Search Results (12)

The increase in industrial waste generation presents a global problem that is a consequence of the needs of modern society. To achieve the goals of the EU Green Deal and to promote the concept of circular economy (CE), the valorization of industrial residues as secondary raw materials offers a pathway to economic, environmental, energetic, and social sustainability. In this respect, Al-containing industrial residues from alumina processing (red mud), thermal power plants (fly ash and bottom ash), and metallurgy (slag), as well as other industries, present a valuable mineral resource which can be considered as secondary raw materials (SRMs) with the potential to be used in construction, supporting the concept of circular economy. This paper focuses on the characterization of 19 secondary raw materials from the East South-East Europe (ESEE) region regarding their physical, chemical, mineralogical, and radiological characteristics. The goal is to provide a foundation for future innovations based on secondary raw materials, in alignment with the EU Green Deal and the principles of circular economy. The results showed that fly ash has the potential to be the best material among those analyzed to be used in the cement industry, mainly due to its favorable radiological and mineralogical properties. However, it is important to control the amount of free lime in the mixture, ensuring it remains below 10%. After evaluating secondary mineral raw materials for metal recovery, the results indicate that these materials are not viable sources for base metals or other technology-critical metals, such as REEs. Full article

The main objective of this manuscript is to collect, classify, and compile all available data about secondary mineral sources of REEs in the South-Eastern Europe (SEE). The material is generated from the extracting and processing sector, that might be possibly transformed in the business process becoming an important raw material for another industry. The management inventory guide will strengthen communication and dissemination efforts and simultaneously contribute to Europe’s self-sufficiency and support transitioning to green and digital technology. Identification of the knowledge gaps associated with secondary sources of REEs in SEE will contribute to connections between all partners being involved at the beginning, during the lifetime of products and at the end of the life cycle, represented with deposit owners, technology developers and potential processors, producers, and potential users. At the investigated area it was found 1835 individual landfills, most of them belonging to waste rocks. The total quantity of all material in SRM is about 3.2 billion tons on an area of about 100 km². The largest 95 individual landfills were selected as potential prospective landfills, containing about 1600 million tons of material. The estimated total potential of REEs (ΣREE) is more than 200 Kt. The largest quantities are found in landfills for coal fly ash and Cu flotation, which correspond to more than 80% of the ΣREE. Most of the promising sites are located in Serbia and North Macedonia. It has been calculated that the valorisation potential and perspectivity of REE₂O₃ is about 32.5 billion USD (prices from December 2022). According to the average concentrations of REEs, the most prospective are the red mud dams but their total volume is limited compared to massive amounts of coal fly ash landfills. The REEs content in all type of investigated materials, especially in coal fly ash in North Macedonia is twice as high as in other countries. Full article

The successful commercialization of the results of research works, R&D projects and inventions, as well as the cooperation between research centres, industry and business, is becoming commonplace and crucial in regional development. Regardless of the scientific level of the research results, the utility of these results and the adopted business model for their implementation are the key factors determining the market success. Currently, the recognized skills and competencies of academic staff at Eastern and Southeastern European universities in the field of the implementation and commercialization of scientific research results do not seem sufficient. This article presents the methodology, development and results of the tailor-made Science to Business transfer program implemented within the TrainESEEv.2 ‘Training the trainers in East and Southeast Europe’ project, with a focus on the Raw Materials sector needs. Full article

