European Innovation Partnership for Raw Materials

The recently launched Partnership will promote innovation along the entire value chain of raw materials and will represent a significant step for the EU in regaining a major role in securing a sustainable supply of raw materials, as well as ensuring and maintaining its competitiveness in the global mining market.

The EIP will bring together Member States and other stakeholders (companies, NGOs, researchers etc.) to:

• develop joint strategies,
• pull together capital and human resources and
• ensure the implementation and dissemination of innovative solutions within Europe.

To speed up this process, the Commission proposes concrete targets to be achieved by 2020 at the latest:

• up to 10 innovative pilot actions (e.g. demonstration plants) for exploration, extraction and processing, collection and recycling;
• substitutes for at least three key applications of critical and scarce raw materials;
• enhanced efficiency in material use and in prevention, re-use and recycling of valuable raw materials from waste streams, with a specific focus on materials having a potentially negative impact on the environment;
• a Network of Research, Education and Training Centres on Sustainable Mining and Materials Management (M³);
• European standardised statistical instruments for the survey of resources and reserves and a 3-D geological map;
• a dynamic modelling system linking trends in supply and demand with economically exploitable reserves and a full lifecycle analysis;
• a pro-active strategy of the EU in multi-lateral organisations and in bilateral relations, such as with the US, Japan and Australia in the different areas covered by the Partnership.

The EIP RM has recently released details of the membership of the high level steering group, Sherpa group and operational group. CRM_InnoNet’s goals complement those of the EIP RM and the project will seek to align its outputs with those of the EIP. CRM_InnoNet project partners CIKTN, CEA, DAPP, Swerea MEFOS, Tecnalia, TU Delft and TNO are part of the operational groups, which should enable integration between the two initiatives.

For further information on the EIP, click here.