Projects supported by the Australian Critical Minerals Research and Development Hub must:
- Be aligned with Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy 2023-2030 (the Strategy) and contribute to one or more of the priority technologies identified in the Strategy.
- Improve process economics to ensure economically viable processing of critical minerals in Australia and develop technologies that offer more environmentally sensitive processing, and/or contribute to verifying ESG credentials.
- And/or have a component of improving orebody geoscience for discovery and development to create a competitive advantage in discovery, optimisation of mine planning, or resource valuation, or in optimisation of processing technologies.
- Contribute to maintaining and growing skills and facilities in order that the critical minerals industry can continue to rely on in-country R&D.
- The major goal of any R&D project within the Hub will be to create intellectual property for use in Australia. It must therefore be protected worldwide and made available for licencing and commercialisation in Australia as a priority.
The Australian Critical Research and Development Hub research projects are also addressing one or more of the following research priorities.
Priority 1. Value-adding, improving processing economics, and enhancing environmental, social and governance (ESG)
Priority is given to projects that enables Australia to add significant value to its critical minerals endowment at a competitive cost and with world-class ESG credentials. The creation of intellectual property (IP) for commercialisation and use in Australia must be an outcome.
Australia’s critical minerals can only contribute to diverse and resilient supply chains if sufficient value-adding is conducted in Australia.
Priority 2. Orebody geoscience for development and discovery
Priority will be given to research and development that contributes to optimisation of data-driven decision-making processes concerning the mining and processing of critical mineral orebodies in Australia. IP created in the form of tools and workflows must primarily be constructed for use in Australia.
Improved orebody knowledge will create a competitive advantage in optimisation of mine planning, in-ground resource valuation, and in optimisation of processing technology, including supporting Priority 1.
Priority 3. Skills, capability, and capacity
Priority will be given to research and development that has an education and technology transfer component.
There is a global shortage of skills in the critical minerals industries and facilities to assist the industry. The appropriate skills required to maintain and grow the critical minerals sector in Australia are in short supply, from staffing a commercial operation through to performing research and development and running pilot and demonstration plants.
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