On the 28th and 29th of June 2016 the ‘Exchange of best practices on mining policies and technologies’ event hosted by the European Commission (DG GROW) took place at the Hotel Metropole, in Brussels. The challenges for the mining sector in the current state of the global economy and commodity prices (economic issues, investment, innovation, readjustments both from governments and industry, etc.) as well as the mining waste management and the ongoing EU actions on international co-operation on raw materials were discussed among several other topics.  Speakers from all over the world: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and the US participated. Mrs Lowri Evans, the Director-General from DG GROW, welcomed the attendees with a very engaging speech mentioning President Juncker’s plans about Horizon 2020: “We use this research innovation program to bring together partners from around the globe with 600 million euro committed to 28 successful projects on raw material  before 2020. ”and: “In our technologies projects the program is wide enough to cover the entire value chain of raw materials and our projects are developing very interesting aspects (…) to try to unlock new innovative solutions.” Finally, she ended her speech by saying: ”The more we are approaching things in an intimated way the better we are able to help the mining industry, deliver what we need for the European economy, for the global economy and for the benefit of people”. The President of the EuroGeoSurveys, Mr. Koen Verbruggen, pointed out the contribution of the European Geological Surveys (EGS) that are all together  dealing with the geoscience challenges. He underlined the importance of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on raw materials:” We are trying to match these needs to progress these issues on technologies to deal with challenges with the EU funding...

Data worth hundreds of millions of Euros has been made available through a first version of the European Geological Data Infrastructure (EGDI). This will enable users to access information and data in INSPIRE compliant formats about geology and earth resources across Europe. The EGDI was launched last Tuesday 14th June at the European Geological Surveys (EGS) Secretariat in Brussels. The interest expressed by the participants and speakers, mainly composed by representatives from EU DGs, was large: Marie Donnelly, Director of Renewables, research and Innovation, Energy Efficiency, (European Commission’s DG Energy) said “The kind of information you are putting together is hugely useful for the EU”, as well as Slavko Solar, DG GROW has confirmed: “EGDI is a great step forward” supported by Chris Steenmans, Head of ICT and Data Management, European Environment Agency (EEA). Positive reactions also came from  the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Constantin Ciupagea Head of Land and Raw Materials (European Commission’s DG), who highlighted: “EGDI is the big platform for EGS. Extremely happy to see EGDI go forward” as well as from Iain Shephard, Head of Maritime Policy Atlantic, outermost regions and Arctic, (European Commission’s DG for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries,) said “EGDI is a great initiative” and Gilles Ollier Head of Earth Observation (European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation) added :“EGDI has a very important role to play in the in-situ part of Copernicus and GEOSS”. Europe – as does the rest of the world – faces a growing need for access to data on nature, environment and raw materials across the borders in order to manage resources appropriately. The EGDI is a platform for geological data from the geological surveys and it gathers thousands of pan-European and national datasets covering Energy, Groundwater, Mineral Resources, Geohazards and Soil. During his...