Montanuniversitaet Leoben (Austria), Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg (Germany), University of Petrosani (Romania), University of Leon (Spain), Technical University of Crete (Greece), Silesian University of Technology (Poland) and Mittweida University of Applied Sciences (Germany) have joined forces to create a strong and unique European University in the field of Responsible Consumption and Production (RCP): EURECA-PRO. As one of the successful European University Alliances of the second call of the Erasmus+ call for proposals, EURECA-PRO intends to now expand its project in the field of research and innovation. The overall objective of this RE-EURECA-PRO proposal is to enhance the research and innovation dimension and thus transformative potential of the EURECA-PRO Alliance, in line with its shared, integrated, long-term 2040 vision and mission as well as in synergy with its extensive education dimension as set out in the EURECA-PRO Erasmus proposal submitted in February 2020.

Rare Earths (RE) are crucial materials for Europe's successful green and digital transition, thus classified as highly critical. The market for RE magnets itself is relatively small - about €6.5 billion - however its downstream leverage is enormous: the mobility business in the EU27 alone is expected to grow to about €500 billion by 2030, with 6 million jobs. While being a world leader in the manufacturing of e.g. electric motors, the EU27 is fully import-dependent along the entire value chain of RE magnet materials. Despite a growing market, European magnet production capacity is underutilised and tends to serve specialised niche applications. In addition, RE magnets are increasingly imported as part of motors and generator assemblies and products. The main reasons for these developments are that China has a monopoly in the RE supply chain across all stages from mining to refining. To overcome this issue, REEsilience will categorise RE for geographic locations, quantities, chemical composition, ethical and sustainable indicators, ramp-up scenarios, and pricing, considering all value streams from virgin to secondary material. It will build a production system that ensures a resilient and sustainable supply chain for RE as critical raw materials for the e-mobility, renewable energy and further strategic sectors in Europe with less dependencies on non-European economies. A newly-developed software tool will determine optimum mixing ratios to ensure consistently high product quality with maximum secondary materials for high-tech applications. Combined with new and improved technologies for alloy production and powder preparation, especially of secondary materials, the yield and stability of processes will be further enhanced, allowing further augmentation of the proportion of secondary materials in RE PM production, reducing at the same time waste, environmental damage, and consumption of energy linked with virgin production.

Modern economy is highly dependent on specific raw materials, and it is envisaged that this dependency will increase in the near future. Most of them are scarce in EU and of poor purity, being mixed within complex and low grade aggregates which need to be processed by means of a separation process consuming high quantities of energy and water, and even in some cases this makes its exploitation unfeasible due to production costs. Being EU dependent on some of these materials, as identified by EIP initiative, our society is demanding more efficient extracting processes to contribute to major European independency on these Critical Raw Materials. Tungsten and Tantalum ores are two recognized CRMs: In a market currently dominated by China and Russia production (among others), in Europe Tungsten (limited) production is mostly concentrate into UK, Spain and Portugal . On the other side, Tantalum is a key element on electronics with clear EU external production dependency, as it is naturally really scarce in Europe (only 1% of world production is concentrated in EU). Knowing this situation, OptimOre Project proposes the research and development of modelling and control technologies, using advanced sensing and advanced industrial control by means of artificial intelligence techniques, for the more efficient and flexible Tantalum and Tungsten ores processing from crushing to separation process, with the participation of relevant international players in the mining field on research (Chalmers University- Dr. Magnus Evertsson, Exeter University with Dr. Richard Pascoe, Freiburg University with Dr. Holberg Lieberwirth, among others). The project proposes a 3 years collaboration among 8 partners of 4 different countries.

Heritage as a source of identity, sharing, cohesion and history safeguards European values and cultivates broad European mentality of inclusiveness. This project aims to investigate the potential of heritage-based innovation for sustainable economic and social development in rural and urban communities in Poland, Greece and Romania and to identify best practices for fostering heritage-based innovation across the region and beyond (in pan-European and international collaborations). An Alliance of universities of widening (Poland, Greece and Romania) and non-widening countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Spain) will develop specific measurable methods, tools and procedures for material sustainability in heritage. The main goal of the HI-EURECA-PRO project is to reach research excellence based on the heritage of regions in HEIs of three widening countries through targeted innovations supported by EURECA-PRO Alliance partners. To implement the above general goal, industrial, cultural, and mining heritage demos are planned to become Demos pilots in the actions of the project. Therefore, in accordance with the priorities and objectives of the call, the development of innovative methods, tools and processes for material sustainability in heritage will: • Create a robust regional innovation ecosystem including all parameters of the innovation quintuple helix: environmental, social, economic, political and academic • Introduce new and upskilled knowledge, which will be available to all interested parties. • Contribute to new research careers in HE with hands-on experience in involving the industry, the society and the government • open new roads for collaboration between the HEI and the market sector in the testing and application of sustainable materials, tools and methods • Will support the knowledge creation and transfer in the green and digital transition by upskilling the educational tools and methods in the green transition era