La Palma Research Centre hosted the MICA project’s ‘Raw Materials Foresight Methodology Workshop’ on the 10th and 11th of May in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The main objective of the workshop was to frame the MICA foresight methodology recommendations in a minerals policy context on a 2030-2050 timescale. Workshop participants included MICA project partners and a number of external experts on both foresight and raw materials. On the first day of the meeting, the external experts and the research centre team presented examples of foresight case-studies in both raw materials and other fields. These presentations were successful in generating broad-ranging discussion on foresight methods utilised in the case studies, common constraints on the foresight process, and how to establish more accurate proxies during foresight evaluation. The second day began with a review and summary of the findings of the first day. Subsequently, there were further presentations and discussions aimed at establishing a common vision and recommendations for EU minerals policy and the upcoming MICA ‘Raw Materials Intelligence Platform’ (EU-RMICP), which is due to be launched in January 2018. The workshop ended on a positive note after a final group exercise which took place at Columbus House. During this session, workshop participants explored potential pathways for the future of the mineral raw materials sector. The experts also provided recommendations on how foresight studies could aid EU-RMICP users in understanding how different factors may influence the sector over longer time horizons. During the workshop, recommendations were agreed upon to improve EU-RMICP functionality by answering stakeholders’ needs with custom foresight approaches. The group also gave their ideas on how to enhance the development of the MICA ‘Raw Materials Foresight Guide’, which will be released in August...

The 6th Trilateral EU-US-Japan Conference on Critical Materials Strategies for Sustainable Supply of Critical Raw Materials November 29th, 2016 The 6th Trilateral EU-US-Japan Conference on Critical Materials will be held on the 29th November 2016 at the Breydel Auditorium of Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission, during the first edition of the Raw Materials Week. EuroGeoSurveys will be at the forefront during the week. Mr Luca Demicheli, EuroGeoSurveys Secretary General, will be chairing the Session 1: Criticality and risks analysis. The Session will tackle the following topics: material flows and stocks Analysis; methodology for assessing critical materials; raw materials data and information for policy making. The Director General of the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ), Eikichi Tsukuda, will attend the event. For more information about the Raw Materials...

Earth Observation tools applied to the raw materials sector in Africa can really make a difference New opportunities of collaborations for increasing the capacity building in Africa   The 2nd EuroGeoSurveys Networking workshop titled “Aimed at in-situ network operators and Geological Surveys – especially in Middle East and North Africa (MENA)”, held in Timimoun, Algeria, last 19th-22nd October 2016 was a great success. Over 200 participants representing the whole Algerian geoscientific community, mainly from universities and government institutions at the highest levels attended, included heads and managers of all the main Algerian state-enterprises. Also Tunisia was represented at Director General level. In Algeria several sectors are not fully open to the free market, and the state-enterprises manage most of the country’s resources, including raw materials. The GEO-CRADLE partners presented several aspects of the project via different presentations in plenary session, raising a big deal of attention. Mr. Luca Demicheli, Secretary General of EuroGeoSurveys, during its introduction highlighted “The potential for growth in Algeria is impressive, and in such wide territories rich in mineral resources, yet still largely unexplored, Earth Observation tools applied to the raw materials sector can really make a difference”. The role of Geological Surveys and the importance of the raw materials topics in the framework of GEOSS and COPERNICUS has been also pointed out. Mr. Marek Graniczny, representative of the Polish Geological Institute, and Chair of the International Cooperation and Development Task Force, described the specific role of EuroGeoSurveys and of raw materials for reaching the goals of GEO-CRADLE. The Deputy Chair of the EGS Earth Observation and GeoHazards Expert Group, Ms. Veronika Kopackova, entered into the technical details of the benefit of applying novel Earth Observation technologies to the raw materials sector. While the importance of capacity building and of...

EuroGeoSurveys Secretary General Mr Luca Demicheli attended the INTRAW Project Workshop in Cornwall (UK) from 5 to 7 October 2016, as part of the high-level Panel of Experts on international Raw materials cooperation. The panel of Experts provides the project consortium with suggestions on how to enhance the European Union’s International Observatory for Raw Materials that will be launched by the end of the project’s lifetime. The INTRAW (International Raw Materials Observatory) Project is coordinated by the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) and brings together an international consortium of 15 partners from 9 European countries, Australia, South Africa and the USA. [To know more about INTRAW and the Workshop outcomes read the full press release...

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...