Government recognises IISc, CMET as Centre of Excellence to boost R&D in critical minerals

The government has recognised Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (CMET), Hyderabad as Centres of Excellence (CoE) under the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM).

Earlier the Ministry of Mines recognised 7 institutes as the Centres of Excellence after the Project Approval and Advisory Committee (PAAC) granted approval under the co-chairmanship of Piyush Goyal, secretary, Ministry of Mines, and Abhay Karandikar, secretary, department of science and technology. After the addition of IISc Bangalore and CMET Hyderabad, there are a total of nine CoEs.

The CoEs will operate as a consortium on a hub and spoke model to support R&D in critical minerals and pooling the core competence of each constituent under one branch.

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Critical raw materials supply chain for clean energy

The centres will also take help from innovative and transformational research to boost and advance the nation’s science and technology capability in the area of 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,” according to the official statement.

“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 press release reads.

The hub will also board at least two industry partners and two R &D or academic partners in the consortium. The nine recognized CoEs have together brought in around 90 industry and academic or R&D spokes.