AGEMERA holds last in-person General Assembly in Tallinn

There is a multitude of sayings we could use to illustrate how fast time passes by, but none of them would capture our almost-shock at the realisation that we just had our last in-person gathering. It's hard to part ways with such an amazing and dedicated team! But we are sure AGEMERA's results will continue to shine on...

On 5-8 May 2025, we reunited in Tallinn at the invitation of our team at Tallinn University of Technology. We had a blast catching up, going through the tasks we finalised and the milestones to be reached by the end of July, and identifying potential challenges and solutions to any issue that may arise. The first two days were dedicated to project updates and interactive sessions (plus our Open Innovation Seminar on 6 May) and the third day was reserved for a field trip. 

To kick off the meeting, on 5 May, we were kindly welcomed by Olle Hints, the director of the Department of Geology at TalTech, our hosts. He walked us through the university's history (the second largest university in Estonia, aggregating one fifth of the country's student population), and introduced the work of the department he runs to us in the audience. Then, we continued with presentations for each of our working groups, from the project management and coordination team, to the more technical work packages (focusing on CRM potential, geological mapping and modeling, and exploration technologies), the one dealing with social and educational aspects, the one for dissemination, communication, and collaborations, as well as the exploitation tasks. We rounded off the day with the Open Innovation Seminar, followed by a networking session accompanied by delicious Estonian snacks. 

The second day started with discussing less exciting but nevertheless compulsory tasks, such as reporting, and continued with a necessary reflection session. As we approach the end of the project, we started to list the things we are leaving behind, after (almost) 3 years of intensive research and close collaborative work. Our project coordinator, Jari, divided us into five groups, each group being assigned a specific area related to AGEMERA's impact: economic impact, scientific impact, societal impact, impact at local and national levels, as well as the impact of the project in relation to the scope of the call. What is, therefore, our legacy? From discovering new potential areas for mineral exploration and mining activities (e.g. in Zambia, one of our trial sites), to our educational courses filling a gap in the existing curricula, from improving the workflow of companies dealing with exploration, to uncovering local communities' thoughts and concerns regarding mining - all these, and more, demonstrate AGEMERA's impact (and make us really proud of what we achieved). 

On the third day, we gave in to the surprise our hosts at TalTech still had in store for us, and we split into two groups for a field trip: one group visited the Viru Keemia Grupp's Ojaama mine (where excavation of oil shale takes place), and the other one visited the Eesti Kaevandusmuuseum (the Estonian Mining Museum). It was the perfect round-off to an already exciting General Assembly meeting and we promised ourselves to enjoy these last months together as a team as much as possible!