WIDEX · Knowledge Transfer for Widened EU Excellence in Advanced Green Technologies, Sustainability and Research Management

Critical minerals and elements are highly significant for Europe's economy, particularly within strategic sectors. However, the demand for new, often essential materials conflicts with the decreasing activity in primary raw material mining. As a result, there is an impending need to fulfil these demands within European borders, reducing reliance on third countries. This was recently reflected in the European Raw Materials Act as a clear necessity from the EU, being a potential solution the use of green and non-invasive technologies to recover and refine CRMs. Besides this, it is known that the reserves and productions of mineral resources in Slovakia are mainly located in Kosice region (46% Slovak geological reserves), thereby, enhanced networking and positioning activities between TUKE and the top-class leading research institutions are needed in order to close the still apparent research and innovation gap within the EU. Furthermore, TUKE is a distinguished mining university and serves as the primary reference centre within Slovakia, which will be boosted and reinforced in three main strategy lines through several learning tools and materials. These will be focused on: 1) exploration, recovery and mining monitoring exploitation, 2) capacity to drive sustainability, circularity and social assessment 3) Strengthening TUKE’s research management & coordination capacities, and administrative skills. The WIDEX implementation will include the creation of a new cluster in Central Europe, an excellent Virtual Centre, as well as a Stakeholder platform around the green and non-invasive technologies ecosystem, and a WIDEX’s WHITEBOOK based on the lessons learned.