ICONS moderates policy session on Europe’s Battery Value Chain at EUSEW 2026

ICONS is co-organising the policy session “Competitive by Design: Strengthening Europe’s Battery Value Chain Resilience” at the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) 2026, due to take place on 10 June 2026 in Brussels and online.

The session, promoted by the BMS Alliance and the Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA), brings together EU institutions, industry representatives and Horizon Europe battery projects with the aim to explore how Europe can strengthen a resilient, competitive and strategically autonomous battery value chain.

ICONS’ contribution to the session follows recent work dedicated to the battery sector. In March 2026, the organisation released Catalysing Battery Innovation – Driving Impact Across Europe’s Battery R&D Ecosystem, a strategic report examining the structural pressures, emerging technologies and selective industrial prioritisation shaping the future of the European battery value chain. The report argues that the central challenge for Europe is no longer only technological excellence; it is the ability to scale. Shortly after this report, ICONS signed the pledge A Battery Deal for Europe, co-created by RECHARGE and BEPA, committing to accelerate battery innovation across its four interdependent pillars: Innovate, Produce, Buy and Secure. The EUSEW policy session represents a natural next step in this trajectory, bringing policy discussion into direct contact with the evidence gathered across ongoing European research projects, with Jasmin Jabbarpour, Battery Innovation Projects Lead at ICONS, moderating the discussion. Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) will also contribute as a participating organisation to the event.

What the session will explore
The session starts from a key policy challenge: Europe’s battery competitiveness cannot rely on capacity announcements alone. A resilient battery ecosystem also requires reliable access to European-made cells, materials, equipment, software and know-how for research, validation and first-of-a-kind deployment.

Through an interactive format, the discussion will explore the structural and regulatory bottlenecks that still limit the scale-up of a “Made in Europe” battery value chain, from upstream materials and cell manufacturing to pack integration, recycling and market uptake. Combining institutional perspectives, industrial reality checks and evidence from Horizon Europe projects, the session aims to identify concrete policy levers related to funding, state aid, industrial and trade policy, standards, skills and demand-side measures. Speakers include representatives from BEPA, DG GROW, VUB, IAV, BMW Group and Automotive Cells Company (ACC).

The role of the BMS Alliance projects
As co-organiser of the session, the BMS Alliance brings together four Horizon Europe projects, each contributing to the policy discussion from their ongoing research and innovation work:

• NEMO contributes project-based evidence on the challenges of sourcing, validating and scaling battery innovation within a European value chain.
• ENERGETIC brings the perspective of advanced battery management and innovation pathways, helping connect R&I results with industrial uptake.
• BATMAX contributes to the broader discussion on strengthening European battery technologies and reducing dependency across the value chain.
• NEXTBMS supports the policy reflection on next-generation battery management systems and the conditions needed to bring innovation closer to market.

EUSEW is the largest annual event in Europe dedicated to promoting secure, clean and efficient energy. The 2026 edition, its 20th, runs from 9 to 11 June under the theme “A clean, secure and competitive Energy Union”, featuring a three-day policy conference with debates and thematic sessions.

Explore the full programme on the EUSEW 2026 platform.

Featured image by Sergei Starostin from Pexels.