Brussels, 17^th November 2015:

The ETP SMR, marking the 10^th Anniversary since its establishment in 2005, is glad to announce the election of its new Executive Committee for the period 2015-2017.

Corina Hebestreit was re-elected as President of the Platform and will continue her efforts in leading the ETP SMR forward and build on the success of the last ten years. As Director of Euromines, Dr Hebestreit has been actively involved in the ETP SMR from its very beginnings.

Asmo Vartiainen, also re-elected, will now take up the position of Vice-President following his significant contributions to the ETP SMR activities during his previous term in the Executive Committee. Dr Vartiainen Asmo has held the position of Director of Technology Portfolio at Outotec since 2010 and is a member of several raw materials related government actions in Finland, as well as being Chair of the Steering Group of Baltic Sea CLC for the EIT KIC on Raw Materials.

The Executive Committee elections also saw the re-election of Sabine Mayer as Treasurer (Bergforsk) and Luca Demicheli (EuroGeoSurveys), as well as the addition of Mukund Bhagwat (Eurometaux/Aurubis) and Thomas Drnek (RHI AG).

The ETP SMR community expresses its thanks to the outgoing members of the Executive Committee 2013-2015: Christian Hagelüken (Eurometaux/Umicore), Gustavo Diaz Nogueira (Técnicas Reunidas) and Manfred Hoscher (Montanuniversität Leoben).

The 7^th General Meeting of the ETP SMR – which brought together some of the leading industry representatives, technology providers, academics and geologists in the field of mineral resources – also discussed the possibility to link the their own activities to those of the rapidly developing EIT Raw Materials Knowledge and Innovation Community, especially in relation to the VERAM Project. The Vision and Roadmap for European Raw Materials (VERAM) Project will be coordinated by the ETP SMR and will respond to the growing need for a more coordinated approach to identifying the most pressing raw materials research and innovation needs within the EU over the medium and long term (to 2050). The project will start at the beginning of next year and will run for 30 months.

Download the Press release ExCom Elections Nov 2015