Three years after establishing Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) in the fields of climate change, renewable energy and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has now asked two consortia to establish KICs focusing on innovation in the sector healthy living active ageing and in the field of raw materials. In the latter field the EIT selected the consortium RawMatTERS, a pan-European partnership with more than 100 partners from 22 countries of the European Union, representing leading partners from industry, research and academia.
The KIC is expected to turn investment into tangible economic and social impact, including new
businesses and business opportunities, risk taking and entrepreneurial people contributing to sustainable economic growth. This, in turn, will boost the competitiveness of the European raw materials sector and generate new, high quality jobs. The KIC will have its headquarters in Berlin and six transnational co-location centres in Wrocław (Poland), Espoo (Finland), Leuven (Belgium), Lulea (Sweden), Metz (France) and Rome (Italy).
The winning consortium has a broad coverage across the materials chain and is considered the strongest partnership that has ever been assembled in the raw materials sector. It aims at strengthening innovation in the sector by introducing new solutions, products and services for sustainable exploration, extraction, processing, recycling and substitution. The KIC wants to make the sector more attractive to young people by developing Master and PhD programmes in close collaboration with world-class partners from education, research and industry.
GEUS is a core partner of the Northern co-location centre in Luleå and GEUSs main competences along the raw materials value chain lie in exploration, material characterization, remediation, biological processing and environmental monitoring. Furthermore GEUS has strong competences in value and supply chain analysis, issues regarding scarcity, vulnerability and sustainability of raw materials production, and consumption. GEUS has particular expertise in Greenland and the Arctic.
Managing director Johnny Fredericia states: "We are pleased to be part of such an excellent consortium in Europe and look forward to the collaboration with our partners. We trust that this KIC will strengthen education, research and innovation regarding raw materials for the future and help secure the raw material supply for Europe".
For further background see press release from EIT
eit.europa.eu/newsroom/eit-selects-new-strategic-partnerships-milestone-europe-areas-health-and-raw-materials
Short description of EIT Raw Materials, that also includes a list of partners
http://eit.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EIT%20Raw%20Materials%20-%20Factsheet%202014.pdf.
For further information on the role and ambitions of GEUS
Head of department Karen Hanghøj
Phone: +45 20 18 33 66
E-mail: kha@geus.dk
or
Deputy director Flemming Getreuer Christiansen
Phone: +45 20 10 83 90
E-mail: fgc@geus.dk