MICA Final Consortium Meeting, Brussels

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On January 23, the Horizon 2020 MICA (Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis) project held its final meeting in Brussels, Belgium, after two years of lifetime.

The final one-day event had the objective of recollecting all the work done throughout the many Work Packages, the current state and the plans for the future. During the day, presentations were given for each work package – in a total of 7, outlining their work, deliverables and reports, and major findings to the audience.

MICA partners present at the Final Consortium meeting

Some of the main products coming out of the MICA project are:

  • A comprehensive assessment of stakeholders and stakeholders’ needs in raw materials intelligence;
  • A collection of relevant raw materials data and the MICA metadata inventory;
  • Various methodologies (“recipes”) to answer raw materials intelligence needs;
  • A Raw Materials Intelligence (Policy) Matrix – to assess EU countries for the capacities, methods and tools employed;
  • The EU-RMICP (European Raw Materials Intelligence Capacity Platform);
  • The Raw Materials Foresight Guide.

The MICA final meeting was concluded with an endnote discussing the future of the MICA platform and the general outcomes of the project.

Presentation and discussion of the MICA platform

LPRC thanks all members of the consortium and third parties for the great work and effort put into the many stages of MICA!

The EU-RMICP will be launched soon, stay tuned!

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Minatura2020 Final Consortium Meeting, Brussels

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The last MINATURA2020 consortium meeting took place in Brussels on the 10th January 2018. The project that is due to end by in the 31st of January is defining a very important concept for European mineral raw materials: the establishment of MDoPI – Mineral Deposits of Public Important – and how to map and protect them, so mineral raw materials can be used tomorrow.

The one-day conference that gathered the project partners, the Advisory Board members and also representatives from EASME, started with a welcome statement and an overview of the agenda. To these, then followed the presentation of the work and conclusions of 6 work packages of the MINATURA2020 project:

  • WP1 – Land use assessment
  • WP2 – Development of a harmonised mapping framework
  • WP3 – Regulatory framework
  • WP4 – Demonstration and pilot-testing of developed methodology at case study level
  • WP5 – Stakeholder involvement on mineral deposits of public importance
  • WP6 – Dissemination

After everyone was updated on the work developed through all the MINATURA2020 project, a panel discussion was held with some of the participants. The discussions of this panel worked around (1) the access to land and how to balance industries and authorities’ interests, (2) the identification of MDoPI from the Geological Surveys point of view and (3) tools and models in R&D, among other pressing themes related to the definition and real application of the MDoPI concept developed by the MINATURA 2020 consortium.

The meeting ended with some final remarks, conclusions and prospects of what was done in the project and what are the next steps in the applicability of the MDoPI concept.

Developing a mechanism to protect and safeguard mineral deposits in Europe proved to be a challeging task due to the many divergences present through all European countries and to challenges in land-use planning. However, the MINATURA 2020 project was able to create a definition and establish different sets of criteria that can be applied by different countries to protect their mineral deposits for future use.

In the end, MINATURA 2020 was a successful project, that opened the way to the safeguard and protection of such an important commodity for our daily lives, as minerals are!

All interested persons can subscribe to the Minatura 2020 Council of Stakeholders and view a video that showcases the project’s objectives.

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FORAM at the MIN-GUIDE annual conference 2017, Brussels

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The MIN-GUIDE annual conference 2017 was held in Brussels, 13th and 14th of December 2017. The conference was entitled “An Innovation-Friendly Policy Framework along the Mineral Production Value Chain” and intended to provide insights into the “cornerstones and future trends of an innovation-friendly policy framework for exploration and extraction, processing, waste management, and mine closure”.

As part of the MIN-GUIDE conference’s poster section, the FORAM project was presented by LPRC member Luís Lopes. The FORAM project is creating a World Forum on Raw Materials in order to further establish the international cooperation on raw materials throughout its entire value chain. Through the poster, the FORAM project attracted a lot of attention, mainly from institutions who want to be involved as stakeholders in the development of the forum (envisaged to be ready by the end of 2018). The FORAM project aims to connect institutions and persons in its network, understand their needs, and adapt cooperation measures to solve them.

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UNEXMIN and ¡VAMOS! at the “H2020 cluster event for ongoing mining projects”, Brussels

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Both the UNEXMIN and ¡VAMOS! projects were presented at the first event on Horizon 2020 mining projects, entitled “H2020 cluster event for ongoing mining projects”, organized by EASME in Brussels, Belgium, on the 12th of December 2017. The event served as a catalyser to gather Horizon 2020 and FP7 projects that are performing research and innovation in the various areas of the mining sector. These include underwater exploration (the case for UNEXMIN) and underwater exploitation (the case for ¡VAMOS!), amongst many others.

The one-day event was characterised by presentations from each of the invited projects regarding objectives, approaches, and challenges – the main goal was to find synergies between the different mining projects, specially through networking. There were 6 main fields where the different projects were allocated: Intelligent Mining, Deep Sea Exploration and Mining, Sustainable Selective Low-Impact Mining, Re-opening abandoned mines in the EU, Real Time Exploration and Real Time Mining, Alternative Mining and, finally, Climate Services for Mining.

The one-day event was characterised by presentations from each of the invited projects regarding objectives, approaches, and challenges. The main goal was to find synergies between the different mining projects, specially through networking. There were 6 main fields where the different projects were allocated: Intelligent Mining, Deep Sea Exploration and Mining, Sustainable Selective Low-Impact Mining, Re-opening abandoned mines in the EU, Real Time Exploration and Real Time Mining, Alternative Mining and, finally, Climate Services for Mining.

The UNEXMIN and ¡VAMOS! projects were both part of the “Re-opening abandoned mines in the EU” session. Both projects are creating innovative solutions to explore and exploit underwater environments such as flooded underground mines and open-pit mines. With the use of the technologies, that are being developed by our projects, the re-opening of closed, abandoned mines is becoming a reality.

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