As many countries, including European ones, move forward in expanding their nuclear capacity, such efforts need to increasingly be aligned with a continuous improvement of sustainability in energy production. Against this backdrop, CONNECT-NM is expected to provide the tools and knowledge to enable each European country to maintain the desired and needed nuclear capacity and, depending on national policies and priorities, to develop advanced nuclear systems, towards ever increasing sustainability. Building on this, it is clear that an evolving nuclear ecosystem has been emerging in the last few years, exemplified by a blooming of startups in Europe putting forward a number of new innovative and advanced nuclear reactor concepts. Importantly, almost all of these enterprises are looking for advanced materials to validate their concept. In this framework, CONNECT-NM can help by providing the needed skills and expertise, while creating a connection with infrastructures and standardisation bodies, so as to allow these companies to accelerate their proof of concept, similarly to what is already being done outside Europe. CONNECT-NM is explicitly designed to be transformational, by pursuing a ground-breaking change of paradigm in nuclear materials science. Advanced and innovative materials, with better performance and higher sustainability features, are considered indeed to play a crucial role in the green and digital transition.