European Union funded raw materials projects

ERA-MIN 3 (ERA-NET Cofund) on Raw Materials for Sustainable Development and the Circular Economy is a global, innovative and flexible pan-European network of research funding organisations, funded under Horizon 2020. The networks aims to support the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials (EIP RM), the EU Raw Materials Initiative and further develop the raw materials (RM) sector in Europe through funding of transnational research and innovation (R&I) activities. This will be achieved through calls designed and developed specifically for the non-fuel, non-food raw materials sector.

​The CETPartnership is a multilateral and strategic partnership of national and regional research, development and innovation (RDI) programmes in European Member States and Associated Countries, aiming to boost and accelerate the energy transition and to support the implementation of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan). The Partnership is an initiative co-funded by the European Union that brings together public and private stakeholders in the research and innovation ecosystems, from European and non-European countries and regions. CET Partnership aims to create and foster transnational innovation ecosystems and overcome a fragmented research and innovation landscape.

ERA-MIN 2 (ERA-NET Cofund) on Raw Materials is public-public partnerships  funded under Horizon 2020. The networks aims to implement a European-wide coordination of research and innovation programmes on raw materials to strengthen the industry, competitiveness and the shift to a circular economy.

The GEOTHERMICA network (ERA NET Cofund) comprises 16 research and innovation funding programmes from 13 countries and regions. Together with financial support from the European Commission GEOTHERMICA supports projects that demonstrate and validate novel concepts of geothermal energy deployment within the energy system, and helps identify paths to commercial large-scale implementation.

EPOS, the European Plate Observing System, is a long-term project to facilitate integrated use of data, data products, and facilities from distributed research infrastructures for solid Earth science in Europe.

EPOS deals with physical and chemical processes, which cover wide temporal and spatial scales, from microseconds to billions of years and from nanometres to thousands of kilometres. Geology, natural hazards, natural resources and, in general, environmental processes do not respect national boundaries, therefore seamless, trans-national integration of measurements and data is often vital for optimal research and related activities.

GSEU, Geological Survey for Europe, has the ambition to establish a sustainable Geological Service for Europe, serving European society through, and beyond, the green transition.

Through GSEU, a five-year Coordination and Support Action, EuroGeoSurveys will deliver a plan for a sustainable Geological Service for Europe to be implemented beyond the 2027 project end. This service will serve European society and inform sound policy in water, energy, raw materials, hazards, and all areas that require subsurface data and expertise. Through this service, we will contribute to environmental sustainability and social well-being in Europe, supported by a powerful and comprehensive digital infrastructure.

​The ORAMA project focuses on optimising data collection for primary and secondary raw materials in EU Member States. ORAMA addresses specific challenges related to data availability, geographical coverage, accessibility, standardisation, harmonisation, interoperability, quality, and thematic coverage in EU Member States.

ORAMA will analyse data collection methods and make recommendations from past and ongoing projects to identify best practices, develop practical guidelines and provide training to meet specific needs. These actions will demonstrate how to improve datasets for mineral occurrences, minerals intelligence data, economic, technical, environmental and social data for primary and secondary raw materials.

This EU funded project is designed to meet the recommendations of the Raw Materials Initiative and will develop an EU Mineral intelligence network structure delivering a web portal, a European Minerals Yearbook and foresight studies.

The network provides data, information and knowledge on mineral resources around Europe, based on an accepted business model, making a fundamental contribution to the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials (EIP RM), seen by the Competitiveness Council as key for the successful implementation of the major EU2020 policies.

​ProSUM – Prospecting Secondary raw materials from the Urban Mine and Mining waste. The ProSUM project will deliver the First Urban Mine Knowledge Data Platform, a centralised database of all available data and information on arisings, stocks, flows and treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), batteries and mining wastes.

The availability of primary and secondary raw materials data, easily accessible in one platform, will provide the foundation for improving Europe's position on raw material supply, with the ability to accommodate more wastes and resources in future. ProSUM will provide data for improving the management of these wastes and enhancing the resource efficiency of collection, treatment and recycling.

This EU funded project is designed to meet the recommendations of the Raw Materials Initiative and will develop an EU Mineral intelligence network structure delivering a web portal, a European Minerals Yearbook and foresight studies.

