Conference

Building a New World. Made in Europe.
International Conference • 26. – 28. September 2018 • Vienna

Automated cars, SMART technology, Internet of Things – the technological revolution will bring about a whole new range of products and innovative services in the coming decades. These developments will also have a significant impact on the added value of the extractive industry and its downstream branches. That is why the European raw materials initiative, EUMICON, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism of the Republic of Austria, is organizing an international raw materials conference in Vienna in autumn 2018, within the scope of the Austrian EU Council Presidency.

The political conditions will also act as a significant driver – or indeed a brakeman. Access to raw materials, circular economy, or robust and fair trade with other regions of the world – all of these factors will also shape the future of the European extractive industry and its value added. We would like to help shape this future a little.

Against the backdrop of rapid and „disruptive” technological change, transforming value-creation chains and challenges in securing know-how, European and cross-industry solidarity is needed.

In preparation for the EUMICON Conference in the framework of the EU Council Presidency, a stakeholder initiative will therefore be started that attempts to define concrete answers and innovative solutions to strengthen resource-based value-creation chains „Made in Europe”:

• Which technologies and processes will shape our future?
• How do we secure the know-how for these future technologies?
• What role will mineral resources and intelligent materials play?
• What political, economic and scientific conditions do we need to create?

As part of four high-level workshops in Brussels, Stuttgart, Sofia and Vienna, relevant stakeholders from politics, science, the industry and civil society are invited to discuss innovative solutions using the design thinking method.