The demand for circular economy materials is accelerating—and fast. By 2030, the EU’s recycling rate is expected to nearly double from 11.8% (2023) to 23.3%, driven by both economic incentives (reduced material and CO₂ costs) and evolving regulatory frameworks.
To meet these ambitious targets, innovation in circular design is critical. That’s where two groundbreaking EU-funded projects—SALIENT and ZEvRA—come in.
🔧 SALIENT (Novel Concepts for Safer, Lighter, Circular, and Smarter Vehicle Structure Design) is redefining vehicle front-end structures for improved crashworthiness, circularity, and sustainability.
🔹 Launched in Sept 2022
🔹 Northumbria University UNN (Prof. Ahmed Elmarakbi) is the project technical Coordinator, and Dr Engy Ghoniem leads the circular design work package.
🔹 Learn more: www.salient-project.eu
🔗 Project page: SALIENT on LinkedIn
🚗 ZEvRA (Zero Emission electric Vehicles enabled by haRmonised circulArity) focuses on embedding circularity into the entire EV value chain—from design to end-of-life.
🔹 Launched in Jan 2024
🔹 Targets at least 59% of European EVs by 2035
🔹 Led by five OEMs and top European universities, including Northumbria University (where Dr Engy Ghoniem is leading circularity awareness training for industry and Academia)
🔹 Learn more: www.zevraproject.eu
🔗 Project page: ZEvRA on LinkedIn
🛠️ To kickstart the conversation, we invite you to join our upcoming workshop at Northumbria University:
🔹 Workshop Title: Rethinking Automotive Design for a Sustainable Future
📅 Date: 30th April 2025
🕐 Time: 13:00 – 15:00 GMT+1
📍 Location: SAN205, Northumbria University
🎙️ Speaker: Dr Engy Ghoniem, Senior Research Fellow
Let’s drive the shift toward a smarter, circular, and more sustainable mobility future—together. 🚀
This workshop is open to staff, undergraduate students (specially final year students) and postgraduate students from Northumbria University's Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering, and automotive engineering students/staff. To register please click the image below or scan the QR code.
Mechanical and Construction Engineering at Northumbria University encompasses all of our work in Mechanical, Civil, Automotive, Construction and Architectural Engineering, as well as project management.
The vision of Energy Futures is to help meet this need by driving forward innovative research-driven approaches to create a cleaner energy future for all.
Our energy materials and systems research uses fundamental physics, chemistry and engineering to develop new ways to generate and store renewable energy - to help deliver a cleaner and greener future.
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