The network provides data, information and knowledge on mineral resources around Europe, based on an accepted business model, making a fundamental contribution to the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials (EIP RM), seen by the Competitiveness Council as key for the successful implementation of the major EU2020 policies.

The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) consists of more than 160 organisations assembling marine data, products and metadata to make these fragmented resources more easily available to public and private users relying on quality-assured, standardised and harmonised marine data which are interoperable and free of restrictions on use. EMODnet is currently in its third development phase with the target to be fully deployed by 2020.

Northeast Atlantic Geoscience (NAG) cooperation framework was established in 2008 and includes BGR (German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources), BGS (British Geological Survey), GEUS (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland), GSI (Geological Survey of Ireland), GSNI (Geological Survey of Northern Ireland), ÍSOR (Iceland GeoSurvey), JF (Jarðfeingi, Faroe Islands), NGU (Geological Survey of Norway), and TNO (The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research).

The aim was to share knowledge and resources on critical issues facing each of the surveys and develop economy of scale for projects that no individual survey could undertake.

Since 2008 three major initiatives have moved forward, including NAG-TEC; the North Atlantic Tectonostratigraphic Atlas The main focus was to investigate the tectonic evolution of the North Atlantic region with a particular emphasis on basin evolution along conjugate margins.

Competing societal interests, such as expanding
cities, infrastructure development, agriculture and nature conservation, have had negative effect on the available area for exploration and mining of mineral resources. Consequently, the supply of mineral raw materials within the EU is at risk.

Therefore, the integration of mineral resources policies into land-use planning at different scales and levels is a key factor for achieving the goals of the EU Raw Materials Initiative.

The MINLAND project will facilitate minerals and land-use policy making and strengthen a transparent land use practice.
It will address the challenge by: collecting and structuring information from member states and EU activities
(stocktaking), performing in-depth analyses and case studies on relevant issues and aspects, and compiling comprehensive
and practically applicable guidance documents.

The PACIFIC approach will build on the "traditional" passive seismic method, which is capable of providing useful broad-brush background information about the geological and structural setting of mineralised regions, but lacks the resolution needed for reliable identification of ore bodies.

Establishing the European Geological Surveys Research Area to deliver a Geological Service for Europe.

GeoERA will contribute to the optimal use and management of the subsurface. GeoERA funds transnational research projects  to support 1) a more integrated and efficient management and 2) more responsible and publicly accepted, exploitation and use of the subsurface.

The network comprises 48 national and regional Geological Survey Organisations from 33 European countries and funds transnational research projects addressing the following four themes:geoenergy, groundwater, minerals and information sharing

A dedicated research centre covering basic and innovative solutions with a broader expertise for sustainable, resilient, responsible, and innovative exploration of critical raw materials. Funding of the Smart Exploration Research Centre through the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). The centre will inaugurate in January 2024 with an initial lifetime of 6 years and has the support of national and global mining companies, nordic geological surveys and key R&D and tech sectors in this field.

The goal is to become a fast-track hub for the emerging needs of mineral exploration sector (basic and applied) in the field of critical raw materials.

Exploration Information System (EIS) is a 36-months Horizon Europe project launched in May 2022 and will play a supporting role in the implementation of the European Green Deal and increasing Europe’s long-term self-sufficiency of critical raw materials (CRM).

EIS will develop new data analysis methods by applying artificial intelligence to mineral prospectivity mapping. Together with new geomodels, mineral systems modelling, machine learning, and deep learning, these new methods will reduce the current high exploration costs and improve the accuracy of the targeting of the early phase exploration. This makes mineral exploration more responsible by increasing energy efficiency, minimizing the footprint of mineral exploration on nature, reusing already existing exploration data, and increasing the needed CRM sources to achieve the decarbonization goals of the EU. EIS will also raise awareness of the general public on the importance of critical raw materials to the EU's economy, welfare, and their role in transitioning to a zero-carbon future.

The EIS consortium consists of 17 partners from leading research institutes, academia, service providers, and industry, located in six European Union member states (FI, FR, DE, ES, CZ, SE) and South Africa, as well as one associate member from Brazil. Overall, the project will benefit from a vast international collaboration network.

