Whitepaper highlights case to step up mining R&D

A newly-released whitepaper highlights a funding mismatch between Australia's mining industry R&D and the sector's earnings. The paper - A review of the minerals industry R&D landscape in Australia was commissioned by the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction (CRC ORE). Author Andrew Jenkin, a resources technology and innovation consultant, said that his research presented some uncomfortable truths regarding investment in mining innovation. The paper examines 65 R&D programs, with total annual cash funding of $229 million (70 per cent from industry and 30 per cent from government). “Total funding appears disproportionately low, when compared to the combined Research and Development expenditure of Australian universities and CSIRO of over $12 billion. This from an industry that generates export revenues of over $200 billion,” Mr Jenkin said. “Disappointingly, the overall research and development landscape is currently characterised by a majority of small-scale programs and low levels of industry coordination. Study author Andrew Jenkin. “There is also little focus on step-change innovation, and total funding lower than should be expected for such a large critical industry.” Mr Jenkin said he had also discovered that some specialised research and development areas, such as preconcentration, were not consistently supported. “I was surprised at the low levels of total funding in key areas such as mine planning and design; bulk materials handling and logistics; tailings and waste management; and social and community. These are all issues that warrant a greater research focus and investment.” The analysis also discovered areas of stronger investment in research and development including mineral processing, CSIRO Minerals and the CRC program. While the R&D programs studied vary significantly in size (from $0.5m up to $17m per annum), the analysis showed most were quite small (70 per cent of programs have annual funding of less than $3m). The large number of small programs, the variety of funding sources, the large range of research providers, and the presence of multiplefunding/brokering intermediaries, all provided evidence of low levels of industry coordination, the paper stated. The majority of the R&D programs were based in Western Australia andQueensland. CRC ORE general manager of research and innovation Paul Revell said the paper showed there was great deal of opportunity and need for investment in sector-wide research and development. “When you think of innovations delivered by current mining-focused Cooperative Research Centres like CRC ORE and MinEx CRC, there is a lot more that could be achieved with further targeted investment,” Mr Revell said. “While it is great to see the diversity of organisations working in the minerals industry research and development space, it would be even better for industry and research to work more closely in a more coordinated manner.” Mr Jenkin hopes the landscape analysis will assist organisations to better target research and development efforts. “Key stakeholders in the Australian minerals industry, particularly governments, along with mining and METS companies, should be able to reflect on this analysis. It will hopefully stimulate discussions on the systemic weaknesses identified and provide an impetus to address them.”

Whitepaper highlights case to step up mining R&D

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