Government recognises 7 Centres of Excellence to work under National Critical Mineral Mission
The Ministry of Mines on Friday said it has recognised seven institutes – 4 IITs and 3 R&D Labs – as Centres of Excellence (CoE) under the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM).
The recognition of CoEs in an important step for fulfilling a key objective of the NCMM, which is research and technology development in critical minerals.
Critical raw materials form the crucial supply chain for emerging sectors of clean energy and mobility transition, in addition to advanced technology and strategic sectors like electronics, defence, space, etc.
In order to develop, demonstrate and deploy technologies in an end-to-end systems approach, it is essential to conduct R&D so as to reach higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), of TRL 7/8 pilot plant and pre-commercial demonstration.
The CoEs will undertake innovative and transformational research to strengthen and advance the nation’s science and technology capability in the area of critical minerals. The CoEs will be funded on a project basis by various government R&D schemes, industry and venture investors, said the ministry.
The institutes/labs are IIT Bombay; IIT Hyderabad; IIT-ISM Dhanbad; IIT Roorkee; CSIR–IMMT, Bhubaneswar; CSIR–NML, Jamshedpur; and NFTDC, Hyderabad.
Each CoE will operate as a consortium, on a Hub & Spoke model, to leverage R&D in critical minerals and pooling the core competence of each constituent under one umbrella.
The CoE (Hub Institute) was mandated as per the CoE guidelines to bring in at least two industry partners and at least two R&D/ academic partners in the consortium.
The seven recognized CoEs have together brought in around 80 industry and academic/ R&D spokes.
“As part of the process to recognise CoEs, the Ministry had earlier called for proposals from eligible institutes, and had undertaken an elaborate two-tier evaluation and approval process,” said the ministry.
