Global demand for minerals is growing rapidly, driven by rapid population growth, urbanisation and an increasingly diverse range of technical applications. Global material supply chains linking the extraction, transport and processing stages of raw materials have become increasingly complex and today involve multiple players and product components. An interactive platform that provides transparency about existing approaches and information gaps concerning global material flows is needed to understand these global supply chains; developing this capability is critical for maintaining competitiveness in the European economy.

Against this backdrop, the MinFuture project aims to identify, integrate, and develop expertise for global material flow analysis and scenario modelling. This shall be achieved, inter alia, via the delivery of a 'common methodology' which integrates mineral data, information and knowledge across national boundaries and between governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as through developing recommendations for a roadmap to implement the 'common methodology' at international level.

Ecologic Institute is leading Work Package 6 "Stakeholder dialogue, communication and impact-oriented dissemination", which aims to ensure that relevant stakeholders are continuously involved in project activities in order to co-define problems, identify all relevant data (gaps) on material flows and optimise the salience of the project findings for key target groups. As part of its project activities, Ecologic Institute will create a web-portal to provide a central access point for material flow information, including links to existing data sources, models, tools and analysis.