The final event of the Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis (MICA) project was held in Brussels January 23, 2018 with 40+ attendees of the MICA consortium. the MICA project responds to the need to build a EU Raw Materials Knowledge Base (EU-RMKB), contributing to past and ongoing efforts by several EU projects and as part of the transitional phase towards this goal.

Slavko Solar, director of EuroGeoSurveys, gave the welcome words and positioned MICA within the EU-RMKB. Then presentations by the (representative) leaders of the 7 work packages (WP),  namely, WP1 – Erika Faigen, WP2 – Lorenz Erdmann, WP3 – Evi Petavratzi, WP4 – Ester van der Voet, WP5 – Blažena Hamadová, WP6 – François Tertre and WP7 – Nancy Savall & David Ovadia followed.

The event then saw several discussions and suggestions about MICA in relation to its future. Chiefly, the final part of the presentation by David Ovadia about dissemination, exploitation and sustainability witnessed an extensive debate about the future of MICA. At last, all the attendees congratulated and thanked everyone for their contribution and support to the project.

The Raw Materials Week, a recent European event dealing with the challenges, problems and solutions on the raw materials sector, took place from the 6th to the 10th of November in Brussels, Belgium.

The MICA project has been presented during the EU Raw Materials Knowledge Base event organized by DG Joint Research Center, European Commission at the hotel Plaza. The project coordinator, Mrs. E. Machacek introduced the MICA’s results in support of the European Commission Raw Materials Knowledge.

Knowledge is essential for ensuring a sustainable and secure global supply of raw materials, both primary and secondary, to the EU’s economy and society. Proper knowledge management promotes activities of the raw materials sector, regarding not only exploration, extraction, processing/refining and recycling, but also investments, innovation, trade, development, skills and education. Knowledge is also key for policy support, informed debate and decision-making.

On the 10^th November, the final ProSUM Project Information Network event took place where Mr. F. Tertre from BRGM presented an overview on MICA ontologies, metadata, triple store and DDG. Please click here to see the PPT presentation.

The annual World Resources Forum WRF 2017 was held in Geneva, Switzerland on the 24th and 25th October 2017 with over 400 participants. Two years after the establishment of two historic global agreements – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change – leaders and other agents from government, business, research and NGOs came to “UN capital” Geneva, to talk about how to accelerate the Resource Revolution. The two-day conference was opened by Valentin Zellweger, the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in Geneva.

Partner workshops were held on various topics related to the main theme of the WRF 2017 conference, including workshop “International Cooperation on Raw Materials in the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme”, organized by the FORAM Management Committee in coordination with the European Commission.

During this workshop related to Horizon 2020 funded project, P. Wall from EuroGeoSurveys has been presenting the overall project activities and the main objectives.

Other projects participating in this workshop were four H2020 projects covering the subjects of the International Cooperation Pillar (FORAM, MinFuture, INTRAW and STRADE), eight projects covering the Non-Technology Pillar (MIN-GUIDE, MINATURA 2020, ProSUM, SCRREEN, MSP-REFRAM, SMART GROUND, IMPACTPapeRec) and one project from the Technology Pillar (VERAM), all in the framework of the framework of the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) of the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials and in the funding scheme of Coordination and Support Actions (CSA).