EUROPEAN INNOVATION PARTNSHIP ON RAW MATERIALS MEETING OF OPERATIONAL GROUPS On Thursday 14th April the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials Operational Groups meeting took place at the Plaza Hotel in Brussels. During this one day-meeting, several projects and initiatives have been presented during plenary and parallel sessions, including the MICA project introduction followed by a round table debate. The Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis (MICA) project was introduced by Lorenz Erdmann, Coordinator at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and leader of the MICA WP2 “Stakeholder needs”, at the Operational Group Knowledge Base. As highlighted, the projects main goal is to provide stakeholders with the best possible information, in a seamless and flexible way using an ontology-based platform European Union Raw Materials Intelligence Capacity Platform (EU-RMICP). The platform will be able to respond to the specific raw material knowledge needs of stakeholders. MICA will last 26 months involving 16 partners and 15 linked third parties (all Geological Surveys). Most importantly, MICA’s contribution was introduced to the EIP Strategic Implementation Plan: MICA will combine the available data and knowledge on raw material sources (including recycling) and make them easily accessible. Intelligence is a first requirement in order to reduce import dependency, diversify raw material sourcing, to find alternatives for (critical) raw materials and to put Europe at the forefront in the raw materials sector. Therefore MICA represents an important step to fulfil one of the Strategic Implementation Plan’s (SIP’s) targets: “European raw materials knowledge base with information, flows and dynamic modelling system for primary and secondary raw materials”. Several potential areas of cooperation between MICA and other projects (MIN-guide, MINLEX, MINATURA2020, JRC RMIS) were also presented to ensure that the projects complement one another. Questions such “Can one project be so inclusive to cover...

PRESS RELEASE RAW MATERIALS INTELLIGENCE TO SERVE STAKEHOLDERS NEEDS 4 February Primary and secondary Raw Materials are essential to Europe’s economy and growth. The Minerals Intelligence Capacity Analysis (MICA) Project responds to the need to build a Raw Materials Knowledge Base at EU level, contributing to past and ongoing efforts by several EU projects and as part of the transitional phase towards this goal. The MICA Partners gathered together for the first time at the Project kick-off meeting held in Copenhagen on the 2-4 February 2016. The overall objective of MICA is to provide stakeholders with the best possible information, in a seamless and flexible way using a Web-based platform, the European Union Raw Materials Intelligence Capacity Platform (EU-RMICP). To reach this ambitious goal, MICA brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts, from natural and technical to social sciences, to ensure that the raw materials intelligence is collected, stored and made accessible according to stakeholders needs. The kick-off meeting, which included Technical Workshops, aimed at presenting all the Work Packages under which the activities will be carried and it introduced all the partners involved. The EU representatives presented the relevant policy frameworks and their expectations from the project. In particular, Mr Slavko Solar from the European Commission DG GROW, said that it is expected that MICA will contribute to shape the EU policy on Raw Materials and will foster the cooperation among past, current and future projects tackling the same issues. The cooperation with the industry, the KIC Raw Materials and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is also considered as essential during the project lifetime. Indeed, representatives of those parties are part of the Advisory Board of the MICA Project. Background The MICA Project is coordinated by the Geological Survey of Denmark and...