GREENPEG aims for a better investor approach and promotion of European deposits. Commonly, investors use on-site services if efficient and offering latest know-how. Equipping them with GREENPEG inventions and improving access to, and quality of, geological and geophysical data will stimulate investors to “explore” Europe. The Project develops two innovative, competitive toolsets at TRL7 for the exploration of buried LCT and NYF pegmatites, including three new instrumental techniques and devices (piezoelectric sensor, helicopter-complementary nose stinger magnetometer, drone-borne hyperspectral imaging system) and two new datasets for prospect scale (<50 km²) and district scale (50-500 km²) exploration. Innovation needs raw materials from mining. The economic value chain depends on a secure raw materials supply. Europe’s ambitious e-mobility plan will rely on both.

A project aimed to increase our understanding of Lithium bearing pegmatite systems in Sweden with respect to the geological evolution, distribution and a scanning method that yields information about the mineralogy, including the proportion of the main Li-ore phases, and the texture and chemical composition of the host rocks. The evaluation of the spectroscopic response of Li-ore minerals to in particular UV wavelength-specific fluorescence will show if this technology can be applied for Li exploration. The project is funded by the strategic research programme Swedish Mining Innovation; a joint venture of Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency. 

Access to resources is a strategic security question for Europe’s ambition to deliver the European Green Deal. The new Industrial Strategy for Europe identifies raw materials as key enablers for a globally competitive, green, and digital Europe, while the EU Recovery Plan recognises raw materials as one of the areas that must contribute to strengthening crucial markets in a sustainable way.

The European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) aims to make Europe economically more resilient by diversifying its supply chains, creating jobs, attracting investments to the raw materials value chain, fostering innovation, training young talents and contributing to the best enabling framework for raw materials and the Circular Economy worldwide.

The Alliance addresses the challenge of securing access to sustainable raw materials, advanced materials, and industrial processing know-how. By 2030, ERMA’s activities will increase the production of raw and advanced materials and address Circular Economy by boosting the recovery and recycling of Critical Raw Materials.

ERMA covers the full range of elements and minerals required by Europe's green and digital transitions, from critical raw materials to base metals and industrial minerals.

In addition to investing in infrastructure and capacity building within the EU, the Alliance will support activities aimed at securing a sustainable supply of raw and advanced materials for the EU’s industrial ecosystems that support the transition to a green and digital economy. These include the implementation of circularity solutions aimed at reducing consumption and waste.

ERMA is an open and inclusive alliance that provides an open and independent forum for discussion and analysis, as well as a mechanism for translating potential projects into actual activities and infrastructures that will contribute to creating long-lasting added value and jobs for Europe.

MINE.THE.GAP is an innovation project that will provide SMEs, from the raw materials and mining sectors, with the necessary tools to improve their competitiveness, boost their growth and implement new services, solutions and/or products through cross-sectorial and cross-regional collaboration through vouchers to reinforce synergies between raw materials mining SMEs and providers from the existing fields of ICT, Circular Economy, Resources Efficiency and AdvancedManufacturing.

This project will also offer business support services for the selected projects to enhance innovation capacities, promote technology transfer and commercialisation, and to boost SMEs internationalisation

Horizon Europe project working on building a resilient Europe with the help of Critical Raw Materials.

Minerals, metals and advanced materials are key enablers to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal. Today, only a fraction of the most relevant raw materials is produced in Europe. This can be changed through a circular economy approach, through innovation in recycling, substitution, processing, mining, and exploration. It is the objective of EIT RawMaterials to secure a sustainable raw materials supply by driving innovation, education, and entrepreneurship across European industrial ecosystems.

EIT RawMaterials provides a collaborative environment for disruptive and breakthrough innovations by connecting business with academia, research, and investment. It also invests in future generation of innovators for the raw materials sector through initiatives ranging from education of school students to higher qualifications for industry professionals.

The company is committed to supporting Europe’s transition towards a circular, green, and digital economy whilst strengthening its global competitiveness and securing employment. On this foundation, EIT RawMaterials has been mandated by the European Commission to lead and manage the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA).

