Headquartered in Brussels, the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) represents European national composites associations and industry-specific sector groups and alliances at EU level. With the support of its members, EuCIA’s initiatives aim to ensure the sustainable growth and continued competitiveness of more than 10,000 companies and an estimated 150,000 employees involved in composites manufacturing across Europe.
Role in EOLIAN
EuCIA is leader of Work Package 8: Dissemination and exploitation. Key objectives of this work package include the dissemination of project results to relevant stakeholders, the development of exploitation strategies for the results, and the development of new standards to facilitate their market acceptance.
EuCIA will lead the tasks related to communication and dissemination activities, and end-user/stakeholder engagement. The stakeholder engagement activities will include the organisation of annual workshops for target audiences and the formation of an advisory board.
We spoke to Professor Roberto Frassine, President of EuCIA.
EuCIA’s president Professor Roberto Frassine (left) with EOLIAN project coordinator Marco Monti of Proplast at a CINEA workshop in 2025.
What is EuCIA’s strategy?
Our strategy is based around five goals:
- Position: Explain and promote the contribution of composites and the composites industry to European society;
- Advocate: Provide expertise to decision-makers in defining EU standards and legislation;
- Facilitate: Support the growth of the composites industry and the creation of a sustainable business environment in Europe;
- Educate: Support education of designers, engineers and students to advance understanding of composite materials;
- Network: Provide a platform for EuCIA members to network and share knowledge and experience.
Sustainability has always been a key theme running through all of EuCIA’s activities.
What are your main initiatives related to sustainability?
Communicating the many benefits of composite materials over established materials has always been a major focus for EuCIA. We must continue to emphasise that lightweight, high performance, durable and energy-efficient composite products make a substantial contribution to decarbonisation over their long service lives, fully supporting the EU’s target of climate neutrality.
Demonstrating the circularity of composite materials is also increasingly important. We must demonstrate to regulators, industry stakeholders and end-users that after their long use phase there are numerous ways of extending the life of composites through the circular economy strategies of reuse, repair, remanufacture, and repurpose. We must also explain that when these options are finally exhausted, composites can be recycled through both open loop and closed loop processes.
We are actively working to address barriers to greater composites circularity, encouraging the collaboration of all stakeholders in a cross-sector approach. With this aim, EuCIA, in partnership with JEC Group, launched the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA) in March 2025 at the leading international composites event JEC World 2025. The overwhelmingly positive response to this initiative and the engagement of so many organisations clearly demonstrates the composites industry’s commitment to accelerating the transition to a circular economy.
What is EuCIA’s involvement in R&I projects?
Innovation and collaboration are key drivers for the composites industry. The EU’s research and innovation programmes provide a framework for developing the composite materials and technologies of the future. EuCIA is currently a partner in four EU-funded projects. REFRESH, EOLIAN, and MaxBlade are developing sustainable composite solutions for the renewable energy sector, while PLEIADES is focused on the aerospace sector.
Partnering in EU-funded projects expands EuCIA’s network of research, industry and policy stakeholders and provides valuable insights into cutting-edge composites technologies and new circular models.
Life cycle assessments (LCAs) of the proposed solutions are a key element of these projects. This aspect aligns with our own efforts to provide improved LCA data for composite materials through our Eco Impact Calculator cradle-to-gate LCA tool.
What attracted EuCIA to join the EOLIAN project?
Wind energy is a key sector for the composites industry. Composite materials are essential to the manufacture of the larger, more efficient wind turbine blades that are needed to increase Europe’s wind energy capacity. But the thermoset composites currently used in blades are inherently difficult to recycle and blade manufacturers are seeking new materials that address this issue.
EOLIAN is an exciting project because it explores the potential of novel bio-based vitrimer composites in blades. This could lead to blades which are much easier to repair, recycle and repurpose. EOLIAN is also developing structural health monitoring and de-icing technologies, by embedding sensors and actuators into the composite material. This will enable faster repair of damage and prevention of ice accretion, leading to many benefits in terms of performance, reliability and cost.
Combined, these new EOLIAN technologies have the potential to develop a new generation of blades offering greater circularity, more reliable performance, and reduced costs.
“Combined, these new EOLIAN technologies have the potential to develop a new generation of blades offering greater circularity, more reliable performance, and reduced costs.”
– Roberto Frassine –
How will EuCIA’s network help in the project’s communication, dissemination, and stakeholder engagement activities?
EuCIA knows the composites industry. This year we are celebrating 65 years of supporting the composites industry in Europe. Through our members, we represent approximately 85% of the European composites industry.
Through our network of members and partners in Europe and internationally we have a wide reach in terms of stakeholder groups, and a voice at EU level, where we engage with policymakers to promote the interests of the composites industry. We also benefit from a strong partnership with JEC Group, the leading composites media and events company and organiser of the JEC World event.
In March 2025, in partnership with JEC, we launched the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA). This aims to bring together all stakeholders to advance circular solutions for composites and increase the uptake of secondary composites in new products. Our project partners are welcome to join the ECCA and connect and collaborate with this new group committed to taking composites circularity to the next level.
What do you hope to have achieved by end of the project?
This project will deliver a vast amount of new data and insights into the manufacture of vitrimer composites and vitrimer composite blades.
We are extremely interested to see how the manufacture and properties of a vitrimer blade compare to current blade designs, as well as the results from the recycling studies. We hope the LCA and LCC analyses will prove the success of the EOLIAN approach and drive further work towards more sustainable wind turbine blades.
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