Centre for Future Materials: What are you most excited about?

Researchers involved in the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials talk about some of the most exciting challenges that they will be tackling. Play video
Researchers involved in the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials talk about some of the most exciting challenges that they will be tackling.

Our vision

The Centre and its partners are driven by a common vision and commitment to achieve lasting change for the materials industry.

This vision involves building an industry system that is just and integrated, that creates value for all and respects indigenous and land rights, that is built upon a systemic approach with a reduced demand and that sees full integration, circularity and sustainability along the supply chain.

Achieving our vision

Achieving this requires both adequate, ambitious and coherent policies and regulation and technological and process innovation.

We work together across continents, research fields and timescales:

  • We want to be bold, disruptive and willing to fail, so that we can achieve a real step change in the approach to materials extraction, use and reuse. The world can no longer afford to move forward in incremental change.
  • We remove competition for research funding and ask our partners to co-create, collaborate globally and take a trans-disciplinary approach to each project.
  • We bring every academic discipline to the table and put Indigenous communities and local populations at the centre of the Centre’s research. Working with engineers, material scientists and mining companies is only part of the solution to achieving a sustainable materials industry.
  • We think unconstrained to implement fundamental, innovative and transformative science and engineering. Systems thinking allows us to reflect the increasing complexity and interlinkages of today’s world.

Our objectives

Our research aims to meet the following objectives:

  • The energy transition is the means to an end. We want to help deliver the materials required for a regenerative future, or regenerative futures, and to support circularity, equity and nature positive outcomes.
  • The paradigm has shifted, We go beyond sustainable mining and focus on mining for sustainability. This means supporting the industry ensure circularity, traceability, reduced demand and substitutability
  • We place a central emphasis on supporting the development of resilient and sustainable communities, ensuring equity, just usage of resources, empowerment and resilience.
  • We want to support business models that capture the true value of land and assets.

Our four pillars

The Centre's objectives are underpinned by four strategic pillars:

  1. Making ground-breaking and transformative discoveries supported by the diversity of views, expertise and backgrounds of our experts.
  2. Producing real world impacts by going from concept to implementation leading to tangible results.
  3. Driving global and transdisciplinary thought leadership through an inclusive and holistic approach that links science and technology to policy, economics, regulation, design and society.
  4. Developing the next generation of leaders through skills development, research training, collaboration and networking.