Recovering and supplying Rare-Earths within the EU through radical innovations in the recycling of permanent magnet from home appliances. We want to optimize methods at industrial scale for sustainable extraction and recycling and use of recycled magnets in new motors.

Partners: Research Centers: CNR (IT), CSIC (ES), JSI (SI) Universities: TUD (DK) Pforzheim (DE) Industries: Domel (SI) , Gorenje (SI), ZEOS (SI), Kolektor (SI), Surovina (SI) Policy makers: Centre for European Policy Studies (BE) KIC- Raw Material Project. Proposal Number: 20090 – Lead Partner: Spanish National Research Council. Area: D2 Acceleration; Segment D2.4 Acceleration Regional Innovation Schemes.

The European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources (ETP SMR) is an Association of subjects operating in the Mineral Resources Industry at a wide scale (coal, metal ores, industrial minerals, ornamental stones, aggregates, smelters as well as technology suppliers and engineering companies) in different sectors along the value chain, from exploration to extraction, processing, recycling. ETP SMR is covering the entire range of mineral resources production in Europe. However, the production and tailored provision of mineral raw materials needs more than exploitation and/or recycling. Technology and knowledge is the key to success. Therefore, ETP SMR has also integrated many of Europe’s very strong equipment and technology providers. Those organisations are usually part of every development process and necessary to be successful.

The ETP SMR was launched on March 2005 and officially recognized by the European Commission in September 2008. In 2013 the ETP SMR was born as a legal entity International Association without lucrative purpose.

Sea4Value will design and implement technologies for recovering minerals and metals from seawater desalination brines. The aim is to make desalination plants the third source of valuable raw materials in the European Union.

BATT4EU is a Co-programmed Partnership established under Horizon Europe – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union- that aims to achieve a competitive and sustainable European industrial value-chain for e-mobility and stationary applications.

It is a contractual public-private Partnership gathering – on the public side – the European Commission; and – on the private side – BEPA, which regroups all the battery stakeholders from the European Research community.  

Balkans Waste to Products: transfer of NoI model to Balkan area: de-siloing new waste-derived raw materials and devel-oping new applications,

Benefits from cooperations between EU recycling sector and Serbian industry,

Dubrovnik International ESEE Mining school,

Encouraging Girls to Study Geosciences and Engineering

Innovative CRM substitution technology for public authorities' vehicle catalysts

Multifactor model for investments in the raw material sector,

Innovative targeting and processing of Tin, Tungsten and Tantalum ores,

Open ESEE-Region Master for Maintenance Engineering,

Raw Materials Students Internships in East South East Europe,

Prospects of REE recovery from bauxite and bauxite residue in the ESEE

Mineral potential of the ESEE region

Zero waste recovery of copper tailings in the ESEE region

Regional innovation scheme for zero waste extraction of critical raw materials,

Al-rich industrial residues for mineral binders in ESEE region,

IC Aufero Liquidium

Skilled learners for battery value chain in Europe (BattValue)

BrineRIS - Brines of RIS countries as a source of CRM and energy supply

Upscaling carbon nanomaterial production from CO2 emissions

CSyARES-Toward a Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability

Drone Geophysics and Self-Organizing Maps

Dynamic ore sorting of polymetallic stockpiles

Sustainable REE, Co supply from magnet recycling: closing the loop

The European Battery Business Club - An innovative Lifelong Learning Programme

Electrical Computerised Hammering Operator (ECHO)

EMeraldinho Stimulating Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Resources Engineering

E-magy nanoporous Si-material up-scaling next generation Li ion battery anodes

Green graphite to enable users of graphite to decarbonize

Sustainable zero-waste lithium production

International Round Table on Materials Criticality Training Programme

Raw Materials Value Chain

Grain boundaries engineered Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets

Metal Influenced Acid Water as a source of valuable and critical raw materials

Re-cycling of Epoxys and metals from Nonferrous E-Waste

RIS Internship programme: broadening University-Business Cooperation

SCALE-UP: Scaling up Scandium production from European industrial residues

T-Shaped Master Programme for Innovative Mineral Resource Exploration

VALORE - Selective Vanadium and Galium recovery from Alumina RefineryVALORE - Selective Vanadium and Galium recovery from Alumina Refinery

The RE-SOURCING project sets up a Global Stakeholder Platform for Responsible Sourcing. Funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme the project will be implemented between November 2019 and October 2023.

