Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MIREU (Mining and Metallurgy Regions of EU)

Teaser

The project MIREU aims to establish a network of mining and metallurgy regions across Europe with a view to ensure the sustained and sustainable supply of mineral raw materials to the EU. The network will help the regions to share knowledge and experiences when facing the...

Summary

The project MIREU aims to establish a network of mining and metallurgy regions across Europe with a view to ensure the sustained and sustainable supply of mineral raw materials to the EU. The network will help the regions to share knowledge and experiences when facing the challenge to establish and maintain an extractive industry. MIREU will facilitate an exchange between all interested stakeholders in the regions, namely regulatory authorities, political and administrative bodies, development agencies, mining companies, non-government organisations, as well as the general public. The project will develop a shared knowledge base, taking into account the region-specific geographic and economic features, cultural, societal and language diversity, and their historical developments. The network will also learn from experience in other regions of the World. This knowledge base will allow to understand what has been conducive and what hampering to the development of extractive and metallurgical industries. It will also provide the context for a bottom-up integration of these activities into their respective socio-economic and socio-cultural context. Development is about people and, therefore, bringing people into the decision-finding procedure in order to achieve a ‘social license to operate’ will be a key aspect of the project. Guidelines and recommendations for actions to be taken to foster a sustained and sustainable development of the extractive industries will be developed in close co-operation with a range of selected regions from the European Union. These regions will form a nucleus and multipliers for a more extensive network beyond the life-time of the project, therefore MIREU attempts to set up a long-term collaborative and sustained network of selected regions Council of Mining and Metallurgy EU Regions (CoMMER) that will ensure the intended impact well into the future.
• MIREU website: http://mireu.eu
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MIREU_EU
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11376706/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MIREU.EU

Work performed

The following objectives were targeted during the reporting period (M1-M18):

Objective 1: Engaging a representative number of mining and metallurgy regions for the network
• Directory of Regions and stakeholders relevant to network Regions and members of the CoMMER (D2.1)
• Additional regions were contacted during the reporting period through the partner efforts. These include Romania, Bulgaria, Central Macedonia (GR), Norrbotten (SE) and Hungary. Discussion are ongoing.
• Online stakeholder database with over 200 registered stakeholders
• The MIREU Seminar: Cultural and Industrial World Heritage in Mining and Metallurgy – the first European Fact-Finding in June 2018 in Freiberg Germany
Objective 2: Determining the framework conditions that are either conductive or hampering mining and metallurgical development in Europe
• Review of the applicable regulatory and policy conditions in the MIREU Regions
• Overview over the current and future specific skills requirements in a modern mining industry in MIREU regions, report and questionnaire
• Mining heritage and research capacities in Regions – SWOT Analysis and transferability report
Objective 3: Develop EU SLO Guidelines and a SLO Toolbox
• Two MIREU SLO workshops; 1st on 9th of May 2019 in Rovaniemi, Finland and 2nd on 23-25 October 2018, Leoben, Austria
• Regional cultural identity and stakeholder mapping report
• WP4 has activated world class experts for SLO International Stakeholder Panel and MIREU SLO works has impact within EU and globally.
Objective 4: Promoting regional synergies for economic growth
• Review of MIREU Regions’ RIS3 strategies related to their assets in economic aid
• The first Governance and Policy within Mining and Metallurgy EU Regions Workshop was held in Leon Spain in January 2019
Objective 5: Establish operational synergies between R&I investments (public and private) and the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF)
• Review of MIREU Regions’ regional and national R&D investments & ESIF funds related to mining and metallurgy
Objective 6: Awareness raising of the citizens on the importance of mining and metallurgy
• Side events and clustering, where MIREU was represented by the project partners
• A new section was introduced to the website to support the clustering between the raw materials projects
• MIREU poster, and overall ppt available for the use of the project partners by WP8
• Region factsheets and profiles were produced and published for MIREU regions, more are published during the project
• MIREU Knowledge Portal was launched. It will be freely accessible on the internet and provide methodologies, information and data that can be included in the EIP on Raw Materials Scoreboard and can also contribute to the Raw Materials Information System (RMIS), with special regard to the regional dimension.

Final results

WP4: Data collection and provides a wider view of the social acceptance for mining and metallurgy in the EU and allows to define a common approach for a common problem throughout the MIREU regions. It is an advance to the final result of the WP that will conduct to a useful set of guides and tools that will facilitate the relationships of the mining companies with the stakeholders affected or concerned by mining projects.
WP5: The work done represent an advance since is a collection of compared characteristics of RIS3 aspects and mining-related economic, social, political and technological aspects. This collection of data will be very useful for policymakers in charge of updating RIS3 and will serve to consider in a wider perspective mining and metallurgical issues, allowing then a more fluid funding for the corresponding projects.

Website & more info

More info: https://mireu.eu/.