Direct production of highly pressurised hydrogen from electrolytic water splitting can allow saving relevant amounts of energy compared to down-stream gas compression. The aim of this project is to develop a novel polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyser able to produce hydrogen at very high pressure (200 bar) thus reducing the post-compression energy consumption. Another goal is to develop a cost-effective technology allowing to achieve large-scale application of PEM electrolysers. A significant reduction of capital costs is achieved by critical raw materials minimisation, developing cheap coated bipolar plates and operating the electrolyser at a high production rate while assuring high efficiency (about 80% vs. HHV) and safe operation. ADVANCEPEM aims at developing a set of breakthrough solutions at materials, stack and system levels to increase hydrogen pressure to 200 bar and current density to 5 A cm-2 for the base load, while keeping the nominal energy consumption.