discussions) 

Scope: technologies and value chains

Working Conference #1 covers hydrogen and green molecules value chains across production, infrastructure and end-use, including enabling carbon streams and CCUS interfaces. Topics include, for example:

  • Renewable hydrogen production and integration (incl. flexibility options and sector coupling concepts such as use of oxygen and waste heat)
  • Hydrogen and derivative infrastructure: pipelines/repurposing, hubs, import/export corridors; storage concepts (incl. geological and other storage approaches)
  • Industrial applications (chemicals, refineries, steel, glass/ceramics, and pulp & paper as a potential source of biogenic CO₂)
  • Mobility applications (e.g. heavy-duty transport, buses, rail, logistics)
  • Green molecules and climate-neutral carbon value chains (e-methanol, e-ammonia, green olefins, SAF; biogenic CO₂, DAC and circular carbon streams)
  • Cross-cutting solutions (digital planning/optimisation, market design, business models; scale-up and demonstration projects)