Veranstalter

• International Energy Agency Experts' Group on Research & Development Priority Setting & Evaluation (IEA EGRD)
• The Faraday Institution
• The Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements & Critical Materials

The transition to clean energy technologies has elevated automotive battery production to a core pillar of national economic resilience and energy sovereignty. Globally, lithium-ion manufacturing capacity has expanded rapidly, yet its geographical concentration reveals profound structural imbalances. While China dominates the entire value chain—controlling over 80% of cathode active materials (CAM), 90% of anode active materials (AAM), and a vast share of mineral processing—the West faces a challenging landscape marked by capital bottlenecks, permitting delays, and operational friction.

As detailed in the Faraday Institution's UK Gigafactory Commission analysis, the Western approach to battery manufacturing has frequently been fragmented. Standalone projects lack the systemic de-risking that comes from integrated tripartite structures, which tie together vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as demand anchors, cell manufacturers as operators, and active material producers as domestic anchors. Simultaneously, high industrial energy tariffs, extended grid connection timelines, severe process engineering skills shortages, and shifting policy environments create major headwinds for nascent Western developers. High-profile structural delays and liquidations across Europe and North America underscore the immense challenges of replicating highly verticalized, automated Asian manufacturing models without equivalent ecosystem coordination. Indeed, many of the projects that are progressing rapidly in the West, are those sponsored by battery makers from China. 

This workshop, organized under the analytical framework of the IEA Experts' Group on R&D Priority
Setting and Evaluation (EGRD), brings together global economists, policy architects, raw material analysts, and industrial strategists. The goal is to perform a rigorous evaluation of the R&D prioritysetting frameworks and policy interventions required to accelerate Western manufacturing capabilities.

Over two days, delegates will dissect the economic and physical constraints of gigafactory build-outs, examine the implications of impending Rules of Origin (RoO) and battery passport tracing regimes, and evaluate standard methodologies to close the global competitiveness gap.

Workshop Focus 

The sessions will systematically analyze why Western gigafactories are struggling to transition from
pipeline announcements to active, cost-competitive commercial production. The scope focuses on the operational levers available to government and industry: aggregating OEM demand, establishing resilient localized supply routes for active materials, modernizing energy intensive industry (EII) support frameworks, and building scalable circular lifecycles. The ultimate objective is to provide the IEA network with actionable, evidence-based criteria to guide public funding toward high-yield manufacturing scales, process automation, and next-generation chemical commercialization.

Key Questions for the Experts' Group

• What are the primary macroeconomic, regulatory, and infrastructural variables driving the cost competitiveness gap between Western gigafactory developments and dominant East Asian production clusters?
• How can public research and development funding be structured to support early-stage scale-up facilities ('first-of-a-kind' pilots) transitioning between low-TRL laboratories and high-volume commercial lines?
• In what ways do impending regulatory thresholds—such as the 2027 UK-EU Rules of Origin mandates and EU recycled content declarations—impact investment risks and site design for Western battery producers?
• What role must international collaborative networks and standardized technology transfer frameworks play in overcoming the acute shortages in process engineering and automated cell assembly skills currently stalling Western capacity build-outs?

More information and the agenda will follow soon.