The creative economy sector is tightly associated with sustainable development and Sustainable Economic Goals (SDGs). The creative industries contribute to sustainability in a variety of ways. They are essential in accelerating sustainable consumption and production patterns and promoting regional sustainable development. This paper attempts to stress the role of the creative economy in promoting sustainable regional growth by focusing on smart specialization priority areas in the region of Attica. The latter has been accomplished by presenting the current regional policy model and the entrepreneurial discovery process (EDP) methodology in the region of Attica. This paper concludes that the EDP paves the way for the formulation of policy lessons enhancing the link between the creative economy and sustainable regional growth. In a nutshell, three major conclusions derived from the present paper include the following aspects: (i) the formulation of an integrated smart specialisation strategy requires an ongoing and well-structured process along the policy cycle (structured life-cycle approach); (ii) the deployment of a robust innovation ecosystem requires a comprehensive approach of engaging and mobilising regional actors and identifying their needs and priorities; (iii) the lessons observed through the exploration of the case study lead to concrete findings regarding the critical importance of long-term interactive institutional learning and policy co-design as a precondition for an effective regional ecosystem. Full article

Affective state estimation is a research field that has gained increased attention from the research community in the last decade. Two of the main catalysts for this are the advancement in the data analysis using artificial intelligence and the availability of high-quality video. Unfortunately, benchmarks and public datasets are limited, thus making the development of new methodologies and the implementation of comparative studies essential. The current work presents the eSEE-d database, which is a resource to be used for emotional State Estimation based on Eye-tracking data. Eye movements of 48 participants were recorded as they watched 10 emotion-evoking videos, each of them followed by a neutral video. Participants rated four emotions (tenderness, anger, disgust, sadness) on a scale from 0 to 10, which was later translated in terms of emotional arousal and valence levels. Furthermore, each participant filled three self-assessment questionnaires. An extensive analysis of the participants’ answers to the questionnaires’ self-assessment scores as well as their ratings during the experiments is presented. Moreover, eye and gaze features were extracted from the low-level eye-recorded metrics, and their correlations with the participants’ ratings are investigated. Finally, we take on the challenge to classify arousal and valence levels based solely on eye and gaze features, leading to promising results. In particular, the Deep Multilayer Perceptron (DMLP) network we developed achieved an accuracy of 92% in distinguishing positive valence from non-positive and 81% in distinguishing low arousal from medium arousal. The dataset is made publicly available. Full article

The raw materials (RM) sector is linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and it impacts their implementation, in a positive or adverse manner, throughout the whole RM value chain (e.g., mining, processing, metallurgy, recycling, etc.). This study aims to identify and rank the SDGs that are classified as more significant for this sector, according to the views of key stakeholders, university students, academics, professionals, and industry representatives, in three East and South-East Europe (ESEE) countries: Greece, Poland, and Slovakia. Moreover, the expected challenges of the RM sector in the next ten years are presented and are based on the opinions of the industry representatives of the abovementioned countries. Within this framework, 423 participants provided their views in a survey with structured questionnaires. The results were analysed on the basis of the stakeholder groups and the countries that were examined. SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), were highly ranked by the stakeholders, which indicates a strong link between these SDGs and the RM sector. Digital transformation, recycling and material chain optimization for end-of-life products, and increased resource efficiency in mineral and metallurgical processes, were reported as the most important challenges that are expected to be faced by the RM industry in the next decade. Full article

The level of innovativeness within the higher education systems of east and southeast Europe and their graduates is still assessed as modest or moderate. Besides the general socio–economic context and the inherited institutional management types, this deficiency stems from a lack of generic skills crucial for increasing the innovation capacity of the universities. TrainESEE v.2 project suggests that significant changes should be already put in place within the applied teaching methodology, but also highlights the importance of developing project development and management skills, innovation, entrepreneurial skills, and finally competences needed to strengthen science to business cooperation. Full article

