• Can we design closed cycles for the production of relevant materials and fuels?
• Catalysis is the key to efficient chemical processes. Can the catalysts that are used all be built from earth-abundant, cheap and non-toxic materials such as first-row transition metals?
• Can we use sunlight as a direct energy source in uphill chemical processes to make chemicals and fuels?
• Can we develop new chemistry to allow efficient production of electricity from fuels in advanced fuel-cell technologies with cheap & sustainable catalytic electrodes?
• Can we efficiently use electricity (in the end also always derived directly or indirectly from sunlight) to produce chemicals and fuels in electrosynthetic and electrocatalytic (Galvanic) cells or ‘reversed fuel-cells’?
• Is it possible to understand these chemical processes to such an extent that we can design processes based on first principles? 

These are fundamental questions, yet with a strong potential to find application in industry and society. They are strongly related to the 'science agenda' of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).