ESEE Dialogue Conferences

Initiated by the EIT RawMaterials Regional Center Leoben at Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria, the ESEE Dialogue Conferences aim to foster an international community in the raw materials sector by converging relevant stakeholders from industry, research and education in East and South East Europe. The ESEE Dialogue Conferences is a major raw materials conference series for East and South East Europe, which has successfully addressed issues in the raw materials sector in eight countries in the last four years. Integration into the EIT RawMaterials community, policy framework, education development, resource efficiency and innovation along the raw materials life cycle are the main topics of the conferences.

Raw materials are vital for future technologies and will continue to play a major role in the development of solutions for present challenges. For example, great challenges such as the shift to renewable energy can only be reached via innovative technologies dependent on the use of materials. Rising demand and need for sustainable supply in Europe are to be balanced. The aim of the EIT RawMaterials is to take action and develop raw materials into a major strength for Europe.
In this context, the region East and South East Europe (ESEE) is of particular interest to the EIT RawMaterials, due to its unique geological potential and unique potential on secondary raw materials, which also makes it highly relevant with regard to the European Raw Materials Strategy. Furthermore, a significant number of business idea holders relevant to the overall objectives of EIT RawMaterials are coming from this region.

Outlook

With many successful conferences and an established network of ESEE partners, we will continue our efforts and use our experience of the last years to enhance the involvement of the ESEE region. Albania is planned as the next ESEE DC location. In the course of the last conferences the organisational team has worked hard to create and organize top networking opportunities for future collaboration within the EIT RawMaterials. For example, more and more interactive activities such as real-time voting, workshops and round tables where included into the agenda to enhance the conference experience. We will pursue these efforts further and are sure that we are on the right track to generate inspiring and successful conferences.

Furthermore, we have widened our target group and now generally plan an education workshop with hands-on experiments for students. To connect young minds to raw material related topics is extremely valuable for the development of the sector. If we do not have interested bright minds, the chances of developing innovation for the raw material sector is low. Therefore, we actively include students and hope to spark interest in them to become engineers of the future, who will drive innovation and the development of the sector.

www.esee-dc.eu

Duration: 1/2017 – 12/2020

Montanuniversität Leoben (RIC Leoben, Lead), Geological Survey of Slovenia, Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, University of Zagreb;