The RE-SOURCING project actions will:

• facilitate the development of a globally accepted definition of RS,
• develop ideas for incentives facilitating responsible business conduct in the EU, supporting RS initiatives,
• enable exchange of stakeholders for information and promotion of RS,
• foster the emergence of RS in international political fora, and
• support the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials.

Securing the supply of secondary & critical raw materials in the EU. A Horizon Europe funded project.

Managed by Aalto University, the Finland-based circular ecosystem of battery metals consortium (BATCircle in short) aims at improving the manufacturing processes of mining industry, metals industry and battery chemicals, and to increase the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. Its goal is to strengthen the cooperation between companies and research organizations in Finland. The original BATCircle project ran between 2019 and 2021, while the follow-up project (called as BATCircle2.0) was launched in 1.5.2021 and will run for three years.

Read more about BATCircle 2.0 here.

The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) is the answer to a global demand for more socially and environmentally responsible mining.  IRMA offers true independent assessment against a comprehensive standard for all mined materials that provides ‘one-stop coverage’ of the full range of issues related to the impacts of industrial-scale mines.

The European Battery Alliance (EBA) was launched in October 2017 by European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič. The purpose is to ensure that all Europeans benefit from safer traffic, cleaner vehicles and more sustainable technological solutions. All this will be achieved by creating a competitive and sustainable battery cell manufacturing value chain in Europe.

The industrial development programme of the European Battery Alliance is driven by EIT InnoEnergy. EIT InnoEnergy took the lead in this work, bringing together more than 120 European and non-European stakeholders representing the entire battery value chain. The result is a definition of 43 necessary actions to set up a dynamic and efficient European Battery Alliance and to capture a significant share of the rapidly expanding global battery market.

Catalysing and accelerating the energy transition

EIT InnoEnergy brings people and resources together, catalysing and accelerating the energy transition. New ideas, products and solutions that make a real difference, and new businesses and people to deliver them to market.

Operating at the centre of the energy transition, we build connections worldwide, bringing together innovators and industry, entrepreneurs and investors, graduates and employers.

The Smart Exploration initiative answered the challenge offered by H2020 (SC5-13c-2016-2017) for ‘New solutions for sustainable production of raw materials – New sensitive exploration technologies’. 

The Smart Exploration project was created to address the challenges surrounding the exploration of mineral resources that are vital to the economy and technological advancement within the EU. The project officially started on 1 December 2017 and has a planned runtime of 36 months. The project has been assigned just over €5.2 million under grant agreement no. 775971.

The project will primarily focus on developing cost-effective, environmentally-friendly tools and methods for geophysical exploration in highly challenging brownfield areas to meet the ever-increasing community (social acceptance) and environmental issues, as well as reduce the return time (from exploration to production).

At the same time, long-term greenfield exploration is essential and reducing exploration costs in these regions can have great consequences for development rates and a sustainable supply of raw materials at the same rate as whole world growth. Therefore, new innovative ideas will also be tested for greenfield exploration to increase the potential of finding new major deposits of relevance to the EU.

The aim is to not only generate new technological and methodological markets for the EU, but to create results that will also allow for improved exploration in the EU countries and beyond.

The “Smart Exploration Research Centre” will be led by Uppsala University and is a broad consortium of academic and industry expertise with Stockholm, Göteborg and Lund Universities partnering Uppsala and Epiroc, Nordic Iron Ore, First Quantum Minerals, Tyréns, Smarkand, BitSimNow, Euro Battery Minerals and Amkvo from industry in the fields of geoscience, nanotechnology, data analytics, tech, drone, and robotic solutions, as well as drilling technologies.

Through a national competition, the centre proposal has secured 60 MSEK from SSF and is expected to kick-off January 2024 with a 6-year lifetime. The centre aims to be a fast-track hub for emerging needs of CRM exploration in Sweden, the Nordic region and beyond. The centre has the support of the Nordic geological surveys and global exploration and mining companies for exchanging knowledge, mobility, and joint R&D projects.