NEWS – www.mica-project.eu

29 Jan 2018

MICA final event

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.

23 Nov 2017

Raw Materials Week 2017

EuroGeoSurveys No classified 0

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.

3 Nov 2017

World Resources Forum 2017: Accelerating the resource revolution

EuroGeoSurveys No classified 0

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).

12 Jun 2017

Discover the MICA Dynamic Decision Graph at the WCEF 2017

EuroGeoSurveys No classified

MICA SIDE EVENT AT THE WCEF 2017
Helsinki, Finland

The MICA side Event at the World Circular Economy Forum 2017 has presented the results of the MICA project to its participants.

The event was an exciting opportunity to show the MICA Dynamic Decision Graph (DDG). The DDG is a sophisticated set of user applications that are being developed to facilitate users (stakeholders with an easy access to the knowledge on raw materials in Europe) and get them as close as possible to answers to their questions. DDG is fully utilizing a newly developed MICA ontology as well as an expert evaluation of best practices, tools, methods, policies, data etc. used in the wide EU domain of raw materials. The DDG is also deploying advanced ICT visualization graphical methods as well as a structured storage (RDF – Triple store) of the project collected RM related data, information and knowledge.

During the panel discussion the participants had the opportunity to ask questions and provide suggestions and improvements. Even if the prototype presented is at an early stage the enthusiasm and the expectations for the final result are very high.
A new presentation will likely be held in Brussels during the Raw Materials Week in November 2017.
Follow us on our social media to be kept informed.

24 May 2017

Outcomes from the “Raw Materials Foresight Methodology Workshop” in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

EuroGeoSurveys Meetings EU-RMICP, Foresight Methodology, Raw Materials, Raw Materials Intelligence Platform, Workshop 0

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 2017.

20 Mar 2017

MICA Side Event to the World Circular Economy Forum

EuroGeoSurveys No classified Dissemination event, Intelligence, MICA, minerals, ontology, platform 0

Helsinki, Finland | 7 June, 9:30 – 12:30

The MICA side Event will disseminate the results of the MICA project in the frame of the World Circular Economy Forum 2017. This event introduces the “Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis” (MICA) project to its stakeholders who work with and stay up-to-date with developments in mineral intelligence, such as resource/reserve assessments, investment in mineral exploration, mineral life-cycles, socio-economic relevance of minerals, urban mining, and other. MICA provides an open-access platform to be released in early 2018 which is constructed on a complex ontology that enables to systematically source and present data from numerous databases and provide intelligence to its user.

13 May 2016

MICA at the UNECE Expert Group of Resource Classification (EGRC), share a common ground

EuroGeoSurveys Meetings 0

The MICA project was presented by a poster at the 7th session of the UNECE Expert Group of Resource Classification (EGRC), held in Geneva 27-29 April 2016. The project was represented by Katalin Sári, researcher of the Geological and Geophysical Institute of Hungary (participating as a linked third party in the project).

The EGRC is responsible for the promotion and further development of the United Nations Framework Classification for Fossil Energy and Mineral Reserves and Resources 2009 (UNFC-2009). The Expert Group meets once a year at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to present the latest achievements on the UNFC-2009 and its Specifications and to discuss the subsequent tasks. The sessions are attended by experts from numerous countries around the world, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and private sector.

In the 7th session many European stakeholders took part such as representatives of the EC, ministries, authorities, research institutes, industry, academia etc., who are data providers and users in terms of the MICA project. The comprehensive identification of stakeholders in mineral sector, which is of central importance in the project, is properly implemented in the case of UNECE EGRC. Furthermore, this forum aims to develop a common ground, which is a key tool and goal of mineral intelligence.

The experience gained at the meeting will significantly contribute to the implementation of the MICA project.

21 Apr 2016

European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials Operational Groups meeting

EuroGeoSurveys EIP, Meetings EIP, European Innovation Partnership, MICA, Operational Groups meeting, Raw Materials 0

European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials

On Thursday 14thApril the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials Operational Groups meeting took place at the Plaza Hotel in Brussels. During this one day-meeting, several projects and initiatives have been presented during plenary and parallel sessions, including the MICA project introduction followed by a round table debate.

The Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis (MICA) project was introduced by Lorenz Erdmann, Coordinator at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and leader of the MICA WP2 “Stakeholder needs”, at the Operational Group Knowledge Base. As highlighted, the projects main goal is to provide stakeholders with the best possible information, in a seamless and flexible way using an ontology-based platform European Union Raw Materials Intelligence Capacity Platform (EU-RMICP). The platform will be able to respond to the specific raw material knowledge needs of stakeholders. MICA will last 26 months involving 16 partners and 15 linked third parties (all Geological Surveys).
Most importantly, MICA’s contribution was introduced to the EIP Strategic Implementation Plan: MICA will combine the available data and knowledge on raw material sources (including recycling) and make them easily accessible. Intelligence is a first requirement in order to reduce import dependency, diversify raw material sourcing, to find alternatives for (critical) raw materials and to put Europe at the forefront in the raw materials sector. Therefore MICA represents an important step to fulfil one of the Strategic Implementation Plan’s (SIP’s) targets: “European raw materials knowledge base with information, flows and dynamic modelling system for primary and secondary raw materials”.

Several potential areas of cooperation between MICA and other projects (MIN-guide, MINLEX, MINATURA2020, JRC RMIS) were also presented to ensure that the projects complement one another. Questions such “Can one project be so inclusive to cover all intelligence parts?” and “How do you feed this database in the long-term?” and cooperation needs to create synergies with ongoing initiatives were discussed. The maintenance issue of EU-RMICP was another aspect that was debated. MICA is a Horizon 2020 funded project, with a focus on a specific target. However, the project has a long term perspective, as it is expected to feed into the ERA-NET on Geosciences that will cover three main areas: mineral resources, energy and water resources.