Keywords like “raw materials”, “critical metals”, or “circular economy” have been shaping the European society for several decades now. The search for primary or secondary resources, to allow at least a certain independence from imports, is nowadays a major aim of many R&D-centers in this field. In this context, the ESEE region (East & South-east Europe) is of utmost importance to the European Union, both from an economic and a political point of view. Due to its unique geological potential, the region still hosts a lot of primary and secondary mineral resources and is therefore of particular importance for the European commodity strategy.

The EIT Raw Materials Regional Innovation Center (RIC) at Montanuniversitaet Leoben is a regional hub within the European network EIT Raw Materials, in which the university is one of 116 partners. The network’s core mission is to tackle the societal challenge of a sustainable raw materials supply within Europe through innovation and the integration of research, education, and industry in the minerals resources sector. In this mission the RIC has specialized in tackling this challenge in the ESEE region, where it facilitates community building of relevant stakeholders.

To cover the above mentioned topics, the RIC together with ASMET organized an international conference in Budapest in 2016. The conference brought together researchers as well as companies from Europe and especially the ESEE region to present their latest research in the field of mineral processing, extractive metallurgy, and recycling covering primary and secondary resources.

Dr. Jürgen Antrekowitsch

Associate Professor, Chair of Nonferrous Metallurgy, Montanuniversitaet Leoben

RIC-ESEE Project Development Metallurgy

Head of Christian Doppler Laboratory for Optimization in Heavy Metal Recycling

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Dr. Jürgen Antrekowitsch