In a world depicted by rapid growth and consumerism, where pressing societal issues such as, the critical climate crises, resources exploitation in developing countries and much more, it is essential to educate all citizens about raw materials, their uses and about responsible production and consumption. Developing life-long learning wider society programmes is an essential tool to educate the population starting with the youngest members of society (pre-school) to adulthood (life-long learning) with a special focus on the life-world orientation from a learners’ perspective. The wider society learning flagship project, ‘Raw Matters Ambassadors at Schools’ (RM@Schools), is an innovative programme funded by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) which promotes science education and careers in the raw materials sector. Since the project’s commencement in 2016, it has gained stronger European representation with a current total of 32 partners from 18 countries. This includes the consortium members from a parallel funded programme, RM@SchoolsESEE. This project aims at extending best practices and diversifying the current portfolio to East and Southeast European countries. What makes this project so innovative is in the programme and individual learning pathways. Considering a multidisciplinary and cultural perspective, a framework was developed to assist in forming raw materials ambassadors through engaging programmes for school pupils from aged 10 up to 19 years old and through the development of educational hands-on toolkits that range from experiments to game-based tools and much more. In particular, and as a way to increase impact, the project aims to mentor teenagers from all educational disciplines between the ages of 14–19 years old to become ‘Young RM Ambassadors’. This approach utilises state-of-the-art teaching and learning methods resulting in peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and dissemination. Built into the programme is a continuous feedback loop that involves stakeholders from all sides of the knowledge triangle: educators, pupils, professionals and researchers. Full article

A lack of lifelong learning courses on raw materials in Eastern and Southeastern Europe (ESEE) results in lower levels of innovativeness for this region’s professionals. The consortium of Dubrovnik International ESEE Mining school—DIM ESEE project (2016–2020) conducted several questionnaire campaigns in order to establish the main needs, challenges, and current status of innovation utilization among raw materials professionals in the ESEE region. Based on these results, the DIM consortium developed four annual 3-day workshops within the new project, DIM ESEE-2: Implementing innovations, which would secure relevant content delivered by expert lecturers for an affordable price. Full article

This article presents a methodology applied to the design of a tailor-made program for teaching staff that addresses the needs of high-level educational institutions in the Eastern and South-Eastern European (ESEE) region. The tailor-made program was implemented as a one-week online course for 22 “Trainees” from six ESEE universities earlier in 2021. “Trainees” from six participating universities are currently developing acceleration programs, planned to occur continuously until 2024, increasing the percentage of the trained academic staff to >50% at each of the six universities. During that period, 240 students will benefit from 140 improved RawMaterials-related courses, improving their learning and understanding. Full article

The mineral raw materials’ resource efficiency is currently recognized in Europe as the way for the future development of the European mining economies. With this aim, a West Balkan Mineral Register was created in the EIT Raw Materials RESEERVE Project, including Primary and Secondary Raw Materials of six Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (ESEE) countries, i.e., Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Within the Project, a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) and Gap Analysis was also performed for the development of the raw material sector in the region. This paper summarizes the main strengths to be exploited, i.e., the significant geological potential, the presence of critical raw materials (e.g., Sb, Co, REEs) in primary and secondary raw materials, and the challenges to address, i.e., compliance of resources/reserves classification with international standards, integration of state’s mineral policy with spatial planning strategies, improvement of the business environment, capacity building of the raw materials workforce and enhancement of the public acceptance of the sector, in order to achieve the sustainable development of the mineral resources of the six ESEE countries. These opportunities comply with the objectives of the EU Raw Materials Initiative and are expected to contribute in the further enhancement of those economies in transition for the upcoming years. Full article

The Raw Materials (RM) sector is linked to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), impacting their implementation throughout the whole RM value chain (e.g., mining, processing, metallurgy, recycling, etc.). This study aims to identify and rank the most significant SDGs for this sector, from the perspective of key stakeholders, academics, university students, professionals, and industry representatives, in three East and South-East Europe (ESEE) countries: Poland, Greece, and Slovakia. Within this framework, 423 stakeholders from the above groups provided their views in a survey with structured questionnaires. The results were analysed, based on the stakeholders’ groups and the role of the sector in the countries examined. Overall, the SDGs 9-Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure-, 8-Decent Work and Economic Growth-, and 7-Affordable and Clean Energy- were highly ranked by the stakeholders, indicating a strong link between these SDGs and the RM sector. Full article