COEMinerals: We’re enabling transformation for a cleaner energy future

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals (COEMinerals) is a collaborative research Centre established between nine Australian Universities: The University of Newcastle (administering organisation), The University of Queensland, Deakin University, The University of Melbourne, Monash University, University of South Australia, Curtin University, University of New South Wales and The University of Adelaide (nodes); as well as CSIRO, industry partners and leading international researchers.

In October 2019 COEMinerals was awarded $35M by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres of Excellence funding scheme, and the Centre officially commenced on 29^th July 2020.

The Centre’s industry-ready solutions represent a step-change in academic/​industry engagement and implementation.
There is no one entity or university globally rolling out as much innovation and new technology in this space as COEMinerals.

The Centre leverages the insights of some of Australia’s most high-achieving, creative and innovative scientific and engineering minds. Centre members represent diverse areas of specialisation, from Chemical Engineering to Earth Science, Physics and Biotechnology. Over the life course of the Centre (7 years) Centre members, working closely with consortia, will help pave the way for critical advances in the availability of metals to spur further innovation, as well as helping establish a new generation of research and sector leaders supporting the shift to a cleaner energy future.

Collaboration across universities and diverse areas of expertise, along with global sustainability specialists and others is core to our approach.
Our ground-breaking innovation comes from the inter-node and cross-discipline collaboration between Centre researchers, who share knowledge, skills and technical equipment between university ​‘nodes’ and across borders, as well as from close engagement with Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector and others. This highly-engaged approach helps us better understand and align our research to addresses sector and the environmental challenges, and to help drive transformation of the minerals sector in Australia and around the world.

The Centre engages in activities spanning academic learning, industry engagement, community outreach, site visits, events and skill building (including professional development, speaker series’ and training programs) to ensure excellence in learning, as well as helping our members join a global community of researchers who are actively contributing to positive change in the minerals sector now and in the future.

We regularly welcome science and sustainablilty experts, government representatives and international/​industry delegations to our node and labs to appraise them of latest research results and Centre activities as well as demonstrate our novel (new) techniques and technology to further spur the pace of progress.

Learn more about our work by following us on LinkedIn and from our Annual Reports.
We welcome third-party engagement in wide-ranging forums. Contact us here.


We’re striving to transform the industry through research programs focused on three stretch goals: