Mintell4EU – Mineral Intelligence for Europe – a GeoERA project to improve and sustain the European raw materials knowledge base.

There is a need for comprehensive, up-to-date, reliable and harmonised cross-border information on raw materials to improve resource efficiency across Europe. The Mintell4EU project builds on the achievements of previous projects such as Minerals4EU, ProSUM and Minventory to deliver data on the spatial distribution, production, trade, resource potential and levels of exploration activity to support decision making in government and industry.

The project has four principle components. The first component involves updating production, trade and exploration statistical data within the electronic European minerals yearbook. The second component includes extending the spatial coverage and improvement of spatial data quality within the Minerals4EU database. The third component will demonstrate how the application of the United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC) will provide a tool that can be used to more accurately assess European mineral inventories. The final component involves consolidating the electronic European minerals yearbook into the Minerals4EU database used for external systems such as the European Geological Data Infrastructure (EGDI) and the Joint Research Center’s Raw Materials Information System (RMIS). Another important goal of the project is to create a sustainable platform for raw materials.

The project works in collaboration with other GeoERA projects within the theme of raw materials such as FRAME and the GeoERA Information Platform Project (GIP-P). This collaboration is critical in ensuring data harmonisation across projects, regions and focus areas. Improvements in the quality and availability of data that are available through the web portal on the project home page https://geoera.eu/projects/mintell4eu7/ have already been achieved. Work will continue on improving the availability and relevance of raw material data throughout the remainder of the project. This will lead to improved foresight of the raw material supply situation and potential of Europe within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731166