SIP STRIM Newsletter December 2018 – have your say about our agenda, we are looking for a new colleague and take your chance to win 600,000 SEK!

An exciting and inspiring year for innovation within the mining and metal-producing industry

2018 marks the fifth year for SIP STRIM as a program. As we look back and summarize the past year, a lot of focus has been on updating the strategic agenda. The new strategic agenda (roadmap) will be the third edition. Intensive work has been carried out during the autumn within the different thematic areas of the roadmap, and two open workshops were held in September to summarize the driving forces and challenges for the industry’s future competitiveness. In this newsletter you get a progress report of the update, and we also invite all interested parties to participate, so take the chance to influence this work in progress!

In February, 16 new projects were granted: 14 preliminary studies and 2 full-scale projects. This means that in total, SIP STRIM has funded over 100 projects and involved over 100 partners in projects. The innovation competition, which has now become a yearly feature for SIP STRIM, was held in February, and the winner was MBV Systems with an idea for real-time measurement of granular material fragmentation. In this newsletter you can read more about the upcoming competition for 2019. If you have an innovative idea for the mining or metal industry, please do not hesitate to submit it to the competition. We welcome all interested to join the audience at the pitch event, it’s a great opportunity to meet creative entrepreneurs and to mingle with people from the industry.

This year, a new strategic project started, aiming to to examine the possibility of a metal traceability system. The project complements SIP STRIM’s portfolio of strategic sustainability projects in a good way, and the interest in the project has been significant. Additionally, as part of another strategic project funded by SIP STRIM, a first step in the industry’s fossil-free roadmap was announced in May and the document will be completed in the beginning of next year.

SIP STRIM participated in the Almedalen Week in July. Together with SGU, we organized a seminar on the mining industry’s contribution for a sustainable future. We have continued to be active internationally and in June we attended the World Mining Congress in Kazakhstan in the innovation session organized by Business Sweden. In October, the board of SIP STRIM made an interesting and highly appreciated trip to Australia, for meetings with mining companies and relevant actors from the Australian innovation cluster. The board also participated in the Australian Swedish Mining Initiative in Perth.

We can also announce that we are looking for a new colleague to join our team, so please spread the word to people in your network that might be interested.

Finally, from all of us at the program office, we wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Take the chance to have your say about the SIP STRIM's strategic innovation agenda (roadmap)

The Strategic Innovation Agenda (STRIM Agenda), which is the foundation for the Strategic Innovation Program SIP STRIM, has been updated this fall. As a final step, interested parties are given a chance to comment on the documents that have been presented.

The nine thematic areas related to primary and secondary commodities remain, and for each area the research and innovation needs are defined. New for this agenda is an introductory chapter describing challenges, driving forces and vision for the industry. All texts are open for discussion. The updated agenda will be approved by the boards of SIP STRIM and Svemin in February and March, and will then be presented on Bergforskdagarna in May.

The draft will be published on SIP STRIM website within the next few days, and the deadline for comments is January 10th.

Pitch and win 600,000 SEK to realize your innovation idea!

The SIP STRIM’s annual innovation competition is on again. If you have an innovative idea that can help strengthen the mining and metal industry do not hesitate to submit your application. Two winners will be selected, one for SIP STRIM and one for EIT RawMaterials, and each winner will receive 600,000 SEK for the realization of their idea.

You can submit your idea until January 21, 2019 and the top twelve ideas will be selected and get the opportunity to pitch their idea in front of our jury and audience on February 13 in Luleå. To the competition

The Pitch event is also a great opportunity to meet creative entrepreneurs and to mingle with people from the industry, and we would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you who would like to participate as part of our audience! Registration for event

The Board´s trip to Australia

In October, SIP STRIM’s Board and parts of the program office made a trip to Australia. During the week-long trip, the delegation attended the Australian Swedish Mining Initiative in Perth, where both SIP STRIM and its industry representatives held presentations.

During the trip we visited two mines – BHPs first fully automated mine, the Jimblebar iron ore mine in the Pilbara region and Oz Mineral’s copper, silver and gold mine Prominent hill, 50 km north-west of the South Australian capital Adelaide. The Jimblebar mine is highly interesting due to the level of automation, currently operating 50 autonomous trucks, and autonomous drill rigs. Prominent Hill is a fly-in fly-out site that employs approximately 900 employees and contractors, and the site comprises a mined out open pit, an underground mine and a processing plant.

The Nyrstar smelter in Port Pirie was also vistited. The mine and smelter visits showed front end technology and workshops with the companies provided insights as well as transfer of knowledge and planted seeds for future opportunities for collaboration.

During the week, there were also workshops with Mets Ignited, which is an innovation program for equipment suppliers as well as a workshop with Oz Mineral’s management team. The group also met with Roy Hill, a company which unlike the other mining operations we visited focused on margins rather than tonnes, and the discussions was related to integration of operations and remote operations control, challenges related to coordinating and integrating planning and operation and interoperability and data management. A workshop was also held with the BHP Olympic Dam. Topics included digitalization and automation , Communications system/backbone, Collision avoidance, Interoperability, Electrification, UG mine productivity gains and technology in general, Implementation of new technology and mobile equipment performance & maintainability.

The mine and smelter visits showed front end technology and workshops with the companies provided insights as well as transfer of knowledge and planted seeds for future opportunities for collaboration.


Prominent Hill from above

We are looking for a colleague

Are you the one we are looking for, or do you know someone who matches the profile? We are looking for an independent and driven project manager (program manager) to be part of the project management team at SIP STRIM. Read more about the position

SIP STRIM finances roadmap for skills supply in the mining and steel industry

The mining and steel industry is facing big challenges in the upcoming years when it comes to shortage of competent workforce and competition for relevant skillsets. Jernkontoret, Svemin and The Swedish Association of Industrial Employers are now joining forces in a strategic project funded by SIP STRIM to develop a roadmap for the provision of skilled workforce in the industry. The project, which started in December 2018, will be completed in the first half of 2019.

The idea is to provide a platform for better decision making and also to be the foundation for actions and initiatives. In addition, it can be used to show politicians and other policymakers what reforms and efforts the mining and steel industry regards as important in research, higher education and school policies. And last but not least, it will be used to shape industry’s response to the next bill for research, innovation and higher education, which is expected to be submitted to the Swedish parliament in 2020.

Photographer: Emilia Bergmark-Jiménez

A few words from our partners

We have interviewed some of our partners about the benefits of SIP STRIM. Listen to Epirocs Mikael Ramström about the importance of SIP STRIM for the Swedish mining industry.

See film

Current calls

Leverage call

We invite all stakeholders who have or have had projects financed by STRIM to seek planning grants for the exchange of their projects through international initiatives.

More information

Upcoming events

  • Future Mine & Mineral, 28-29 January 2019, Grand Hotel, Stockholm
  • Innovation idea competition – Pitch event, 13 February 2019, Luleå
  • GMG Forum – Future mining forum, 27-28 March 2019, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå
  • Bergforskdagarna, 15-16 May 2019, Kulturens hus, Luleå

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