JRC short course on Raw Materials: critical, strategic and advanced

As a response to the ever-growing geopolitical uncertainty, the Commission is taking several flagship measures to boost EU competitiveness through a more secure and sustainable management of critical and strategic raw materials, by also enhancing the use of advanced materials.
Latest policy documents include the 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act and Communication on Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership; the 2025 Clean Industrial Deal and Steel and Metal Actions Plan; the recently announced 2026 Circular Economy Act.
​The successful implementation of the actions included (or foreseen) in these documents requires fulfilling knowledge needs related to a wide range of aspects: supply, demand, foresights, circularity, and environmental footprint of raw materials – among others.

Against this background, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is at the forefront   to provide EU policymakers with scientifically sound analyses, data and metrics. This also includes disseminating and scaling up successful research outcomes and reference data through the Raw Materials Information System (RMIS), the EC’s reference knowledge platform on metals and minerals – developed and maintained by the JRC. Ultimately, the goal is to bring the science-to-policy dialogue forward and support the EU achieve its competitiveness, innovation and sustainability goals.

Towards this end, this session will give an overview of RMIS goals/scope, its structure and content. Specific supply chains will be looked at, such as in relation to critical, strategic and advanced materials used in e.g. mobility.

Program

Raw Materials Information System (RMIS): overview, functions and content
Simone Manfredi, JRC

Deep-dive and live-demo of specific RMIS sections
Simone Manfredi, or CA (TBD)

Material-specific dimension (raw materials profiles, trade-related analyses at material level, advanced materials, etc)

Country-specific dimension (country profiles, trade-related analyses at country level, etc)

Towards more circular, resilient and sustainable (CRMs) value chains –  focus on mobility sector
Fabrice Mathieux, JRC
Umberto Eynard, JRC
Luca Ciacci, University of Bologna

JRC will give an overview of its recent and current activities to support Clean Industrial Deal policies with a specific focus on mobility systems and technologies (e.g. batteries, electric motors, light means of transport). It will discuss the trends, the recent achievements as well as the remaining challenges.

Contribution on steel used in vehicles
Luca Ciacci, University of Bologna