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CIRAN

CIRAN Consortium Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal, 22-25 January 2024

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The CIRAN project held its annual physical meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, between the 22nd and 25th of January 2024. This event was attended by representatives of the partners as well as members of the Group of Experts. La Palma Research Centre joined the event with five members and hosted a data collection workshop. 

The first day of the CIRAN consortium meeting was dedicated to the partners’ presentations on the different Work Packages that make the project, from the technical to the less technical ones, where partners discussed their work towards the responsible sourcing of critical raw materials in protected zones through a plan for sustainable resource extraction. LPRC presented its work on Task 3.3 – Nexus between policy decisions and drivers of change. 

The second day was dedicated to two data collection workshops. LPRC was responsible for organizing and hosting the first workshop of the day, which was dedicated to scenarios planning. The second workshop was dedicated to policy making. For its workshop the LPRC team created four unique stations to discuss future scenarios for CIRAN based on the assessment of the Drivers of Change, the results from the Delphi Survey and the previously-developed INTRAW geopolitical scenarios. This was a great opportunity to engage with project partners and experts to collect unique views and opinions that will help the LPRC team to create CIRAN Scenarios for 2035. 

On the third day the meeting participants went on a field trip to the municipality of Porto de Mós, where they were given presentations on the conciliation between mining activities and nature conservation, as represented by the quarrying activities within the boundaries of the Serras de Aire and Candeeiros Nature Park, relevant examples for CIRAN’s work. The participants had the chance to visit such quarrying activities and to understand what drives the balance between economic interest and nature protection. 

The final day was dedicated to management aspects, including the planning for the coming year’s activities, where engagement with experts and stakeholders will be a crucial aspect. 

Follow the project on its social media channels and website to keep up-to-date!

La Palma Research Centre

LPRC joins the INTRAW Scenario Workshop and Meeting

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La Palma Research Centre joined the INTRAW (International Raw Materials Observatory), of which LPRC is a member, to participate in a meeting in Brussels on the 23 and 24th March, organised by INTRAW themselves. The meeting was divided in two days: the first, where the members discussed the current relevance of the 2050 Raw Materials Scenarios and ways to improve and adapt the outcomes, and the second, where the INTRAW General Assembly was held and strategic decisions were made.

For the first day, the agenda of the INTRAW Scenarios Workshop started with an introduction, which covered the project and scenario technique and the scenarios created in 2016. Then, participants reviewed the scenario factors and conditions, checking for the relevance of the influence factors, updating them to take into account new trends, and defining new projections for the world of raw materials in 2050. For this exercise, participants were divided into groups covering topics related to Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal and Ethical conditions (PESTELE analysis), and as a whole, added new factors/trends to be considered. The next step, will see the scenarios being updated based on the conclusions of this workshop.

For the second day, INTRAW held its General Assembly. From LPRC, Adrienn Cseko, the Managing Director, was elected as an executive member of the INTRAW board. Congratulations!