Vision, methodology, and research workstreams
MINERS is a research project working to make critical mineral supply chains in the UK and globally more resilient and more sustainable. The project covers the full value chain, from extraction and refining through to use and end-of-life. Our research builds an evidence base for integrated supply-chain assessment, maps the regulatory and ESG landscape that surrounds critical minerals, and identifies policy levers that can move the system in a more sustainable direction.
The project brings together partners across academia, industry, and government, with a focus on UK-Canada collaboration.
In MINERS, resilience is more than the ability to bounce back to a previous state after a shock. We define it as the capacity of a supply chain to adapt, absorb, and recover from disruption, and where needed, to transform. The framework draws on complexity theory and the Planetary Boundaries concept, with the goal of mapping a “safe operating space” for critical minerals and identifying the limits beyond which the system becomes hard to predict.
This work is split across three research workstreams, each focused on a different methodological pillar.
Building an evidence base for the integrated assessment of complex critical minerals supply chains to identify resource circularity potential and reduction of economic and environmental damage.
Providing clarity over the complex regulatory, ESG, and reporting landscape covering critical minerals to examine the role of different stakeholders and institutional frameworks.
Defining policy levers to shift away from unsustainable mining and industrial practices, resulting in demonstrable advances in knowledge and partnerships across academia, industry, and government.
