Many technological developments and thus innovation pathways depend on the availability of specific raw materials. This can lead to technological bottlenecks, where further development of a technology may seem unattractive because of uncertainties of raw materials supply. The reliance on specific raw materials may also be problematic in terms of import dependencies in the face of geopolitical instabilities, tensions and civil conflicts or despotic regimes that can be fuelled by resource demand. The extraction of some critical materials – e.g. rare earths – is also associated with severe environmental damages, which points to trade-offs between the `dirty’ extraction of resources for use in `clean’ technologies. Greater efficiency, circularity of use, the exploration of substitution potentials and cleaner mining techniques are innovative strategies for reducing such dependencies and damages.
We oriented our compilation of the data according to the revised list of 20 critical raw materials as defined by the European Commission. Currently, we include data on the apparent consumption of 9 of these 20 materials for several Member States of the European Research Area as provided by the British Geological Survey. Apparent consumption is defined as “Production plus Imports minus Exports”, giving a rough representation of the countries’ dependency on a certain critical material. The materials are traded in different states, e.g. as ores or metals. Due to problems of making these different states comparable according to specific criteria, we have not aggregated these different states to a unified value, also in order to avoid misleading aggregations and representations of dependency.
This data helps to identify countries facing/experiencing high increases of specific raw material consumption. Based on this, one might be able to better identify potential regional interest in research and innovation activities towards increasing the efficiency of use, recycling and substitution. It can also point to consumer countries and corporations that would be important to involve in processes aimed at a better governance of resource trade in order to avoid fuelling civil conflicts and to make trade better aligned with peace-building activities and sustainable development in source countries. Such efforts could directly help in addressing some of the root causes of the current refugee crisis.
