The 26th World Mining Congress (WMC) has the compelling theme of ‘Resourcing Tomorrow: Creating Value for Society’.
It will bring together national and international delegates from research, government, and industry from 26 to 29 June in Brisbane, Australia.
We are proud to be able to bring this important conference to Australia and to be the host for WMC in 2023.
Future science and innovation for resources
CSIRO Chief Scientist, Professor Bronwyn Fox shares her perspective on developing disruptive future science and technology.
Inspiring us to be future-facing we must consider how leaps in science and innovation will provide technologies of the future, not just to our resources industry, but for the benefit of society as whole.
Showcasing Australia’s resources industry
WMC presents an opportunity to showcase Australia to the world as a mineral resources powerhouse.
Our natural resources endowment, our companies, innovation culture and talent, are responsibly delivering the products the world needs as it pursues transformative action for global development, while shifting our energy system to support climate action, united by a sense of purpose that challenges us all to think differently.
While we celebrate our rich history and successes, we also look to the future and the importance and urgency for mineral resources and their manufactured products to drive global change.
Everything from steel and batteries to transmission lines, wind turbines and solar panels will drive unprecedented demand for minerals.
And it is important to also consider the different constraints the industry must balance on delivering to this demand. Including the discovery pipeline, decarbonisation, supply chain risk, ESG performance, creating social value and competition for talent.
Mission focused
At CSIRO, our mission-based approach to addressing complex and intersecting national challenges is at our core.
We bring multi-disciplinary scientists and engineers together to work with industry and government, to translate our applied science and technology to the market and provide real world solutions.
Research and development have an important role to play in tackling these challenges.
We are shining a spotlight on some of our world class (and arguably world leading) talent in CSIRO Mineral Resources and the impact we deliver to industry.
We know we cannot meet these challenges unless we access the very best people available to us and enable them to do their best work.
Diversity and innovation
Across all genders and cultures, diverse teams are higher performing teams.
Our industry has faced challenges in this regard and is looking to change, particularly in attracting more women into the industry.
We know at CSIRO that we achieve nothing without ALL of our people, and with our women in mineral resources feature, we celebrate some of their stories and contributions, which inspire us to continue to focus on attracting greater diversity to our teams, so that we continue to deliver impact.
Technologies to unlock resources
Building the discovery pipeline is a hot topic and has been an ongoing priority for our research teams for many years.
Our researchers working continually to develop new understanding and technologies to de-risk exploration through covered areas and in deeper basins.
In our articles on sediment flows and our introduction to the ‘InLab’ research centre and the CoFI platform, we outline how we are using digital simulation and modelling methods to become more confidently predictive by using tools that treat uncertainty as something that can be quantified.
Creating tools that will give explorers confidence to go to new areas, perhaps hitherto seen as too difficult or too uncertain.
Our articles on the Digital Mine as well as Sensing and Sorting highlights how our research supports the industry to be more productive, to improve our ability to mine only what we need to mine, reducing our footprint while increasing ‘value’ using new digital and sensing technologies.
Navigating a path to sustainability
We recognise today, that ‘value’ is far more than just financial returns.
This is of utmost importance to the future success and social acceptance of how our minerals industry operates and encourages us to look to the future and the standards we want to achieve.
Our Chief Scientist Bronwyn Fox implemented CSIRO’s investment in developing future science platforms (FSP) and we showcase in our feature on Navigating Sustainability Transitions, our Valuing Sustainability FSP, who are developing new paradigms in how we think of and measure value, and how we can value sustainability.
Hope to see you in person
Many of our science stories and our team from across CSIRO will be at WMC.
If you’re attending, be sure to visit our CSIRO booth at the Exhibition Hall!
For those attending, I wish you a safe, enjoyable and thoroughly inspiring event.
If you can’t make it to the 2023 World Mining Congress, I hope Resourceful gives you a window into some of what will be on show.
Dr Rob Hough is presenting a keynote on 'Sustainable Australian Mineral Resources – A grand challenge' at WMC on Tuesday 27 June 15.30-16.00pm (Geosciences and Discovery - Global Mega Trends session)