IISc Bangalore And C-MET Hyderabad Named Centres Of Excellence Under National Critical Mineral Mission

The Ministry of Mines has expanded its network of Centres of Excellence (CoE) under the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) by recognising two additional institutes — the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Hyderabad.

This brings the total number of recognized CoEs to nine.

The decision was approved by the Project Approval and Advisory Committee (PAAC) at its meeting on Friday (24 October), co-chaired by Piyush Goyal, Secretary of the Ministry of Mines, and Professor Abhay Karandikar, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology.

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 Ministry of Mines said in a statement.

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.

Under the CoE framework, each centre functions through a consortium following the Hub and Spoke model, leveraging R&D in critical minerals and pooling the core competence of each constituent under one umbrella.

Every CoE is required to collaborate with at least two industry partners and two academic or research and development entities, enabling a multidisciplinary approach to innovation in critical minerals.

According to the ministry, the nine recognised CoEs have together brought in around 90 industry and academic/R&D spokes.

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